The Daughter They Abandoned Twice novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Ten Seconds

"A door," I said. "I don't know what you mean."

"Yes, you do."

Cassidy sat down at last, on the far end of the bench, and Levi took the hint and said he'd be at the truck.

He looked at me before he went, and I nodded.

She waited until the lot door swung shut behind him.

"I was five," she said. "They put me in a room with a lock on it. I sat on the floor with my backpack on, because I thought if I took it off I was agreeing to stay."

She looked at her hands.

"And then a door opened in the dark, and it was a kid. Smaller than I was, almost. She held out her hand, and she told me to run to the office and say a man took me."

I couldn't breathe.

"I've never told anyone that," Cassidy said. "For twenty years that was the one thing from that week that was a person doing something for me. I got to the end of the walkway. I got maybe ten seconds of being free."

"And then Garner caught you," I said.

"And then he carried me back. Yes." She turned. "But I had ten seconds. Do you know what I did with them? I thought: somebody opened it. I've thought that every time I was scared since."

"I was the one who walked you across the lot," I said.

My voice was not steady.

"I was the one who cried about a puppy so you'd take my hand. I'm not going to ask you to forget that. I'm not going to ask for anything."

"Good," said Cassidy. "Because I don't know what to do with both."

She was quiet for a while.

An ambulance backed in, and two paramedics wheeled someone past us, and she looked at the stretcher with the practiced eye of someone who has seen a thousand.

"I'm not forgiving you today," she said. "I'm also not not."

← Chapter 15 · All chapters · Chapter 17 →

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