Page 41 of The Heart We Guard
My mouth is suddenly drier than the Sahara. I try to form some saliva, but it won’t work. “Anything he said to me is under doctor-patient privilege.”
Gulch laughs loudly and looks at his men. “Did you hear that, boys? It’s privilege.”
It garners chuckles from some of the other men.
“You need to leave,” I say, finally finding my voice.
Gulch puts his hand on my throat, squeezing it firmly. “Here’s the thing. I don’t need to do anything. And I’m not leaving until you tell me what he said. There were witnesses who heard him yell that you weren’t to forget what he told you.”
“About his blood type,” I say suddenly, coming up with the only answer I can conjure on the spot as I try to get out of his hold. “He’s AB negative. Affects only point six of the population. He didn’t want to be mistakenly given AB positive, which is also rare at about three and a half percent. He’d die if we confused the two.” I put my hands on his arm and yank it away from my throat.
There’s no way I can race back inside. The front door isn’t open, and they’d have time to catch me if I ran around back.
“See,” Gulch says, “I’m pretty sure that’s not?—”
“I called the police,” Esme yells from her driveway, her voice frailer and more terrified than I’ve ever heard it. “They’re on their way.”
“Go back inside,” I yell. They have weapons. I can see Gulch’s gun in its holster.
Gulch snarls when he looks from me to Esme’s retreating back, and I can see the moment he considers taking me with him. A brief step towards me, followed by a jog back to his bike.
While they’re distracted, I run back around the house and hurry inside before I slam the door shut. Just as I do, my phone rings.
Esme’s name pops up on my screen, and I answer it.
“Esme, are you okay?”
“Of course,” she says, her voice back to normal. “I didn’t call the police. I wasn’t sure if they were friends of your friend, so I said that to give you an out if they were. Should I call them for real?”
Maybe it’s a spike of adrenaline, or shock, or pure disbelief that Esme just pulled a fast one on the Midtown Rebels, but I laugh.
“Esme,” I say, uncertain of what to say next.
“I take it that they weren’t your friends.”
“No,” I say, filled with certainty. “If anything, they were the enemy.” But I can’t go through another trial. It’s embarrassing to admit I was braver as a child than I am as an adult. But I know better now. They won’t let me off if I point the police in their direction. I don’t want to be involved in this at all. “I’ll take care of it from here.”
Even if that means doing nothing at all.
12
GREER
FIVE WEEKS LATER
Ithink mid-October might be my favorite time of year.
The humidity has died off. The air is still warm but lacking the intensity of summer. And there’s a death knell lingering over all the bugs that somehow come out of nowhere in the summer months.
Eli always laughed that my favorite season was the two middle weeks in October because I was quick to complain about the cold.
I’m letting the fall sun warm my face as my best friend, Wade, laughs. “Of course, I know what I’m letting myself in for.”
I glance at him. “This isn’t like that first year we lived off campus.”
Wade touches the corrugated cup holder around his overpriced coffee that required a degree in English language to comprehend and order. “We did fine, though, right? It was cozy. We managed to not kill each other.”
“That may be true, but this is different.”
