Page 229 of The Night Shift

I don’t like to think about that night a lot, for obvious reasons. I don’t even remember much of it.

My brain doesn’t give it to me in crisp, vivid replay. It’s not a movie I can pause and rewind. It's a fragmented memory. Sensory junk mail. Blips of blood. Mine. Chunks of glass. A ringing in my ears that lasted for hours. Pain. Sharp. Not mine. And after it was over, this wild, twisted thing called joy.

We buried him in a heavily wooded stretch near the Hudson, washed up in the dark along the banks and I guess the rest is history.

Cami wasn’t scared of me. She didn’t treat me like I had just killed someone. She was kind. Kind enough to hand me a towel and show me where the extra toothbrush was. She didn’t even ask why I killed that man. She just accepted me. It’d been a long time since I could say I had a friend and actually mean it.

The door flies open before I can knock again.

“Finally!” Cami grins and wraps me in a full-body bear hug. “I’ve missed you, babe.”

I don’t hug her back right away. Mostly because I can’t breathe and my arms are pinned to my sides. My face squishes against her shoulder. “Can’t…breathe.”

She pulls back and looks me over. She’s in a black sports bra and gray sweatpants, her strawberry-blonde hair damp and curling from the shower. The scars on her cheek are healing now. Pink, but no longer angry. She looks good. Alive. Better than she did the last time I saw her.

“Come in,” she says. “I got us some wine. White, not red. And the appetizer is in the oven. Just give it a few more minutes.”

I step inside, setting my bag down by the shoe rack, and hanging my coat on the hook behind the door. “You cooked?”

Cami grabs two glasses from the counter. “What did you think dinner meant?”

“Cold pizza and flat beer? Like we always do.”

She shrugs, handing me a glass. “Well, I thought we could switch things up a bit. Plus, I thought you hated beer.” Her glass clinks against mine with a quiet, satisfyingtink.

We both sip.

“I don’t hate it,” I say. “It just makes me feel bloaty.”

Cami snorts, already drifting toward the living room. I trail after her, letting the wine settle somewhere warm in my chest. It feels good. I lower myself onto the couch just as Cami pauses, like something’s clicked in her head.

She pivots and goes over to the cabinet under her TV, crouching to flip something open. A few seconds later, I hear the soft scratch of a vinyl needle dropping onto a record.

I blink. “You have a vinyl?”

“Yeah,” she says, like it’s obvious. “I’ve always had one.”

“I never knew about this.”

“You never asked.” She flips the record cover closed and turns the volume dial. Two seconds later, some instrumental tune trickles through the speakers.

Cami walks over to the couch, sinking down beside me. “I’ve missed you,” she says.

I smile. The quiet kind that doesn’t show teeth. “Me too.”

“So,” she starts, nudging my knee with hers, “how was the wedding? Any eloping attempts?”

I shake my head, wine glass twirling lightly between my fingers. “Sadly, no. But it was eventful otherwise.”

Cami shifts closer, eyes lit with mischief. “How so? Oh my god, did you try to kill someone at your sister’s wedding, Holly?”

It’s uncanny how bang-on she is. I must give something away — maybe the twitch of a smile, or the glint in my eye — because she gasps like I just confirmed everything and smacks my thigh in disbelief. “Tell meeverything!” she says, half-laughing.

I grin. “In my defense, I wasn’t actually planning on killing anyone that weekend. It just happened.”

“Go on then. Don’t leave anything out.”

I do leave some things out. Mainly the ones that involve a certain infuriating surgeon whose voice I haven’t heard in over twelve hours.