The Campus Bully Hounded Me Out of My Seat, Then I Told Him I Was Pregnant novel · Chapter 23 of 24
Chapter 23: Taking Down the Name
The ladder was an old wooden one with paint on its rungs, and it creaked every time he put his weight on it.
It was seven the next morning, and the sky over the Vermillion was the color of dishwater.
A skin of ice lay on the river from bank to bank.
I stood at the foot of the ladder in his gray team sweater, which came down to my knees, with both hands wrapped around the uprights.
"Hold it steady," Aksel said.
"I'm holding it," I said.
"You're leaning on it," he said.
"Holding it and leaning on it," I said.
"That's what holding is."
He laughed from the top, a short sound, and the ladder shook.
He had a pry bar in one hand and a hammer in his belt.
He stood on the top rung under the lintel, with the long black letters cut deep in the oak above his head.
KVALE BOATHOUSE.
It had been there since 1962.
A small crowd had gathered on the dock despite the cold.
Halle was there with a thermos.
The man from the town paper stamped his feet beside her with his notebook out.
Three of the rowers stood at the back in their team jackets.
One of them was the one who had said I smelled like a barn.
He did not look at me.
He held a crowbar as though he had been told to bring it.
"Anyone who wants to help can hold the ladder," Aksel said, without turning around.
The rower came forward and took the other upright.
He did not speak.
"Thank you," I said.
He flushed to the roots of his hair.
Aksel set the bar into the groove behind the first letter and leaned on it, and the old oak groaned.
The K came away in one piece with a long crack of dry wood.
He handed it down to me.
It was heavier than I expected, and I held it against my chest.
He took down the V, the A, the L and the E, one at a time.
The rower and I took the weight of each, and a small pile of black oak grew on the dock.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of The Campus Bully Hounded Me Out of My Seat, Then I Told Him I Was Pregnant are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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