Ten Years to Win Her, Two Weeks to Leave Her novel · Chapter 12 of 24
Chapter 12: The Waterfront
Nolan walked until the buildings gave out and the river was on his left.
The waterfront path ran for miles under bridges, past joggers and dog walkers and a man selling coffee from a bicycle cart.
He bought a cup and did not drink it.
He sat on a bench facing the water, and the morning went by.
His phone buzzed twice against his leg.
He did not look at it.
He thought about a girl in a gray sweater who had never looked up from her book.
He thought about the first time he had found the thermos, in his second August, and how he had stood on that roof at twenty-two and decided that whoever had left it was the kindest person in the building.
He had been right.
It was the worst thing about it.
Someone sat down at the other end of the bench.
Joan Tolbert had walked three miles in her work boots, and she set a paper bag between them without saying a word.
There was a breakfast sandwich in it, still warm.
"You found me," Nolan said.
"You're six foot two and you've been on this bench since nine. It wasn't hard."
He took the sandwich.
He hadn't known he was hungry.
They ate and watched a barge slide under the far bridge.
"I'm not going to defend her," Joan said at last. "She should have told you. I told her that every year for five years."
"Then why did you do it?"
"Because the first August, she came up to the night desk at midnight with her hands shaking. Twenty years old. She said, I need you to do something and I need you never to tell anyone." Joan wiped her fingers on a napkin. "She'd made cocoa from a packet in the break room. She wanted a warm thing on that roof for the one person she'd decided wasn't going to leave."
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