He Took My Love 99 Times. The 100th Time, He Lost Me Forever. novel · Chapter 22 of 24

Chapter 22: What He Owes

I crossed Via Morello in the dark with my arms folded.

Fabrizio watched me come and didn't step back.

Up close, he looked like a coat on a hook.

"You shouldn't be here," I said.

"I know."

"The Board will fine you for coming near the ward."

"It already did. It took the house." He said it the way he'd say the weather. "My mother is at her sister's in Palermo. The families want their fees back. There isn't much left."

"I'm not sorry."

"I didn't think you were."

He looked at the window behind me, where the baker's silhouette was waving a bread knife in time to his song.

"I only wanted to see what it looks like," he said. "Where people are laughing. I never learned how."

"You could learn."

"From whom?"

"From watching," I said. "The slow way. It's the only way there is."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have." I heard myself use his words, and I didn't take them back. "I won't be the stove, Fabrizio. Find your own."

He stood very still.

Then he nodded once, and turned, and walked up Via Morello in his slept-in suit, and I watched him until he reached the corner.

He didn't look back.

I stood there in the doorway, and it didn't hurt as much as I'd expected.

The ache was still there.

It was only that, for the first time, I could stand beside it.

Inside, the ward had gone dark.

Leone was waiting at the end of the aisle, holding a cream-colored envelope with a seal on it.

"A courier," he said. "Ten minutes ago. From the Board."

"Read it."

He did, in a flat voice.

"My license is revoked for life. I'm barred from any clinic, any ward, any draw or return. A fine of everything I own, which is not a lot." He folded the paper. "I'm to leave the ward by the end of the month."

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