Finally Moving On After A Decade novel · Chapter 2 of 24

Chapter 2: Her Side

The clip goes viral and Lydia arrives at the condo with tears and a story about the man she fears. Nolan gives her until Sunday, and the hospice's director walks in with an offer. Hook: the house is four hundred thousand short and the internet wants his face.

Teddy woke me at seven by dropping his phone on my chest.

"Three million views," he said. "Your fiancée's face is on a morning show."

I sat up on his couch with a crick in my neck and my truck keys still in my fist.

I had told Teddy everything at one in the morning, over the one bottle he keeps at home.

He had listened without saying he never liked her.

He said it now.

"I never liked her," Teddy said. "I want that on the record before you go home."

"I'm only going for my clothes."

"You're going to let her talk."

"I'm going to let her talk," I said. "Then I'm going to leave."

The condo was quiet when I opened the door at noon.

Lydia sat on the kitchen floor in her mother's gray cardigan with her back against the cabinets.

Her eyes were swollen.

She had been crying for hours, and I felt the old pull in my chest, the one that made me cross a room before I decided to.

I stopped at the counter instead.

"Did he follow you?" she asked. "Brooks. Did he come after you?"

"He walked me to my truck."

"What did he say?"

It was the first thing she asked, before anything about me.

"He told me to ask you how many times you called him this month," I said.

Lydia stared at me.

Then she put her face in her hands.

"I called him? Nolan, he calls me. I block one number and he gets another. He's done it since I was twenty-one."

"You never told me it was still happening."

"I didn't want you to worry. You were so good all week."

She stood up with one hand on the cabinet.

"He told me last night he'd cancel the money if I didn't kiss him," she said. "In front of everyone. He had it planned. He said Fairhaven would lose every bed if I backed out."

"He said that to you on stage?"

"Not on stage." She wiped her face. "In the hallway before. I should have told you."

"You promised me in this kitchen you'd touch him only when a photo needed it."

"I did it for Mom's house."

"You did it with both hands on his face."

She flinched.

I hadn't raised my voice, and she still flinched.

"Please don't leave me alone with him," she said. "You're the only one who ever kept him away."

For ten years that sentence had worked on me every time.

I looked at it now the way I would look at a cracked chair leg in the shop.

I could see exactly where it had been glued before.

"I'm not leaving you alone with anyone," I said. "I'm leaving."

"Nolan."

"You have until next Sunday to find somewhere to be. It's my condo and my name on the deed, and I'll pay the first month of whatever you rent."

"You'd put me out on the street?"

"Your sister has a spare room in Beaverton."

Her face changed for half a second, and then it went soft again.

"You're angry," she said. "You'll feel differently when you've slept."

"I slept on Teddy's couch."

I went into the bedroom and pulled a duffel off the closet shelf.

She followed me and stood in the doorway while I packed.

She didn't say anything else, which was unusual for her.

I was zipping the bag when the doorbell rang.

Lydia looked at me and wiped her face with the cardigan sleeve.

When I opened the door, Freja Thorndyke was on the mat in jeans and a rain jacket, holding two coffees.

The pencil was behind her ear again.

"I'm sorry," she said. "Your address was on the donor form. I wouldn't have come if it weren't an emergency."

Lydia appeared at my elbow with a bright wet smile.

"Freja! Thank you for last night. You were wonderful."

"Thank you," Freja said, and handed her one of the coffees.

Then she looked at me.

"Could I talk to you outside for one minute?"

I followed her down to the sidewalk and pulled the door shut behind me.

She kept her voice low.

"Three donors pulled their pledges before breakfast," she said. "We're four hundred thousand short by Saturday, and the whole internet wants to look at your face."

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