Chapter 8: Relapse

Camille answered the phone on the second ring.

She put it to her ear and turned her face away from me.

"Dalton? What is it?"

Even from the kitchen doorway I could hear his voice, thin and breathless, through the speaker.

"Cam. I'm sorry. I'm at home. My chest. I can't get my breath."

"Where is the nurse?"

"I sent her to bed. I didn't want to wake anyone."

"Stay on the line. Lie flat. I'm coming now."

She was already moving.

She was halfway to the door when she stopped and looked back at me, with the phone still against her ear.

"Nolan. Wait here. Don't go anywhere. I'll be back in an hour."

"Camille."

"I will be back."

"Camille, he sounds perfectly fine."

She turned on me, white-faced.

"He is having a heart attack."

"He's talking in whole sentences."

"Get out of my way," she told the owner, who had not moved, and then she went out through the door and into the rain.

The black car pulled away from the curb with its tires hissing.

Nobody in the diner spoke.

I stood there with my hands still wet.

The top line in my eye had been at 0.7 a minute before.

Now it read C 0.3.

C 0.2.

C 0.1.

She had told me she was coming back, and in the same breath she had left, and my body had listened to the second part.

My knees went soft.

I caught the edge of the pass-through window, and a plate slid off and broke.

"Sit down," the owner said. "Before you fall down."

She pulled a stool out from under the counter and pushed me onto it with one big hand.

Keep reading free with an account. Start She Begged for Me Back After I Left from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.