A Hatred Most Pure novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Thaw
Ansel came back to the room after midnight.
I had been sitting on the edge of the bed for hours with my hands wrapped to the wrist in clean linen.
He stopped inside the door and looked at them.
"Does it hurt?"
"Yes."
"Good. Maybe you'll learn to stay behind a door."
"I won't," I said, and I held out my bound hand. "Come here."
He didn't move.
"Come here, Ansel. I'm going to say one, and then I'd like you to sit down."
He crossed the floor and sat beside me on the bed, stiff, and I took his left hand in both of mine.
He tried to pull it back.
"Don't."
"I've watched you bury it in snow for a week."
I peeled the glove off, finger by finger, slowly.
The hand underneath was white and ridged, with the fingers drawn into a half fist and the skin shining and scarred across every knuckle.
It was cold.
It was as cold as the yard.
I wrapped my bandaged hands around it and held on.
"You didn't ask me for the next wrong," I said.
"Tell me."
"Every night for eighteen years I said them over. All of them, in the same order. The shoes first, then the pier, then the bread." I kept my eyes on his hand. "In every town. Before I put the chair under the door."
He didn't answer.
"I never slept a night through. I thought if I marked every one, I'd be able to bear it."
"I thought you forgot me."
"I know."
"I thought you were laughing somewhere." His voice came out raw. "A warm kitchen, a husband, a fire. I imagined it the whole time. That you had it easy and I was on the road with a dead hand."
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