Total pages in book: 95
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 91504 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 458(@200wpm)___ 366(@250wpm)___ 305(@300wpm)
I stare at it a long moment, replaying a conversation we had not too long ago. We were talking about the letter I’d had him write to his wife. “Maybe I’ll be less angry every time I punch in my PIN from now on,” he’d said. “Everything is her birthday—from my ATM code to door codes.” And I couldn’t forget that he’d said her birthday was Valentine’s Day.
I swallow guilt as I reach for the lock and break another rule. Yet again. What’s one more?
When it comes to Gabriel, it seems, the rules don’t apply. Or rather, I don’t mind breaking them. It might almost be worth suffering the consequences, because I just… I just need to know.
I turn the lock until the numbers line up—0214. There’s a satisfying click. And suddenly, the lock is off the latch, heavy in my hand. And everything he’s hidden is now available to me.
* * *
Mostly, it’s boxes. The big, moving-company sort, preprinted checklists on the side so you can take a Sharpie and mark which room the box goes in. None of these is marked, though, like they were packed in a hurry and shoved in here. They’re haphazardly placed, too, and the nearest one looks like the slightest breeze might dislodge it and send it toppling over.
It’s not what I expected.
What in the world would a grown man do in a storage unit full of boxes?
I unwind my scarf. It’s climate controlled. Not warm, but not cool like outside.
Maybe there’s something in the boxes. For a moment, I consider closing the rolling door behind me—it’s a little weird to be sorting through someone else’s things so publicly, especially when, well, I’m breaking the law. What if someone comes in and knows who the unit belongs to? But one glance down the shadowy hall tells me it’ll be a hell of a lot creepier to close the door and be trapped in here.
I run my fingers over the nearest box, then stand on tiptoe to pry open the lid, to see what’s inside. A flash of pink, purple—I release the box and step backward, the contents a jolt. Toys. Little girls’ toys, a jumbled mess within. A Barbie, a stuffed bear, what looks like an undressed American Girl doll, and… I exhale. Seeing his daughter’s toys isn’t what I expected. It makes it all very real. Very terrible.
My hands shake as I take another step back, second-guessing myself. Maybe I don’t want to know. Maybe he comes in here to be around her belongings, belongings he couldn’t bear to see in his house every day.
But what does he do, just stand here?
I swallow emotion, confusion, and force myself forward toward another box. Something small and square-ish gleams on the top of it, a set of keys or a keychain, maybe. But when I get close enough to make out the details, I recognize it.
The air in my lungs leaves in a single whoosh.
I struggle to breathe, to move.
I recognize it because it belonged to you. Your jersey. Your number 17. The specialty keychain I had made for you after you won the championship. I gave it to you the night we decided to start a family. And when you died, I took to carrying it around, carrying a piece of you around, a reminder…
Until one day it disappeared. The day I came out of the alley and crashed into Gabriel. I assumed I’d dropped it.
Apparently I had.
And Gabriel picked it up.
Meaning… I try to temper the rising panic threatening to choke me. Gabriel knows who I am.
He’s known all along.
I drop the keychain back down and grab for the nearest stack of boxes, holding on for dear life.
No. It can’t be.
The blood drains from my face, my body, right into my swirling stomach.
But it is. It absolutely is. This is the keychain I had made for you, a one-of-a-kind gift I commissioned from an artist. It even has the small mistake—some of the red paint bleeding into the blue. The maker was going to sell them, but they never made it to production because of the accident. And it’s in Gabriel’s storage unit.
I reach for it again, press the familiar smoothness into my palm. It practically burns a hole into it. A part of me is glad to have this—this piece of you from before everything went bad.
But most of me is confused. Terrified. My thoughts won’t move, won’t work, like my brain is frozen. Fight or flight or… frozen. I try to breathe. Try to get my body in motion again.
He—he has had this keychain all along? I picture him exiting the storage unit less than an hour ago, catching sight of me. Suggesting a nonexistent Verizon store. Playing me. I swallow, look down at the number. It’s clear as day it had to be yours. The same team, the same number. Which has to mean he knows who I am. He knows I’m your widow. But why would he want to know the widow of the man who killed his wife and child?