100% Compatibility novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Signature

"Yes," I said.

"It's my signature."

He did not move.

On my phone the clip started again by itself, and I turned it face down on the desk.

Papers lay scattered across the carpet where we had thrown them.

My sweater was on the floor, and my skin was still hot, and I felt cold.

"It's my signature," I said, "and it's for my father."

Ronan said nothing.

"Do you want me to say it standing here half naked?" I said.

"Or do you want me to get dressed first?"

He picked up my sweater from the carpet and held it out.

His hand was perfectly steady.

I pulled it on and sat in his father's chair, because my legs wanted to.

"My father was a bus mechanic," I said.

"He was fifty-one when they told him it was ALS."

"You know what that is."

"Yes," he said.

"Then you know what it costs."

"The insurance paid for the first three months."

"I had a scholarship and two jobs.

He was in a rented hospital bed in my aunt's front room, and the nurse we could afford came three times a week."

My voice had gone flat.

"I took your intake test at a booth on campus because it was free."

"A week later Odette called me into her office."

"She said my result came back wrong, a clerical error, sixty-one."

"She said she felt terrible for wasting my time."

"Then she asked about my life."

"Nobody had asked about my life in a year."

Ronan said, very quietly, "And you told her."

"I told her everything."

"The next day her assistant brought me a paper."

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