Claimed by My Ex-Husband novel · Chapter 18 of 48
Chapter 18: The Fourth Floor
Dessa lived on the fourth floor, and I climbed all four.
The doctor had said no stairs for two weeks, and two weeks had passed, and the brace held.
It took me nearly fifteen minutes.
I stopped on every landing and leaned my forehead on the cold wall, and I did not cry until the third floor.
Then I cried a little, with my bag at my feet, and kept going.
Dessa's key was under the dead plant, where it had been for four years.
Her apartment smelled of instant noodles and the lavender spray she used on her scrubs.
My old bed was still made up in the corner of the living room, with my blue blanket on it.
I lay down in the gray cardigan and looked at the ceiling.
At seven the next morning, Dessa came in off her shift and found me there.
She stood in the doorway in her sneakers for a long moment.
"He didn't sign," she said.
"How do you know?"
"You climbed four flights on that ankle. Nobody does that for a signed paper."
She put down her bag and sat on the arm of the couch.
"I'm not going to say I told you so."
"Thank you."
"I told you so."
I laughed, and it turned halfway into something else, and she pulled my head onto her shoulder and let me.
"You're going to eat now," she said into my hair. "And then you're going to sleep. And then, when you're ready, you're going to tell me everything he said, and I'm going to hate him with you, correctly."
I ate a bowl of noodles with an egg in it.
I slept for five hours.
At noon there was a knock.
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