For Our 10th Anniversary, My Husband Gave Me a Green Dress and My Sister a Baby novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: What I Thought She'd Do

Abel's POV

I had my boots in one hand and my jacket over my arm when she said my name.

"You were going to leave."

Phoebe sat up in the grey light with the sheet around her and her hair a wreck.

I had been in the flat for eleven hours and I was already at the door.

"I thought you'd want the morning to yourself," I said.

"Did you."

"You've got a gala invitation to read and a husband to bury. You don't need me standing in the kitchen."

"Come here."

I put the boots down.

I sat on the edge of the mattress, and she looked at me for a long time without saying anything.

I knew what I would see if I were her.

A man who had stood in a parking lot and let her cry.

A man who had signed a form with a pen.

Last night she had wanted me, and she had been brave about it, and I had taken it.

In daylight, I figured, she would count the cost.

"Say it," Phoebe said. "Whatever you're not saying."

"You'll wake up properly in an hour," I said. "You'll remember I held the pen."

"I remember now."

"Then you know I'm not the one you should be keeping."

"Abel."

She said it the way she had said it last night, once and quietly.

"You think I'll never forgive you," she said. "That's why you were at the door."

"I think you shouldn't."

"I haven't."

I nodded.

I had expected it, and it still went in under the ribs.

"I haven't forgiven you," Phoebe said. "I might not for a year. Some days I'll look at you and see that lot, and I'll say something ugly, and you'll stand there and take it."

"I will."

"That's not what I'm asking."

"What are you asking?"

"I'm asking if you'll stay anyway." She took my hand and held it against the sheet over her knee. "I'm not choosing you because it's all forgiven. I'm choosing you with it. The folder, the form, the six years. All of it sits between us, and I'm still picking you."

I couldn't say anything.

For twelve years I had kept my face blank every time she walked into a room.

"That's not how forgiveness works," I said finally.

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