They Booked Four Seats Without Me, So I Booked One to California novel · Chapter 12 of 24

Chapter 12: What He Knew

"Since August," I said.

"Yes."

"You knew about the money for four months."

"Yes."

"You carried my crutches into the house and checked my ankle, and you knew."

"Hanne."

"You sat on this wall and let me tell you about the croissants."

"I know."

"You let me pay you forty dollars for a brace, and you knew my father had spent my grandmother's money on a hotel suite."

He stood up.

He did not come closer.

"Ingrid asked me to wait," he said. "She wanted you to see the papers yourself, from the lawyer, and not hear it from a neighbor. She was afraid your father would find out she had a lawyer and burn the paper records before March. I agreed."

"So you decided what I got to know."

"No. She decided. I kept quiet."

"That's the same thing."

"It isn't," he said. "But I can see why it looks like it."

I got to my feet too.

The ankle gave a hard twinge, and I stood on it anyway.

"Everything you did for me," I said. "The brace, the sweatshirt, the stocking, the sunset. It was because you knew what had been done to me."

"No."

"You felt sorry for me."

"I did feel sorry. For about a day."

"Then what?"

"Then you came out onto the porch in your socks with a cup of coffee, and you told me you had never asked anyone for anything you couldn't give back," he said. "And I stopped feeling sorry. I started wanting to be near you."

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