Tell Me Not to Love You novel · Chapter 20 of 24
Chapter 20: Packed
I stood in his doorway holding his coat and read the ticket twice.
Wisconsin. One way. Tuesday, November third.
The day after the new owners took the keys.
He was not in his room.
His bed was made, with the corners squared, and the lamp was off.
I hung the coat on the knob and went back down the grand stair.
I went out the front door and across the lawn with my fists shut.
The light was on in the boathouse.
I saw it from the top of the ravine, a yellow square far below.
I went down ninety-one steps without counting a single one.
He was out on the dock with his back to me, in his shirtsleeves, looking at black water.
The wind off the lake came straight through my cardigan.
"You said you'd tell me tomorrow," I said.
He turned around.
He saw my face, and he didn't ask what I'd found.
"I was going to tell you at breakfast," he said. "With coffee."
"You were going to hand me a coffee and a one-way ticket."
"It's a job. A grain co-op in Wisconsin. The man who runs it knew my father."
"You've already said yes."
"I said yes in September."
"Before the diner. Before the lawn."
My voice went up.
"Before you stood in my mother's kitchen and asked what I wanted."
"Yes."
"And you let me tell you."
"I wanted to hear it," he said. "God, I wanted to hear it, and I wanted you to have said it before I left."
"Before you left."
"After the thirty-first I'll have nothing, Sol. Not a house. Not a name worth a bank's attention."
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–12 of Tell Me Not to Love You are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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