He Let Me Grieve a Lie, Now He Begs Forgiveness novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Order
"You answered," Elio said.
He had turned around in the doorway, and his face was open for the first time in her sight.
"It's my name," Chiara said. "Everyone has said it at me for a week."
"You answered it the old way."
"I don't have an old way."
She said it coldly, and she heard that it was too cold, and she turned and went into the kitchen before he could look any longer.
He did not leave.
He stood in the doorway until she put the kettle on, and then he sat back down on the floor by the wall, as if she had given an order.
She had not.
She made two cups of tea and carried them across the room.
She set his down on the floorboards, three steps from his knee, and went back to the couch with hers.
Neither of them drank.
The rain went on.
She had meant to keep quiet until morning.
Instead she heard herself say, "Taylor showed me something else in my chart."
"What did it say?"
"Month two."
Elio went still.
"There's a page in there," Chiara said. "I asked to go home. I wrote it down myself, in my own handwriting, because the nurse said it had to be written."
"I know."
"Under it is an order. Continue inpatient treatment, ninety days. Signed by next of kin."
"Yes."
"That's your name."
"Yes."
His voice was level and dull and it did not try to explain.
Her hands had begun to shake, so she set the cup down.
"I'm not asking you to be sorry. I want to know what you thought when you signed it."
He looked at the floor between his shoes.
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