Second Chance Vows novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Notebook

I sat up so fast the bed shook.

Cosima did not look away.

"Say that again," I said.

"You nicked yourself shaving. Left side, just under the ear." Her voice was small and steady. "Perry, I can see you."

I got off the bed and stood with my back to her.

My shirt hung open, and I pulled it closed with both hands.

"How long?" I asked.

"Three weeks."

"Three weeks."

I turned around.

"You sat in my father's kitchen and let me cut your toast," I said. "You let me tell you where the stairs were."

"Yes."

"I changed my shirt in front of you every morning."

Her face went pink, and she did not drop her eyes.

"I talked to myself in that guest room," I said. "I practiced what I would say to Tiffany. I said your name out loud like an idiot."

"I know."

"Two nights ago I sat in the chair beside your bed and cried in the dark, because I thought you were asleep."

"I know that, too," Cosima whispered.

My throat closed.

"You watched me do all of it," I said, "and you let me think you were blind."

She stood up in the white silk slip, with her arms crossed over her chest.

"I know how it sounds."

"I don't think you do. I gave you every piece of me that I have, and I thought you couldn't see one of them."

"That is why I'm telling you now," she said. "I could have kept it until the end of the year, and I didn't."

"You told me because I almost undressed you with my eyes shut."

"I told you because you shut them," Cosima said. "Nobody ever shut their eyes for me before."

I looked at the lamp, and at the window, and at the white roses on the table.

I did not look at her.

"Why?" I said. "Why hide it?"

She sat down on the edge of the bed, and she told me.

"The light came back in the hospital, in the middle of the night, three weeks before your birthday dinner," she said. "A nurse was changing my drip. I saw the color of her sleeve."

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