The Last Time I Cried Your Name novel Chapter 187

Petty sat quietly outside Laura's hospital room, her eyes stinging with tears. She stared at Franco’s picture on her phone for a moment, then opened up Laura’s profile and, with a steady hand, blocked her without a word.

She scrolled through her contacts, stopped at Malcom’s name, and opened up their chat.

Malcom, are you free at seven tonight? Let’s meet at the gym if you are.

No reply from Malcom, not even by the time she reached the TV station.

Yesterday, after the social media pile-on had turned cruel, her bosses at the station told her to take a few days off. They called it "rest," but Petty knew they were just trying to keep the network’s reputation intact. She didn’t argue. She understood. She went along with it.

But everything changed this morning. Franco had announced their marriage to the public, and barely after sunrise, the station’s top manager called and begged her to come back to work.

Right now, work was all she had to keep her mind from spiraling out of control.

The news department’s archive held stacks of old reports and secrets, the sort of things you couldn't dig up online anymore.

Petty quickly dug up the files about the accident that killed Franco’s parents. The pictures were faded and a little blurry, but her eyes went instantly to the little boy standing near the wreckage. Franco must have been around eight. Rain poured down, turning the scene as gray as his tiny, hunched figure. Petty couldn’t help thinking, he must have been crying so hard.

Her chest felt tight. Her hands shook as she forced herself to close the file.

Around noon, Petty drove back to the White Estate.

Her grandmother was usually still up at this hour, and Petty suddenly wanted to see her.

She parked in the driveway and spotted Jackson in the yard. He was cheerfully pouring food for General, their big, goofy dog, and scratching behind his ears.

General heard her and bounded over so fast Petty almost fell as he jumped up to greet her. For a moment, just a moment, it was like her heavy mood cracked open and light came spilling in. She hugged General and laughed. “Jackson, quit feeding him so much or he’ll get too fat.”

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