Page 19 of What I Should've Said

Thomas doesn’t, and apparently fake Norman Wallace doesn’t demand respect more than twice without taking it for himself.

With one lift of his fist, he lands one hell of a punch to Thomas’s face, and a sickening crunch echoes off the walls. The grip on my arm is released, and my ex crumbles to the floor like a pile of broken bricks.

Blood drips from a prostrate Thomas’s nose and onto the pristine material of his white shirt and the tile floor of Josie’s coffee shop, and all I can do is stand there. Frozen in time. Unable to move.

Sheriff Peeler, a man I met during the morning rush early this morning, and the mayor come careening through the door, nearly running over me and fake Norman and Thomas and the whole sordid crime scene.

“Call the fucking cops, Norah,” Thomas shouts from the floor, his vision clouded by the blood from his nose.

“No need, son. Cops are already here,” Sheriff Peeler announces. “What’s going on, Ben?”

Ben only has one word to say. “Fuck.”

Fuck, indeed. Fuck, for sure. In fact, I should have fucking said it myself.

Bennett

This shit, right here, is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing in Red Bridge. I back away from the asshole on the floor and cross my hands behind my head as the possible consequences of my actions spin through my mind.

They’re not good, but fuck, the consequences of not doing something weren’t exactly good either. With the way he had his hands on her when I first saw them through the window, I doubt it would have ended there.

“Norah? Are you okay?” Josie fusses, having just arrived to the chaos a minute ago, holding two jugs of milk.

“Y-yeah,” Norah answers, but her voice is weak and barely a whisper. “I’m fine.”

“I’m not fucking fine!” the bastard on the floor shouts. “He assaulted me!”

“Bennett?” Josie looks at me, and my chest tightens. Fuck, I shouldn’t be involved in this shit.

“He punched me!” The asshole holds his nose while blood drips from both nostrils. It’s already made a path down the front of his white shirt, and his hands are coated from trying to wipe the excess from his face. “I want to file a report. And I need someone to get ahold of my lawyer.”

“Hold on. Let’s all take a minute to calm down. What’s your name, son?” Sheriff Pete Peeler asks and pulls a small notebook from the front pocket of his uniform shirt.

“Thomas Conrad Michael King III.”

Of course that’s his fucking name.

“Okay, Mr. King.” The sheriff jots something down on the first blank page in his notebook. “Let’s all talk this out, okay? Ben? Let’s talk this out.”

“Home health leaves in an hour,” I remind Pete, and my words make guilt sit heavy in my stomach. Even though it felt like I had no choice, I shouldn’t be involved in this. I should be heading home.

“I know, Ben.” His answer is soft, and his face is full of contemplation before turning back to the douche with the bloodied nose and the name that sounds like he was born with a gold-fucking-spoon in his mouth. “You got any witnesses to this alleged assault?”

“Witnesses? Are you fucking kidding me?” He scoffs. “The fact that he broke my nose is all the proof you need.”

“Yeah, but how do I know you didn’t fall or something?” Sheriff Peeler questions, and if I weren’t so busy with the anger and guilt racing through my head, I’d take the time to be impressed with the way he manages to keep his face stone-cold neutral. “People fall all the time and break their noses.”

“Are you serious right now?” the prick questions, his outrage evident in his widened eyes, but Pete ignores him and looks at Norah.

“Miss Norah, did you see what happened?”

“I…I…don’t know,” Norah says softly, the evidence of full-blown shock visible all over her petite body. Anger fires in the pit of my stomach, almost as though Norah Ellis is an arsonist herself. I swallow hard to smother the flames.

“I wasn’t here,” Josie states and steps up beside her sister to wrap a comforting arm around her shoulders. “I have no idea what happened. I was at Earl’s getting milk.”

“I came to get you,” Mayor Wallace defers, his hands up innocently.

Instead of questioning me, which I’m pretty sure he’s supposed to do, the sheriff offers the man on the floor a shrug. “Sorry, son. I can’t file a report if there’re no witnesses.”

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