My Best Friend Bought Me a Cursed Life novel · Chapter 21 of 24

Chapter 21: Nine Lives

I took the photograph out of his hand.

I looked at the torn ear and the three black stitches for a long time.

"You used blue thread the second time," I said. "When I tore it again on the fire escape. You said it matched my eyes. My eyes were yellow."

Ben made a sound that was half a laugh and half something that hurt.

"I'm color-blind in blue," he said. "Nobody knows that."

"I know."

"Yeah," he said. "I'm getting that."

He sat down on the top step of the townhouse.

After a second, I sat down next to him.

"I walked to the Brooklyn Bridge," he said. "That night. And back. And then I did it again on Saturday. I kept trying to make it not true."

"And?"

"And then I opened the drawer to get a pen, and she was looking at me." He tapped the photo. "Five years. I never told anybody about the window. My sister thinks I'm insane about that cat."

He was quiet for a while.

A cab went by. A man walked a dachshund in a raincoat.

"I don't know what to do with it," he said finally. "That I had you for nine years and don't remember one day."

"You don't have to do anything with it."

"I want to." He turned and looked at me. "But I want to know you. Not the cat. You."

He held out his hand, formally.

"Ben Holt," he said. "Veterinarian. Terrible with money."

I shook it.

"Annie Price," I said. "Shelter worker. Also terrible with money, until March."

"Annie," he said, trying it.

Nobody had said my name kindly in this whole life.

I had to look at the dachshund for a minute.

So we started over.

On purpose, this time.

He took me to a terrible diner on Houston Street and asked me questions until it closed.

Where I grew up. My mother, who'd died when I was nineteen.

My first apartment, over a nail salon in Queens.

The shelter, and the pit bull I'd tried to adopt and couldn't afford.

Jenna, at twelve, sharing her lunch with me every day for a year.

Jenna, at twenty-six, borrowing my rent and laughing when I asked for it back.

"She was my best friend," I said. "For fourteen years. I don't know when she stopped being."

He didn't say anything wise.

He just stole one of my fries and pushed his milkshake across the table.

On the Fourth of July we watched the fireworks from the clinic roof with his sister and the pigeon boy, who'd brought the pigeon.

On the third weekend of July, we drove the Range Rover out to my grandmother's house on the Sound.

It was a gray-shingled house at the end of a sandy road.

It had a long dock and a porch that ran all the way around it.

Nobody had opened it since she died.

Ben walked through every room opening windows, and sneezing, and reading the spines of her books.

"She has the complete history of the Erie Canal," he said. "Four volumes. I've been warned about this."

← Chapter 20 · All chapters · Chapter 22 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend