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Wesley stared at the bed and noticed soh theand revealed a thick layer of dust on the coverlet of her perfectlyin the middle of summer The bitter, beautiful truth
"Oh, h and hard in his chest His ru in my bed"
"Actually, Wesley," came a voice from behind hi into the sound of hooting Actually, not quite hooting but hisseeinate from a Griffin and not an owl And this Griffin apparently was perched on the roof above Michael’s room Michael had crawled fro After their threeso sex with Nora, Michael worried he wouldn’t be able to look him in the eye for a few days But Griffin didn’t see-after aardness He also didn’t seeravity
"Griffin?" Michael called up to the roof, where Griffin stood shirtless in the sunlight hooting and hollering in so?"
"Six years, Mick!" Griffin called back "Tell me I’m awesome"
"You’re aweso and smart and funny and sexy But he kept all those adjectives on the inside "What’s six years?"
Griffin strolled forward on the roof casually, as if gravity didn’t apply to hie of the roof and lowered hih theand into Michael’s bedroorinned so broadly his smile eclipsed the sun "Six years today I have been clean and sober Not a drop of alcohol No drugs Nothing"
Michael couldn’t help but smile just as broadly back He threw his ar but as soon as he felt Griffin’s war places he didn’t want blood going Michael pulled back i steps back
"That’s incredible I’m so happy for you You should celebrate," Michael said quickly, trying to cover his nervousness
"I arinned "New tattoo I add on tointo town?" Michael hoped Griffin would invite them into the city with him Six years clean and sober--Griffin shouldn’t celebrate that alone
Griffin shook his head "Nah Spike--she does uess who else is invited?" Michael shook his head "You are, Mick"
"That’s fantastic I can’t wait to watch" Michael kneas grinning like an idiot, but he couldn’t stop himself
"Watch?" Griffin stepped past hiainst the door fraful look Michael couldn’t quiteof the look was, but he sort of wished Griffin would look at hietting one too"
Griffin winked at hi in unabashed joy, a sound that lifted Michael’s heart so high that he almost didn’t hear what Griffin had said
Once alone, he remembered
Michael raced to the hallway "Wait! Griffin? I’m what?"
20
On the subway, Suzanne found a safe spot on an empty seat and pulled Nora Sutherlin’s ht outside Kingsley Edge’s house She’d read it again at her aparts she still didn’t knohat to an with Eleanor Schreiber’s results fro her freshman year at NYU A basic physical for insurance purposes, all it revealed was a healthy eighteen-year-old girl with low cholesterol, low blood pressure and so Eleanor had refused a pelvic exam The little scribbled note had raised Suzanne’s hackles Why would she refuse a basic pelvic? Suzanne had inancy Maybe even evidence of an abortion But a few pages later she’d found so that blew all her dark theories out of the water At age nineteen, Eleanor Schreiber had apparently partied too hard one night and passed out drunk She’d woken up with a frat boy on top of her The file contained notes froht in to talk to Eleanor before, during and after the exaotten to perforht, as a note on the chart testified:
Patient said she doubts the youngthe rape attempt Dismissed by the patient once her priest, Father Marcus Stearns, arrived Patient clearly suffering fro Eleanor hadn’t been in denial The doctor’s report not only showed no presence of trauma or fluids, but an intact hymen as well At nineteen years old, Eleanor Schreiber was still a virgin Suzanne knew she should have stopped reading there To read another woross invasion of privacy it turned her stomach to even have it in her hands And yet she couldn’t stop, even after learning that teenage Nora was not lover to Father Stearns, or anyone for that matter