Part 40
Mark handed her the key.
“Listen,” Mark started. “I should get out of here. Keep the key safe, and head that way as soon as you can.”
“Aren’t you coming with me?” she asked confused.
“Not this time.” He turned abruptly and headed for the door, but Lola stopped him, grabbing his elbow and spinning him towards her.
“Look at me,” she said. “Tell me what’s wrong.”
Part 41
Mark jerked his arm away, ripping her finger tips from his cotton sleeve.
“Please,” she whispered. “If you don’t, you’ve left me all over again, and I just can’t…” She realized then how thin the thread was that was holding her together.
He took a deep breath, and steadied his feet, then reached out and grazed her fingers.
“Alright, Lola,” he said quietly. “You deserve to know more,“ he pinched the bridge of his nose and squinted his eyes. “But we can’t do it here.” He looked around the room. “Did you drive Gloria’s car this morning?”
She nodded.
“Ok, this is what we’re going to do. Nod twice when I‘m doing speaking, but don‘t say anything” he said. “Put down your phone on the counter, and go the bathroom. I’ll head out first to the car, then when you’re done, follow me out and close the house up behind you.”
Lola nodded obediently then took her phone out of her pocket, and walked through the house. Her heartbeat was beginning to race.
She stood at the vanity gripping the wood sides, willing her heart to slow. After a few moments, she left the bathroom, walked through the front door and outside where she found Mark waiting, as he said he would, in the passenger seat of her mom’s car.
She opened the driver’s side and sat down next to him, expectantly.
“Now, before we start, you need to know that I was sworn to never share this with you,” he took another deep breath. “Things have…changed…it would seem. New developments.” he shook his head. “That’s not really the point though. The bottom line is, you aren’t going to like what I have to say. You might even hate me for it, but I don’t see a way around it anymore.
“Do you remember when I met you six years ago? At the bookstore you worked for?” he asked.
“Of course I do, Second Reading, it was my favorite,” she answered.
“Well, what if I told you I had been sent there to meet you. That I hadn’t actually been looking for that first edition, that I didn’t even know who that author was until ten minutes before I walked into that shop?”
📃A special note to the readers📃
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"You have to make the prompts work for you." ~@borrowedearth*
