Called a Gold Digger, I Returned Everything novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: Midnight

"I read the date," Dalton said again.

He stood up from the steps, and rainwater ran off his sleeves onto the porch boards.

"Go home," I said.

"I got the sheet out of the trash after you left. I read the first line, and I did the math, and I sat there until it was light."

"Good for you."

"Susie."

"You had it right in front of you at the table." My keys were biting into my palm. "You had it in your hands while she was crying and I was standing there. And you picked the sentence you picked."

"I know."

"Tell me you didn't."

"I know what I said."

"Do you?" I came up the first step, and he went still. "Three years, Dalton. Every brunch. Every Christmas. They looked at my hands, and they talked about me like I wasn't sitting there, and you ate your eggs."

"I didn't hear it."

"You heard it. You just never said anything."

His face worked.

"I thought it would stop if I ignored it," he said.

"It never stopped."

"I know that now."

"I made myself small for three years so it would be easy for you. I told myself it was gentleness. It wasn't gentleness. You were hiding."

He took a breath that shook.

"Yes," he said.

I had not expected him to say yes.

It knocked the air out of the whole speech I'd built in the bus.

We stood three feet apart in the rain.

His shirt was stuck to his chest.

There was water running down the scar in his eyebrow and into his eyes, and he didn't wipe it.

"I'm sorry," he said. "That's the only thing I've got. I'm sorry I didn't say it. I'm sorry I asked. I'd give anything to go back and say your name instead."

"That doesn't fix it."

"I know."

"Your grandmother has my check."

"I know that too."

"Then why are you here?"

"Because I can't be in my apartment," he said. "Because every room has you in it. Because I've been sitting on your porch for two hours, and I'd have sat here until morning."

Something in my chest cracked down the middle.

I hated that it did.

I hit him on the shoulder, hard, with the flat of my hand.

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