Chapter 22: Her Choice

He came through the main doors at ten to nine.

I was sitting on a plastic chair in a paper gown and my own socks, and I saw him before he saw me.

He stopped in the doorway.

He was in the building I had banned him from.

"Which floor?" he said.

"Third. They won't let you into the room."

"I know."

"You can walk me to the elevator."

He walked beside me with his hands at his sides.

At the elevator doors I held out my hand, and he looked at it.

"You can touch me," I said. "You don't have to ask anymore."

He took my hand in both of his.

It was the first time in eight years he had held it, and he held it very carefully.

The procedure took forty minutes.

When they wheeled me out, the surgeon was smiling behind her mask, and the port under my collarbone was gone.

There was a small, tight square of gauze where it had been.

"All clear," she said. "You never need to see this floor again unless you want to."

Elliot was in the hall.

He had been standing the whole time.

I held his sleeve all the way to the car.

That night Mom packed an overnight bag without being asked.

"I'm staying at your cousin's," she said, and she put on her coat very slowly.

"Mom."

"I'm not recording anything. I'd like that noted."

She kissed my forehead and walked out.

Elliot stood in my kitchen in his shirtsleeves, holding a grocery bag.

"I brought soup," he said. "I didn't know what else..."

"Put it down."

He did.

"Elliot."

"Yes."

"Come here."

He crossed the kitchen in three steps and stopped in front of me.

Keep reading free with an account. Start Goodbye to the Love I Lost Eight Years Ago from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.