They Dyed My Dress for the Dance. I Left the Group of Five novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Hale Street, Late

Lance's father walked up the lit path with his hands at his sides and did not look at the lights.

He stopped in front of me.

He was a big man in a quarter-zip, with his son's jaw and none of his smile.

"Miss Ellerbee," he said. "I'm sorry."

"Dad," said Lance from the porch.

His father put out a hand without turning.

"Phone."

"Dad, they set me up. It's an edit."

"I watched it on the drive over. All of it. Give me the phone."

Lance gave it to him.

His father looked at the screen, at eleven thousand people still typing, and switched it off with one thumb.

He nodded to Rhett, to my brother, to the whole line of us on the sidewalk, and he said it each time.

"I'm sorry."

Then he pointed at the black car.

"Get in."

Lance went down the steps with his plastic crown crooked on his head.

He didn't look at me.

Nobody said a word until the car door shut.

---

By midnight Rhett's apartment was dark and the radiator was knocking.

I stood in the middle of the room in the dress, with the stiff hem catching on my knees.

I hadn't taken it off.

He shut the door and leaned on it, the way he had the first night.

"I want to say something," I said.

"Okay."

"I'm staying."

He went very still.

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