Page 113 of Shatter

He doesn't say anything or argue.

He stands there by the bed, looking at me, and I watch the man who carried me bleeding out of a parking lot and slept in a chair by the door for eight weeks and never once laid a hand on me without asking, I watch him process it.

My hand shakes at my side.

I want to take it back.

I open my mouth to take it back, and nothing comes out.

"I need to go." My voice cracks. "I need to be somewhere else. Don't follow me."

He doesn't move.

"Okay." His voice is barely there.

I walk to the door and open it.

Then I stop, with my hand on the knob, and wait for him to grab my arm and tell me I'm not going anywhere, the way Desmond would have, the way my father would have.

He doesn't.

He stands where I left him and lets me go, because I asked him to.

I walk out into the hall and pull the door shut behind me, and I lean against it with my eyes squeezed shut and my hand pressed over my mouth.

On the other side of the wood, I hear nothing.

Not a footstep, not a word.

Only the ceiling fan, ticking around and around, in the room where I left him standing alone.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Hakon

The carburetor's in pieces on the bench, and I still can't stop thinking.

The shop is hot and close, the bay doors pulled down, the air thick with oil, metal, and the wet Florida night pressing in under the doors.

One work light hangs over the bench on a chain, buzzing, throwing a hard yellow circle around my hands.

My cut's still hanging on the chair in my room, where I left it before the shower. I didn't stop for it.

My knuckles are split open again.

I've been gripping the wrench too hard for two hours, and I didn't notice until the blood started mixing with the grease.

That's exactly what he said.

I set a jet down on the rag and line it up with the others, perfectly straight, like it matters.

She's right.

It's what won't let go of me.

Not the words.

The fact she could say them, and I couldn't find a single word to prove her wrong.