Watching Them Burn: My Rebirth Story novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Night-Light
Darby's POV
Luka unlocked the glass door and held it open with one hand.
He had his jeans on and nothing else.
I stood behind him in the towel, with my wet hair dripping down my back.
Dane walked into the lobby, and I saw how bad he looked.
His eyes were rimmed red, and his jaw had not been shaved.
He looked at Luka's bare chest, and at me, and at the wet footprints on the tile.
"Wow," he said. "That didn't take long."
"Say what you came to say," Luka said.
"I'm not talking to you."
"You're in my building."
"It's the university's building."
"Dane," I said.
He turned.
He held out the paper with a hand that was not steady.
It was a printout of a local news page.
The headline said, Hometown Boy, 10, Home After Burst Appendix.
Under it was a photo of my brother in a hospital bed, grinning with no front teeth, holding up a tablet.
On the table next to him sat a small plastic night-light shaped like a moon.
The date at the top was the week after the state final.
I looked at it for a long time.
"My mom sent that page to the whole town," I said. "She was proud he lived."
"The caption says his sister stayed in the room every night."
"I did."
"It says she was sixteen."
"I was."
"The girl in the room said she had to leave because a nurse came for her brother." His voice shook. "I only ever told that part to one person. I thought she was the girl in the room."
"Dane."
"A night-light. A tablet. Swimming." He took a breath. "Tell me this is a coincidence."
I could have said no.
I could have put my whole life in his hands right there on the lobby floor.
I thought about the phone on the kitchen tile in the other life, and how he had lain beside me every night and never asked who I was.
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