I Left Him by Text, and He Kept Paying for My Father's Care novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: You'd Have Refused

Eli's loft was on the fourth floor of an old brick mill, and I climbed the stairs because I did not trust myself in an elevator with him.

He opened the door before I knocked.

He was in shirtsleeves, with his phone in his hand and a look on his face that said he had been watching the street.

"Willa's okay," he said. "She's staying at Claire's. I called the registrar and paid the spring term myself."

"Of course you did."

"Hannah."

I took his phone out of my coat pocket and set it on the kitchen counter between us.

"It's been recording since this morning," I said. "You have Gordon's threat on it. You also have the train, and the director's office."

He looked at the phone.

He looked at me.

"I heard the ledger," I said. "Twenty-one rows. Your name on every page."

"Let me explain."

"You've had twenty-one months."

He shut the door behind me and stayed against it, between me and the stairs.

"I found out in the spring of last year," Eli said. "I was at Birchwood by lunch."

"And you paid."

"Before I left the building."

"Without asking me."

"You'd have refused."

I laughed, and it was an ugly sound.

"You don't know that."

"I do know that. You turned down a ride in the rain once because I'd already paid for the cab."

"That was a cab."

"It was you."

I walked the length of the counter and back.

"You let me work double shifts," I said. "I sold my grandmother's ring. I lay awake doing the arithmetic on what I owed your father. I thought I belonged to that man."

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