The Stepbrother I Hate to Love novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Everything

Lenny had left for the chemistry lab at seven, with a sleeping bag and a thermos, to watch a reaction that took all night.

Marsh Hall room 412 was Ansel's alone until morning.

At nine that night Ansel opened the door, and Torin walked in, filling the doorway.

Torin's bandaged hand was swollen, and he had not slept.

Ansel did not make him ask.

He held out his phone with the email from the dean's assistant open on the screen.

Torin read it once.

He scrolled to the photograph, and a muscle jumped along his jaw.

"That's Dane's picture," Torin said.

"Yes."

"I'll be at his door in ten minutes."

"Sit down."

"Ansel."

"Sit down, Torin.

"I have to tell you something first, and you have to let me finish."

Torin looked at him for a long moment and then sat on Lenny's bed, which creaked under him.

He kept both fists on his knees, as if they might leave without him.

Ansel stayed standing, because it was easier to say standing.

"It wasn't one paper.

"It was fourteen, since last January.

"History, sociology, two in economics.

"I wrote all of them in the library after midnight and left them in locker 114."

"Fourteen," Torin said.

"My mother left the old apartment owing back rent.

"Three thousand one hundred dollars, and the landlord kept sending letters.

"She was too proud to tell your father, and she was already worried about the wedding.

"So I paid it, one paper at a time.

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