Page 135 of Never Alone
"Quinn—"
"You're not driving anywhere. I'm driving. I'll sign you out AMA. Sit back down."
I sat back down.
She found a nurse. She signed me out with her badge number. She told the nurse I was leaving against medical advice, and she was taking responsibility. She was back in the doorway with a wheelchair I had no intention of using inside ten minutes.
"Cole."
"I'm walking."
"You're sitting."
"Quinn."
"Sit."
I sat.
She wheeled me out.
She didn't say anything in the elevator. She didn't say anything in the lobby. She didn't say anything when the morning hit me coming out of the doors, and I had to keep my eyes shut for a beat because the light was too bright.
She helped me into the passenger seat of her car. She buckled the belt for me. She came around to her side.
"Where am I going?"
"Apartment."
She drove.
I watched the streets the way I always watched the streets and didn't see any of them.
She parked at the curb in front of the building. I told her to wait. She told me she was not waiting.
I didn't argue.
The three flights took me longer than I wanted to think about. Quinn was a step behind me the whole way. She had her hand on my good arm at two landings. I didn't shake her off.
I got the key in the lock on the second try.
The apartment was the apartment.
The kitchen had been wiped down. The dishes were in the rack. The bed I could see through the open bedroom door at the end of the hall had been made.
The fake ring was on the counter.
It was in the small velvet box I'd put it in when I'd given it to her. The box was open. The ring was sitting in the velvet groove I'd shaped my thumb across in a jewelry store last summer when I'd been deciding which one was hers.
Next to the box was a folded piece of paper.
I went to the counter.
I picked up the paper.
I unfolded it.
The handwriting was hers. Small. Careful. The way Tessa wrote—even when she was leaving, the letters were careful.
