He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Forty-One

I read all forty-one.

I stood in his office with the door shut and the folder open on the desk, and I turned every page.

Draw number one.

Draw number two.

All the way to the forty-first, in the spring three years ago.

My signature was at the bottom of every one, round and trusting, with a little loop on the G.

His signature sat just above it.

Leone didn't speak.

He sat on the edge of the cot and watched me read.

When I finished I closed the folder, and it was very quiet.

"You drew the first one," I said.

"Yes."

"The one for Paola's legs."

"Yes."

"I stood in that room."

My voice came out thin and flat.

"I remember it. There was a doctor in a mask. He told me to look at a ceiling tile because it would only take a minute."

"That was me," he said.

"You said I'd barely feel it."

"I said that to every donor."

"Did it make you feel better?"

"No," Leone said. "It never did."

I put both hands on the desk.

My whole body wanted to shake, and I wouldn't let it.

"Tell me all of it," I said. "Start with why."

He rubbed his face with both hands.

"I was twenty-eight," he said. "I was the youngest chief the Transfer Wing ever had."

He stared at his hands.

"I believed the work was good. People were wasting away because they felt nothing, and I could give them a little feeling back. I thought I was helping."

"And the donors?"

"The donors consented. Every form was signed. That was my whole defense, for three years."

"Mine was signed."

"Yours was signed," he said quietly. "By a woman who thought she was giving one percent to her friend."

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