Chapter Fifteen
“That was nice,” Gabby called from the kitchen after Jay had left, finishing cleaning up.
Charlie had picked up his guitar again. “Yes.” He strummed a few chords distractedly. “It was nice.”
“Here, do something . . . ,” Gabby said to him. “You’re always in your own world. Make yourself useful.” She bundled up a bag of trash and handed it to him to take out.
“All right.” He put down the guitar and, without objecting, took the bag outside to the plastic trash bins on the side of their apartment.
She was right, of course, he decided—it was nice to have Jay out here. To feel they were close again. Like time had taken them back to a simpler and better day. Even if . . . Suddenly the reason Jay was there came back to him.
Even if it was because Evan had died.
He lifted the plastic trash cover and was about to drop in the bag when . . .
He barely noticed it at first.
It was just lying there, on top of yesterday’s trash. Staring back at him—as if alive.
And in a way it was alive!
“Gabby!” he tried to scream. “Gabby!” dropping the trash bag, but nothing came out.
Only a tsunami of shock and overwhelming confusion swept through him.
It was a black Nike sneaker.
His heart came to a stop. Evan’s sneaker.
The one he’d been wearing up on the rock the day he died.
The one they never found.
Hands tingling, Charlie gingerly picked it out of the trash bin. Yes, he was right—he was sure!
It was Evan’s sneaker.
What could it possibly be doing here?
At first his heart almost exploded. Overcome with joy. This proved it, didn’t it? What he’d felt all along? That Evan wouldn’t have killed himself.
He turned to shout: Look! Look what I found.
Gabby!
But then he stopped. The elation throughout his body shifted to fear. He scanned around, expecting someone to rush out of the shadows at any moment. But no one was there.
He held the sneaker like a priceless relic, tears welling in his eyes.
He knew he couldn’t tell anyone. Not Gabby—poor Gabby—who would die herself just to see this.
Not even Jay.
No, no one could see this. Because he knew who had put it there. The past had brought it. Just as he always feared.
The past.
That’s what it meant.
That the past had found him.
And there was nothing he could do about it. Nothing he could do to stop it now.
Eyes Wide Open
Andrew Gross's books
- Smoke Gets in Your Eyes and Other Lessons from the Crematory
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Bad Games
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone