15 Days Before I Left Him novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: What Roscoe Heard

Nobody in the room moved.

The roses slid out of Roscoe's hand and landed on the floor by the door.

"Say it again," he said to Faye.

Faye turned her face toward him on the pillow.

"I didn't pull you out, Roscoe. I never did."

"You were there. You were kneeling beside me. I woke up, and you were there."

"I was there after."

Her voice shook but did not stop.

"Clara was there before. She crawled across the ice and got you by the hood. Raylan did the compressions."

Roscoe looked at me.

I opened my right hand and let him see the medal lying across the scar.

"No," he said. "No. This is, you're confused. You've been sick. Faye, the doctors said the medication."

"I'm not confused," Faye said. "I've been ashamed for seventeen years, and it's been a clear feeling."

He came across the room in three steps and stopped at the end of the bed.

"Prove it," he said, and his voice cracked on the word. "Somebody prove it to me."

The door opened behind him.

Raylan stood there with his coat still on and his cheekbone still purple, and I understood he had followed me from the school.

"I'll prove it," Raylan said.

Roscoe turned.

"You." He almost laughed. "You, of course."

"I was sixteen. I came down the boat road with a friend's dog, and a girl was lying on the bank, soaked to the ribs."

Raylan's eyes went to my palm and stayed there.

"Her right hand was open and bleeding in the snow. You were face down on the shore. Faye's boots were dry, and Clara's coat was frozen stiff."

Keep reading free with an account. Start 15 Days Before I Left Him from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.