After Lefting Me on the Bridge, He Lost His Mind novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Keep the Jacket

Sabina walks out of the lobby with two suitcases while Bryce and Kendall watch the neighbors turn on them; Renee warns that Bryce tried to freeze her transfer and is flying to Austin.

I got home from the ER at eight in the morning with a bag of antibiotics and no purse.

The doorman let me in without asking why.

I packed two suitcases in twenty minutes. Clothes, my laptop, my grandmother's quilt.

Everything else I could leave. None of it was worth another hour in that apartment.

At 8:55 I rolled the cases into the lobby.

Bryce was already standing at the front desk.

He had Kendall on his arm.

She wore his gray suit jacket over a pink coat and limped on her left foot.

"There you are," Bryce said. "Don't make this weird, Sabi. Kendall's coming with us as far as Fort Lee. Her sister lives there."

An older woman from the third floor stopped with her little dog and stared at us.

A man with a stroller stopped behind her.

I set my suitcase upright and looked at Bryce.

"I moved out last night. The notice is in. The apartment office has it."

He laughed, one short breath through his nose.

"No, you didn't."

"I did."

"You can't leave me, Sabina," he said, calm and sure. "Where would you go?"

"Austin."

His smile went flat.

"What's in Austin?"

"A job. A real one. I start Monday."

Kendall tugged his sleeve.

"Babe, ignore her. She's doing the thing. Remember, you said she gets like this."

I looked at her.

"You're wearing the jacket I ironed."

She glanced down, then up, with her big innocent eyes.

"It was cold. Bryce was just being nice."

"It was a bet," I said. "Ten thousand dollars on whether he would leave me on a bridge in a storm."

The woman with the little dog drew a sharp breath.

"Oh, honey," she said.

Bryce's face turned red.

"It was a joke. A dumb group chat joke. Nobody was going to let anything happen to you."

"A truck from the bridge authority found me. I was in the ER till seven."

"You're being dramatic."

"I had an IV, Bryce."

I held up my wrist. The tape was still there, and a bruise the size of a coin.

The man with the stroller said, quietly, "Jesus."

Bryce stepped toward me and lowered his voice.

"Not in front of the building. Come upstairs and we'll talk about it in the car on the way to my mother's. She's expecting you."

"Tell her I'm sorry I never got to meet her."

Something crossed his face.

He glanced down at his pocket, where the second phone was.

Then he put his hand around my wrist, the one with the bruise.

"You are not walking out on me over a prank."

"Let go."

"We are going to my mother's, and you are going to smile."

"Sir," the doorman said. "Let go of her."

Bryce did not look at him.

"Stay out of this."

The doorman came around the desk. He was sixty years old and he was big.

"I said let go."

Bryce let go.

I rubbed my wrist.

"My purse is in your car," I said. "I want it."

"Then come and get it."

"Kendall, give me my purse," I said.

Kendall shifted her weight and hugged her pink coat.

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"It's on the floor of the passenger seat," I said. "Under the heels you took off last night."

The woman with the little dog said loudly, "Young man, give her the bag."

Bryce stared around the lobby.

There were five people watching him now. One had her phone up.

He walked to the front door, pulled his keys, and came back with my purse hanging from two fingers.

He dropped it at my feet.

My wallet and lipstick slid across the marble.

The man with the stroller bent down and picked up the lipstick.

I took everything and zipped the bag.

Then I took the apartment key off my ring and put it on the front desk.

"Keep the apartment, Bryce. Keep the jacket. Keep her."

His mouth opened and shut.

"You'll come back by Sunday," he said. "You always do."

I took hold of my suitcases.

"I've never actually left before. This time I'm not coming back."

The doorman carried the bigger one out to the curb and put it in a taxi.

The woman with the dog squeezed my hand and said, "Good for you, sweetheart."

Through the cab window I saw Bryce standing on the sidewalk with Kendall limping against his side.

He was already dialing the second phone.

My own phone buzzed.

It was Renee.

"Transfer's signed. Sabina, I need to tell you something. Bryce just called HR and tried to freeze it. They said no."

Then, a second message.

"He also put himself on the plane to Austin for the regional review next week."

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