BooksBarbecue
Back At Dawn
Chapters (39)
  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
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  39. Copyright

I could feel the fight leave him, could feel him quickly drifting off. All I had to do was push my knee down a tad bit harder. That’d do the trick. Instead I squeezed a final time and let go. I grabbed my bag, stepped over him while he struggled to catch his breath. His face was scarlet; blood dripped from his chin. My own nose was bleeding. I wasn’t sure if I’d been hit or if I had hit myself in the excitement of it all.

“You’re lucky I didn’t kill you,” I said.

I opened the apartment door and took the stairs two and three at a time. I threw my bag on the ground and turned to see if he had followed. He hadn’t, and after thirty seconds I picked up my bag and slung it over my shoulder. Just before I turned I saw him faintly in the front window looking down. The sun’s glare covered his face, but the splattered red down the front of his shirt was unmistakable. I lifted my hand and flipped him off. Then I walked away, making a right turn at the first opportunity and zigzagging up and down the streets headed north. I smiled the entire time, my hands violently shaking with the adrenaline coursing through my veins. It was the most alive I’d felt in months.

5

I emptied the bag out on the floor. My legal pads were there. So was my bottle of Xanax, my few books, my other pair of shoes, all my clothes. Nothing was missing. Thank god I had packed this morning.

Then a knock fell at the door. My heart sank. My first thought was that Jeff had called the police, but could they have followed me that quickly? How could they even know where I lived? I held my breath and thought about ignoring it, attesting to my innocence by remaining as still as a person faced with a raised cobra, too terrified to move a muscle for fear of being bitten.

“You in there?” the voice asked, and in hearing it I exhaled in a long, slow hiss. I flung the door open and Gene sauntered in, his eyes widening at the sight of my shirt.

“Jesus, what the hell happened to you?”

Blood was splattered down the front of it, and upon noticing, I started to laugh. I bent over to catch my breath, still chuckling. “What?” he asked.