No One Left Behind, Except for Me novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Breakfast

Heidi was already at a corner table in the dining hall at five to seven.

She had both hands wrapped around a paper cup and her knuckles were pale.

I sat across from her with my splinted fingers on the table.

"Thank you for coming," she said, and her voice cracked.

"You texted me," I said. "Tell me what Tate said."

She stared into the cup.

"Saturday morning, before the game. We were all at the hotel breakfast."

"Who was all?"

"Tate, Reagan, Rhett and me. You were already at the stadium, setting up the training room."

I had been. I had left at six to count the gear.

"Tate said it in the same voice he orders eggs in," Heidi said. "He said, 'Don't wait for Natalie after the game. She'll make it back on her own, and if we wait for her, we wait for the headcount all night.'"

My hands lay very still on the table.

"Say the next part," I said.

"Reagan laughed. She said, 'Natalie handles anything. She'll probably enjoy the walk.'"

"And Rhett?"

"Rhett asked if we could still make the party at the Delta house if we left by five." Heidi wiped her eyes with the back of her wrist. "Nobody said no."

"And you?"

"I didn't say anything." Her voice dropped. "That's the worst part. I sat there, and I ate my toast."

I should have felt something large.

Instead the room went quiet in my head, and I could hear the dishwasher at the far end of the hall.

"Why are you telling me now?" I asked.

"Because Doc knocked on my hotel door at six," she said. "He said, 'Miss Pratt, did you see your trainer get on a bus?' And I said no. And he asked if I knew where she was. And I said I thought she was on the truck, because Tate told us that." She swallowed. "I lied to a doctor's face, and then I saw you in that bed."

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