A Decade For Nothing novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Every Person Who Watched

Lydia's POV

I went back to Ada Harrow's porch at eight on Thursday morning, in the same jeans, and this time Levi came out.

He closed the screen door behind him and stood at the top of the steps, a head taller than I remembered.

"You said you wanted to pay for something," he said.

"I do."

"Then these are the terms."

I nodded, because my throat had closed.

"One. You say it to every person who saw that clip. In person. Not a post, not a message. You look at them."

"All right."

"Two. You are out of your father's house and your father's money. All of it, and you stay out."

"I'm already out."

"Then it's easy," he said.

It wasn't cruel, and it still landed.

"Three. Some night you come to my door and I say no. And you come back anyway."

I stared at him.

"That one isn't for me," he said. "It's so you know what it is."

"What what is?"

"Staying," Levi said.

He went back inside.

I stood on the walk with my hands in my back pockets and understood that none of the three terms was about money.

I had spent the night in my car outside a house that smelled of bacon, and I had never been so awake.

By ten I had returned the car keys to my father's lawyer and signed a form saying I wanted nothing from the trust.

By eleven I had rented a room over a feed store in Medina for four hundred dollars a month.

By noon I was standing at a front door in Lakewood with my stomach turning over.

My oldest friend opened it in her scrubs.

She had been one of the three at the reception whispering.

"Lyd?"

"I need to say something and I need you not to talk until I'm done."

She stepped out onto the stoop and closed the door behind her.

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