"Then we need to get you off the floor and out of those clothes." I knew he really didn't feel well because that last remark earned neither an arched eyebrow nor an amused scowl. "Can we do that?"
"Are you here right now?" he asked, those two fingers clinging to my shirt becoming a fist at the small of my back. "Is this actually happening?"
"No, I'm not here," I whispered, pushing his hair off his forehead. "Not yet."
"But,Sara—"
"Shh. Let me put you to bed. Okay? Let me do that. There's nothing else for you to worry about tonight."
There was a second where it seemed like he wanted to push back, wanted to push me away. I knew because I did the same thing. Then, he flattened his hand on my back, saying, "My right eye is a disco ball. I was going to stay put until it resolved."
I stood, held out my hands to him. "I'm not allowing you to go forward with that plan."
He gave me several solid moments of defiance before gaining his feet. With a heavy exhale and a blink that made it clear he had doubts about everything, he slipped his hand into mine.
We made our way toward his bedroom, slower and more unsteady than I'd expected. I helped him out of his clothes, even though he huffed about it, and pulled back the covers on his pristinely made bed.
He pressed a thumb to his temple as he asked, "Are you leaving now?"
I almost laughed at the way those words cracked out of him in a whispered challenge. "Cold or heat?" I asked. "Do either help?"
With his boxers riding low and his hip cocked, an arm banded across his chest, and that thumb still grinding his head, he looked like an angry underwear model. Eventually, he said, "Ice, sometimes."
I pointed to the bed by way of command. "I'll be right back."
In the kitchen, I found a reusable cold packet and a dish towel, and filled a glass with ice water. Though it was dark, I could see enough of the space to realize Sebastian's apartment was ruthlessly clean.Ruthlessly. A place for everything and everything in its place. I could perform surgery here.
He probably hated my apartment. It looked like the inside of my head—a lot of contradictory things happening all at once—and I kind of loved it that way because it was comfortable and made me feel like I could follow whichever rules I wanted. But I liked this too. It was the exact opposite of my home yet there was something freeing about the complete absence of stuff. I could see the walls, the countertops, the floors. Night was too far set in to know for sure but I had to believe the windows would just gush with sunlight in the mornings. There was nowhere to hide here and—maybe this was why I liked it so much—no reason to hide.
I didn't have to be perfect. I didn't have to be good. I didn't have to be anything at all. Nothing more than me and all the mess that came with me.
The prescription bottles loitering in the middle of the countertop were the only sign that life wasn't without its bursts of disorder. I gathered them up and tucked them beside the sink. It was the least I could do.
When I returned to the bedroom, I found Sebastian sprawled on his belly, the blankets pooled at his waist while he pinched his brow between his thumb and forefinger. I set the water down and crawled in beside him, my back against the gray upholstered headboard and my ankles crossed in front of me. I brought the towel-wrapped cold pack to the nape of his neck. "Tell me if this is too cold."
"It's okay," he murmured.
Holding the cold pack in place, I dragged my fingers through his hair and scraped my nails over his scalp. At first, it didn't seem like any of this was helping since the corners of his eyes were still creased, his lips were still pulled tight, and his breathing was quick. I was extremely ready to take my phone into the other room and call my friend Jill, a neurologist I'd lived with during med school. But then his shoulders sagged and a heavy breath shuddered out of him, and he shifted his head to my lap and tangled both arms around my waist.
"Will you keep doing that?" he asked.
"Of course."
I slept sitting up, his head in my lap and my hand numb from holding the cold pack. He didn't notice when I slipped out before dawn. It was better that way. I couldn't explain everything to him now, not yet.
But soon.
Chapter32
Sebastian
I didn't knowwhat day it was. I mean, I could look down at my watch and see the date and time at any moment, but none of it mattered. It was just another day, another stumble through the daylight hours, another long stare into the night. Another round of waiting for Sara to invite herself into my apartment, into my bed, even if she disappeared before dawn the next morning. Another reminder that expectations were stupid and only kicked me in the ass.
I didn't have the luxury of taking a week off to swim around in my misery, seeing as I was fresh off a week away, and it wasn't like time spent suffering on my sofa while surrounded by rotting takeout containers would help matters. And the real upside of surgery was that it extinguished everything else from my mind. I wasn't hungry or tired or sore or broken the fuck apart when I was working a case, and I loved that. I needed that.
I'd thought I was doing a decent job of concealing my hollowed-out existence from anyone who might notice, but Nick Acevedo wanted me to know I was wrong about that. Without asking a single question, the man yanked me up by the scruff and ordered me into running shoes and enough layers that I wouldn't complain about the freezing November wind. Then he forced me to run for eight grueling miles and had the balls to chat about football the whole way. He was content with a one-sided conversation.
For my part, I leaned into the misery. It felt good to feel so awful. It almost came as a relief, as if I finally could pin my emotional aches to something real.
