Thrown Out at Midnight, I Saved a General by Dawn novel · Chapter 17 of 24

Chapter 17: Mine to Say

We did not go back to Desmond's house.

The aide drove us to a hotel on the water, and the colonel took the room next door.

Ansel walked through the lobby on his own legs, and I walked beside him and did not take his arm.

In the suite he shut the door and stood with his back against it.

"Say what you came to say," he said. "I'll listen until morning."

I stood at the window with my arms crossed.

The harbor lights moved on the black water.

"I thought you kept me because I was the cure," I said.

He did not answer.

"That's what hurt most in your study. Not that you knew. That it made sense."

"Tessa."

"If you were going to walk again, you needed me. When you were done, I'd be a stranger with a debt."

"There is no debt."

"There was a contract."

"It was thirty days," Ansel said. "I thought you'd leave the day I could stand. Everyone does."

I turned around.

"Every step I took for you was a step closer to your going," he said. "I took them anyway."

"That's not a reason to keep me in the dark."

"No."

"You walked forty-one steps into that house tonight," I said. "I counted from the stairs."

"It was the first time I wasn't afraid of the end of them."

His voice had gone rough.

"I didn't tell you about the photograph because I wanted you in my house one more day before you had somewhere else to go. That's the whole reason. That's the worst thing I've done to you."

I looked at him for a long time.

"It's not the cure," I said. "It never was. I could have taught your aide the second step."

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