He Sacrificed My Father for His First Love novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: Refunds

Abby's POV

I did not take my hand out of Rory's.

I walked to the front of the dais, and Daphne stepped back from the microphone, because I think she expected me to cry.

"I know," I said.

Her smile slipped.

"You know what?"

"That he knew. I worked it out in the coordinator's office." I looked out over the room. "My father went to Sloan Kettering every Tuesday for nine weeks. He brought the woman at the desk a bag of mints. In August, he saw his name was off the board."

Nobody in the room moved.

"He came home and did the crossword," I said. "He painted the stoop. He told me it was going to be a good fall."

My voice caught, and I let it.

"He didn't keep it from me because he thought I couldn't take it. He kept it because he wanted me to have a few more weeks of thinking there was a chance."

I turned to her.

"That's what a father does. A man in this room had the same choice and made it for his own sake. My father made it for mine."

Daphne's mouth opened.

Nothing came out.

I took the microphone off its stand and set it down on the podium.

"That's all," I said.

For a moment nobody moved.

Then the woman at the nearest table stood up and began to clap.

It spread across the room, slow at first, and then a roar, four hundred people on their feet in their black and gold.

I couldn't hear anything after that.

I felt Rory's arm around my shoulders, and Bea's hand gripping mine, and Rory's mother's small square one patting my arm over and over.

When the sound dropped, I heard Daphne.

She was standing alone at the foot of the dais with her gown crumpled in both fists.

Her face had come apart.

The soft eyes were gone, and the pretty mouth, and what was left was a woman of thirty-three whom nobody was coming for.

"I did it for him!" she screamed.

She was looking at the closed doors.

"I did all of it for him! He was supposed to be mine, I was going to be the one on that stage, and she took him! She took him and my brother and my mother and my..."

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