CHAPTER 48

Tori stood tapping her fingers on the roof of her car, a somber look on her face.

“Hey, I’ve been meaning to call you,” Corin said as he got out of his car.

She nodded but said nothing.

Corin stared at her. She didn’t move around her car toward him. She stood with her car between them, her face pale and she blinked as if she was in a storm cloud of dust.

“Are you all right, Tori?”

“I’m great, and you?”

She wasn’t great, wasn’t even good based on the look in her eyes. Something was wrong. Wonderful. Probably another weight to add to his backpack full of grief.

“How am I? Life has been better.” Corin slammed his car door shut. “Nicole is gone.”

“Gone?”

“Dead.”

Tori circled around to the passenger side of her car and leaned against the door. “I figured she was the one they were talking about on the radio. When I heard Tesser was arrested I assumed the worst. I’m so sorry, Corin. You’d become close to her, hadn’t you?”

Corin nodded and folded his arms.

She looked down on the frost-hardened ground. “I know my timing isn’t great, but I need to talk to you about something.”

A lump of granite instantly formed in Corin’s stomach. Here it comes.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s what isn’t going to be going on anymore.”

“And what won’t be going on anymore?”

“We’re done.” Tori wiped her nose. “I wanted to tell you to your face.”

“Why?”

“I’ve seen it all my life. You’re turning into a Jesus Freak.”

Corin coughed out a bitter laugh. “You’re wrong. After today I’m so done with the chair and anything and everything to do with God. Both have brought me nothing but pain. I’m going to get rid of the thing.”

“When?”

“Soon.”

“Call me when it’s gone.” Tori shoved her hands into her blue and black North Face jacket and shook her head. “No, that’s not fair to you. Don’t call me.”

“I just told you—”

“No. It’s not you, Corin. It’s the whole thing. Too much of my past. Too much has been stirred up and thrown in my face.”

“I told you, I’m done with the chair. It’s over for me.”

“And it’s over for us.”

CORIN SPENT THE rest of the day numbing his mind watching Tobey Maguire spin his way through Sam Raimi’s three Spider-Man movies. If only it were as easy to heal his world as Spidey healed his. The flicks did little to dull the pain seeping into every crevice of his soul. Toward midnight as the credits rolled on the third movie, he told himself to look at the bright side.

His life couldn’t get any worse.

It couldn’t.

He staggered into his bedroom, flopped onto his bed, and closed his eyes.

Sure it could.