My Mother Sold Me to Pay Her Dealer, and the Man Who Took Me From Him Has a Use for Me novel · Chapter 24 of 24
Chapter 24: The Bolt Left Open
By the last week of March the ice had gone out of the river.
I stood at the window of the room at the top of the mill and watched the black water run under the broken plates.
It was loud and brown and fast, and whole sheets of ice turned against the far bank.
It was a Saturday, and I was not working.
My shift started at seven the next evening, three nights a week, as it had every week since the first of January.
I had my own name on the badge now, and a raise the charge nurse said I did not deserve.
A new girl on the ward followed me about asking how it was done.
The room had not changed much.
The same gray blanket lay on the bed, and the lamp, and the table.
The brass bolt on the inside of the door was the one he had put there for me in December, as thick as my thumb.
It stood open.
I had left it open since February.
I had not told him I was going to, and he had not said a word about it.
One night he had come up the hall with a tray, and stopped, and looked at it.
He had set the tray down on the carpet and walked away.
In the morning I had found the tray with two cups on it.
I crossed to the bed and sat with my feet under me and watched the door.
I heard the elevator, and then steps in the hall that did not hurry.
They stopped at my door.
I waited for the knock, and it did not come.
He stood in the opening with his hand on the frame.
He wore a white shirt open at the throat, with his dark overcoat over his arm.
"The bolt's open," Valentine said.
"I know," I said.
"I thought I'd stand here until you said," he said.
"Valentine," I said.
"Yes."
"Come in," I said. "And shut the door."
He came in and shut it, and did not touch the bolt.
The rest of this chapter is part of the paid portion of the series. Chapters 1–6 of My Mother Sold Me to Pay Her Dealer, and the Man Who Took Me From Him Has a Use for Me are free to read — start from the beginning, then unlock the rest with coins in the app.
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