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“I brought his guitar, you know Thought ht this infection Maybehim back, but…” He sucked in a breath and paused

Slowly I looked up “But?”

A sad smile touched his mouth “I suck, remember? I only know a couple of chords, and G and C don’t really cut it”

His shed so hard that his body shook and his fingers dug intocrazy or if he was just so tired he didn’t knohat he was doing

He stopped abruptly and squared his shoulders “I’ to put all the blaoddamn black hole and I needed someone to hit It was you” He cleared his throat “There was only you”

“It’s okay,” I said quietly

And it was

“Would you play for hi inside him”

I couldn’t answer There was no way I was getting any words out But I nodded I nodded like a goddamn bobble head and followed Mike Lewis back down the hall

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Monroe

I was drea about Malcolm It was summer Hot and humid with air so thick you could practically see it

It was the kind of day when the paveh your sandals The kind of day you’d spend hours running through the sprinklers at the water park It was the kind of day when everything is slow and lethargic

It was the kind of day when bad things happened

I’d had this dream before, and it always ended the same I lost Malcolm, there in the shadows, the deep ones that the sun didn’t seem able to find