He Told Me to Stay Away, So I Left and He Followed novel · Chapter 5 of 32

Chapter 5: The Tin

Miles didn't come to the lab the next day, or the night after that.

Pete said he was in the architecture studio finishing his model. Pete said it twice, which meant it wasn't true.

On the second night, at midnight, someone knocked on my apartment door.

I knew the knock. Three taps, then one more, the last one softer.

Maggie was at the kitchen table, studying for her pharmacology final.

She looked at me over her highlighter. "I'll be in my room," she said. "With the door shut. Listening to nothing."

She took her textbook and went.

I opened the door.

Miles stood on the landing with a dented metal cookie tin under one arm. He looked thinner than he had a week ago.

"Neighbors can return borrowed things," he said.

"I didn't lend you anything."

"You lent me this when you were nine. I kept it." He held out the tin. "It's your tapes."

My throat closed up.

I knew exactly what was in that tin.

When I was nine, Gran gave me a battered cassette recorder from a yard sale, and I recorded everything. Rain on the porch. The neighbor's dog. The ice cream truck. The boy next door, who was ten and hated being interviewed.

I let him in, because I couldn't think of a rule that covered it.

We sat on the floor of the living room with our backs against the couch. I pried the lid off.

There were twelve cassettes inside, each with a label in my childish handwriting. Dog Barking. Gran Sings. Thunder, Very Loud.

"You kept these for twelve years?"

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