I Left to Make Him Follow, and He Let Me Go for Three Years novel · Chapter 7 of 24

Chapter 7: The Work Table

Ansel's POV

I had not slept since Friday.

At two in the morning I stood in the annex storeroom with the work lights off and one bare bulb burning over the long table.

The glass offcuts lay in their racks along the wall, grey and amber and cobalt, and a red so deep it looked black.

I had come here to be alone.

I had meant to think about nothing, and I was thinking about her mouth.

My mother had climbed the stairwell that afternoon and found us with our clothes straightened and Neve's face still flushed.

She said only, "Ansel, your uncle is waiting."

She did not look at Neve, and she did not need to.

Neve walked past her to the courtyard with her chin up and a pulse jumping in her throat.

I stood in the stairwell and let my mother lecture me about the board for twenty minutes.

I did not hear a word of it.

Now I put both palms flat on the table and pressed down on the cold wood.

Three years.

Every time I picked up my phone to call her, I heard my mother's voice in the next room as clearly as if she stood there.

*She will ask. She will ask, and you will have to say.*

I put the phone down every time.

I sent the money instead, because money was the only language in which I could say *I am here* without saying the other thing.

The door opened behind me.

I did not turn.

I knew her step.

It was lighter than my mother's and quicker, and she walked on the outer edges of her boots when she was nervous.

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