What We Choose novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: Room Twelve

Dessa

Nash opened the door in jeans and nothing else.

Behind him, in the bed, Sienna sat up and pulled the sheet to her collarbone.

Room twelve smelled like her perfume and room-service coffee.

I didn't go in.

"Dess," Nash said. "What are you..."

"When did it start?"

He blinked.

"I told you. In the car."

"Tell me again."

"The day of your biopsy." He said it fast, with his whole face sincere. "August third. I swear to God, Dessa. I was scared out of my mind and..."

"Where were you on June ninth last year?"

His face did nothing for a second.

Then it did everything.

"I... the interview. I was at the interview."

"And after."

"I drove back. No, I stayed. I told you, the motel, off the highway..."

Sienna laughed.

It wasn't the pretty laugh. It was a real one, short and mean.

"Oh my God, Nash. Just tell her."

She got out of bed wearing his old Larkhaven Football T-shirt and nothing else, and came to the door beside him.

"He was here," she said. "In this room. June ninth. I had the key in my purse before he finished his first drink."

Nash said, "Sienna."

"He got the job in that bed." She smiled at me. "And then he went home and told you it was his dream. You moved here for me, Dessa. You just didn't know it."

I stood very still.

A whole year.

The apartment over the pharmacy. The Sunday dinners. Me driving forty minutes each way in the snow, and coming home to cook, and him walking in late with his phone face down on the counter.

All of it, built around this room.

"And the laughing?" I said to Nash. "Did you laugh?"

"No. Dess, I swear..."

Sienna already had his phone in her hand.

She turned the screen toward me.

I read it.

Then I read his answer under it.

Haha stop. You're evil.

The date was August eighth.

The night of my diagnosis.

I'd cried myself to sleep in our bed that night, and he'd come in late and put his arm around me, and I'd thought it was the kindest thing anyone had ever done for me.

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