He Married My Best Friend While I Gave Birth, So I Left novel · Chapter 35 of 48

Chapter 35: What She Kept in the Safe

Byron started down the hall after him, and I caught his sleeve.

"Let me," I said.

"He's my son."

"He's also sixteen and furious, and he's just heard you ask him for a chair." I kept my voice low. "Give him one person who isn't related to anybody."

Byron's jaw worked, and then he nodded.

I walked to the end of the hall with Poppy and sat down on the floor beside the closed door.

Poppy chewed on a sleeve of my cardigan.

"I'm not going to tell you she's lying," I said to the wood.

Nothing.

"I'm going to show you something, and you can decide for yourself. It's in a safe at the farm. It's her own words, on Daphne's phone, from the same summer she wrote you the card."

The door stayed shut.

"It's two hours away. I'll drive you tonight and your mother can come, and you can go home the minute you want to. That's the whole offer."

For a long time there was no sound at all.

Then the knob turned, and he stood in the doorway with red eyes and his hood pulled up.

"Her own words?" he said.

"Yes."

"About me?"

"I don't know," I said. "That's why I want you to read it."

Tara was in the kitchen with her hands over her face, and she took them down when we came out.

"I have a shift at eleven," she said. "I can't come."

"Mom."

"Go," she said. "Call me at ten. And Cal." Her voice shook. "Don't let her touch you. Even through a table."

"I won't."

"Promise."

"I promise," he said, and he looked at the floor.

He didn't talk in the truck, but when Poppy dropped her cracker he reached across and picked it up, without looking, and put it back in her hand.

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