Excluded and Uninvited novel · Chapter 8 of 24

Chapter 8: Fix It Together

I found her at the end of the dock with her boots hanging over the water.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"Say it again when you mean it."

"I mean it. I should have told you at two in the morning, and I should have told you on the dock, and I didn't."

"You didn't tell me because you thought I'd throw you out."

"Yes."

"I might have." She kept her eyes on the lake. "My grandfather built those three cabins with his hands. People rent them because nothing happens here. That's all I sell."

"I know."

"You don't. You brought the thing that happens."

I stood there with the wind on my stitches.

"I've had one man in six years come to my door hurt and ask me to look after him," she said. "He left on the fourth day without a note. I told myself it was the way things go."

"I won't do that."

"Everyone says that when they're still hurt."

I put the cabin key on the dock boards between us.

"I'll go," I said. "I'll leave tonight. It's my mess, and I'll take it somewhere that isn't yours."

She looked at the key.

She looked at me.

"Where would you go?"

"Reno. My sister's couch."

"And then they'd find your sister's door," Katja said. "And they'd put that online. And you'd run out of doors."

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