I Let Her Ruin Herself novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: The Tablet

Dale sat at our kitchen table with his hands wrapped around a mug of coffee he didn't drink.

Wyatt stood by the stove, and I stood by the door.

"I thought I was protecting her," Dale said. "The whole plea. I sat six months in county and told myself it meant something."

"And in July?"

"In July I got out and she didn't answer one text." His mouth twisted. "Her father's lawyer called my uncle and told him I'd be charged if I contacted her. Then I saw the billboard on Main Street."

He pulled a grocery bag out of his jacket and set it on the table.

Inside was a cheap tablet with a cracked corner.

"Her father took my phone in January," Dale said. "He didn't know about this. I used it to message her because my mother checked my phone. Everything's on here."

Wyatt looked at it, then at me.

"Open it," I said.

Dale pressed the screen with a thumb that shook.

The messages came up in gray and blue bubbles, hundreds of them, going back to the previous spring.

At first they were love notes.

Hearts.

Plans for a Friday night.

Then in November, a new tone.

I took the tablet and scrolled.

"She has to run in first," Savannah had written. "She always does. If you grab me and she's right behind me, she'll go through anyone."

"What if she's slow?"

"She's never slow. Trust me. I've known her since I was six."

I read the next one twice.

"Bring the knife. Not to use. Just so she sees it. If there's no blood, it's not a story. Nobody posts about a girl who got a scare."

My hands had gone cold on the tablet.

"You brought it to hurt me," I said.

"I brought it because she told me to." Dale's voice cracked. "She said you'd grab it away from me. She said it'd be an accident. That's how she said it, 'a little accident.' I thought she meant a scratch."

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