The Day My Family Left Me to Die novel · Chapter 9 of 24
Chapter 9: Vending Machine
I took the bucket out of his hand with both of mine.
It slopped over the side onto his good shoes.
I made a face, pointed at the gray water, then at the carpet, then at myself, and bowed twice to say I was sorry.
Chad laughed.
"Don't worry about it," he said, and stepped out of the puddle. "Clumsy girls are good luck."
From the foot of the stairs, my mother called his name.
He gave my chin one more look, and went down.
I stood at the top with the bucket against my chest and my heart going.
The drive was still in the water.
I fished it out when the front door closed, dried it on my sleeve and put it in the toe of my sock.
Then I mopped the whole upstairs, because I had a job and a cover to keep.
That night I worked my real shift.
At two in the morning the third floor was empty, and the vending machine in the corridor hummed to itself and spat out one sad bag of pretzels.
"It takes a dollar and then it thinks about it," Seth said behind me.
He had two cups of coffee.
He held one out, and I took it.
He leaned on the wall beside me with his shoulder against the paint.
"You look tired," he said. "You did a double. Day at the Penfields', night here."
I wrote on my wrist with the pen: HOW DO YOU KNOW?
"Everybody knows. It's a small hospital." He drank. "Dr. Penfield told the whole security desk she'd hired a girl. She said you didn't flinch at anything."
I wrote: WHY NIGHTS?
He turned the cup in his hand.
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