I Was Never One of Them novel · Chapter 6 of 24

Chapter 6: Something Old

I paid the dialysis center that afternoon with every dollar in my emergency account.

Six thousand two hundred, for the next three months of my mother's care.

The woman at the desk printed the receipt and held my hand an extra second.

"We'll sort the rest out," she said.

I did not tell her I did not know how.

My mother was at home in her cardigan with the television on low, and she turned her head when I came in.

She had lost weight again.

"You're back early," she said. "How was the lodge?"

I sat down on the arm of her chair and could not make my mouth work.

"Hazel?"

"Gavin and I are done, Mom."

She looked at me for a long moment, and then she took my cut hand in both of hers.

"What happened to your hand?"

"I'll tell you tomorrow."

"Are you all right?"

"No," I said. "But I will be."

She did not ask again.

She never did, and I loved her for it, and I did not tell her that her treatment had been cancelled and that someone had paid for it for eight years.

I could not do it on the same day.

The next morning a courier knocked.

He handed me a small velvet box and a white envelope, and he waited for my signature.

The note inside was in Gavin's handwriting.

*Keep it. Sell it if you want. Come back when you've calmed down. We can fix this. G.*

The ring was inside, with a faint smell of champagne.

It was my engagement ring, fished out of Whitney's glass and sent back.

I looked at it for a long time.

Keep reading free with an account. Start I Was Never One of Them from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.