Two Hearts That Could Never Meet novel · Chapter 15 of 24

Chapter 15: What I'd Miss

I opened the door.

He was sitting up on the couch with the hotel blanket around his waist.

"Say that again," I said.

"I read the last page the night I found the folder. The bank slip. I knew your debt was paid, and I knew who paid it."

"That was a week ago."

"Yes."

"You stood on the steps while I read it under a streetlight."

"I wanted to tell you. I was afraid."

"Of what?"

"That it would be the one thing too many," he said. "I had been given a night with you. I didn't want to be the one who ended it."

I put my arms across my chest.

"So you let me find out alone."

"I've got no defense."

"Good. Don't make one."

I sat on the arm of the couch, as far from him as the couch allowed.

The radiator knocked twice in the silence.

"Do you know what it's like?" I said. "I wasn't lucky. Eleven thousand dollars went away, the landlord stopped calling, and I thought it was my first piece of luck in my life."

"Millicent."

"A woman bought me out of debt so I'd be free to sit where she wanted. I was shopping for groceries on a budget, and she was choosing my chair."

"I know."

"You don't. You've always had a chair."

He took that without moving.

"I'm not just angry at her," I said. "I'm angry that I loved my life. I loved the house. I loved the Sunday lunches. I loved you, Lawrence, and it was built on a seating chart."

My voice cracked on the last word.

I hated that it did.

"I don't know which parts were mine," I said. "I don't know what I'd have felt if nobody had arranged it. That has to be mourned. I'm not going to skip it because you said sorry well."

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