She Stole My Job… And My Nightmare! novel · Chapter 18 of 24

Chapter 18: The First Check

Hallie's POV

On Saturday Maggie set three mugs on the kitchen table and wouldn't tell me why.

"Sit," she said.

"This is my table."

"It's my table. You rent the room."

At noon Elliot rang the buzzer.

He came in a gray sweater and no tie, with a thin leather checkbook in his hand, and held it out in front of him.

Maggie looked at the checkbook and then at me.

"Oh, I'm going to enjoy this," she said.

I had written the first check the night before, at that same table, three times, because my hand kept shaking.

It lay face down beside my mug.

"Sit," I said.

Elliot sat.

"I got the foundation job," I said. "I start Monday. I make ninety-two thousand dollars."

"I'm glad."

"After rent, and after Maggie's share of the groceries, I can put three thousand a month toward the bill."

I slid a sheet of paper across the table.

"That's seventy months. A little under six years. I did the math twice."

He didn't look at the page.

"Hallie. It's paid."

"I know. You paid it. Now I'm paying you."

"I don't want it back."

"I didn't ask what you wanted."

"It was a gift."

"It was a Tuesday," I said, quietly, and his face went still.

"You told me no, and then you paid for my sister's life with the same hand. I couldn't take it, because I would have spent six years feeling that I was yours."

"You wouldn't have been."

"I would have felt it."

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