Now I Watch Her Love Him novel · Chapter 19 of 24

Chapter 19: Yes

Hannah's POV

The first thing I saw on Saturday was the left armrest.

Jonas had asked me to meet him at the bench at nine, and I came down the gravel with my hands in my pockets.

The oak on that side was the color of honey, and it smelled of fresh oil.

"You did this?" I said.

"Dylan did," Jonas said. "I only held the can."

I sat down on the new wood and ran my palm along it.

I had not planned to feel anything.

I felt my throat go tight, and I felt it so clearly that I was frightened.

"I need to say something before you ask me what you came to ask," I said.

"All right."

"At the mediation, when he gave me everything, a part of me went soft."

I kept my eyes on the plate.

"I wanted to say don't. I wanted to say thank you, and I wanted to touch his face."

Jonas sat down beside me, close, and said nothing.

"I'm afraid it means I'd go back. That if he stood in my doorway one more time, I'd forget the nine calls."

"Would you?"

"No." I knew it as I said it. "I'd forgive him, and I'd still not be coming back."

"Can you do both?"

"I think that's the only way I can forgive him at all."

He nodded slowly.

"Then that's what it is," he said. "You don't have to pick between being kind and being gone."

I turned to look at him.

He took something out of his coat pocket, and it was small and pale, and he held it flat on his palm.

It was a ring.

It was cut from a single curl of oak, sanded smooth, with a groove inside and no stone.

"It's the offcut from the bench," he said. "The piece I took off the back rail."

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