The Daughter They Abandoned Is the Doctor They Can't Reach novel · Chapter 5 of 24

Chapter 5: The Cot

The room above Kroll's Books had a cot, a hot plate and a window that stuck.

It also had a bookshelf of paperbacks Mabel called "the ones I couldn't sell," and a radiator that knocked every four minutes.

"Rules," Mabel said, standing in the doorway with a stack of folded towels.

"Lights out at ten, because I can see the glow from the street. No cooking anything with onions. The cat sleeps where she likes, and you don't take it personally."

I nodded.

"Two hundred dollars a month," she said. "In cash, on the first."

"That's cheap."

"It's what the room's worth. I don't want charity from you and you won't get it from me."

She set the towels on the cot and looked at the two boxes.

"Eat something," she said. "Then sleep. Tomorrow we do the next thing."

She went down the back stairs.

I heated a can of soup on the hot plate and ate it standing at the window.

Below me the street was empty and the shop sign had gone dark.

I took out my notebook and wrote the date, the rent and the cost of the prepaid phone.

At the bottom I wrote: I left in front of them.

It was the first line all week that I was not afraid to read.

At a quarter to midnight somebody knocked on the glass of the back door.

I came down the stairs with the cat behind me.

Faye stood on the step in a thin jacket with a tin of cookies in both hands.

Her nose was red.

She had walked three miles in the cold, and she was holding something under one arm.

"Go home," I said through the door.

"Please."

Mabel's voice came from the top of the stairs.

← Chapter 4 · All chapters · Chapter 6 →

Want to keep talking to characters like these? Chat with AI romance characters: AI Boyfriend · AI Girlfriend · Dark Romance · Fantasy Romance · BL (Boys’ Love) · Billionaire Boyfriend · Mafia Boyfriend · Possessive Boyfriend · Hockey Boyfriend · Older Boyfriend · K-Drama Boyfriend · Anime Boyfriend · Vampire Boyfriend · Werewolf Boyfriend · Demon Boyfriend · Fae Romance · GL (Girls’ Love) · Anime Girlfriend · Goth & Alt Girlfriend · Gamer Girlfriend · Tsundere Girlfriend · Fantasy Girlfriend