Chapter 16: Three Steps

By midnight my hands wouldn't stop shaking.

Nolan drove me home, carried my crutch up the steps, and put the kettle on in my kitchen without asking where anything was.

He found the mugs on the first try.

I sat on the couch with the brace stretched out and my green dress still on, and I watched him move around the room.

"Say something," he said, with his back to me.

"I thought I'd feel better."

"You will."

"I keep seeing her face when she said it. She wasn't sorry. She was angry that she'd been caught being second."

He turned around.

The kettle began to whistle behind him, and he didn't go to it.

"Abigail," he said. "Come here."

I got up.

The crutch was leaning against the wall across the room, and he was right there.

I took one step without it before I remembered.

The leg held.

I took another, with my hand out, and the brace creaked and the ankle burned.

The room tilted a little and then stopped.

The third step put me against his chest.

He caught my elbows.

"You're walking," he said. His voice had gone rough.

"I'm walking."

I looked at the mouth I had been watching for two weeks and kissed it.

It was not a polite kiss.

I had my fingers in his short hair and my mouth open against his.

I felt the sound he made in his chest before I heard it.

He kissed me back hard, with both arms around me.

His hand spread across the small of my back, over the green silk.

He pulled me in until I was standing on my good foot against all of him.

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