“It’s okay,” he said, cutting me off. His voice was low and a little ragged. Exhausted and something else I couldn’t quite read. “I like it. I haven’t been touched with any kind of tenderness in…a long time.”
I wanted to say I hadn’t either, because it felt like that. My brother was careful with me, but it was out of his overwhelming sense of duty, not because he wanted to be. But his tender, loving care was painful and unwelcome after all this time.
I wanted tenderness that didn’t come with a side of believing I was glass covered in spiderweb cracks and the softest blow would make me shatter. I didn’t want tenderness that came with the belief that I wasn’t strong. To have it given because the person believed it was the only way to handle me.
I took a breath and looked him in the eye. He blinked slowly, his pupils wide, his cheeks slightly pink. Then he leaned in a little closer, and I pressed my hands harder against the sides of his neck. Touching him felt so fucking good. Emotions were rising in me I’d hoped to keep in check, but I couldn’t.
The universe had gifted me this, and in that moment, I had no idea what to do with it.
“I never thought I’d see you again,” I admitted. “I came here because I hoped to find you, and—god, that sounds so fucking creepy.”
He laughed and leaned into my touch. “Maybe, but I don’t know. I kind of like it. I think about you all the time, you know? I even looked you up once or twice, but I was…” He went quiet.
“What?”
Glancing to the side, he shrugged, and I squeezed down on his shoulders, almost as if I were assuring myself he was real. “I was afraid to find out that everything went the worst way it could go.”
“That I was dead?”
“Well. I figured the internet would have been losing their minds over that one, so no. But no. I was afraid you were, well…” He trailed off again, and I understood why. He didn’t want to say the words because it seemed cruel to people surviving and thriving with less mobility than I had.
But I couldn’t deny I’d felt the same way. I prayed to a god I didn’t believe in every night for just a little bit of strength back. For a little bit of feeling in my legs. A little more movement in my feet.
And bit by bit, those prayers were answered.
“I couldn’t walk for a couple of months, and my doctors weren’t sure that I ever would again. At least not without major assistance. There was a lot of physical therapy and several surgeries to put pins in my spine to help stabilize it. Some days, I feel like I’m more metal than I am bone, but…it worked. About two weeks after the six-month anniversary of the accident, I took my first unassisted steps.”
A smile flittered across his mouth. “I wish I’d been there to see it. Fuck, I…I should have checked up on you. I feel like an asshole for just leaving you there.”
My fingertips trailed down his arms, almost as if they were moving on their own. Propriety told me I should stop myself. Ryan had saved me, yeah, but he was still a stranger. And yet, I watched as my fingers moved lower—lower—until they were twining with his own. His palms were warm, his fingers strong and unmarred, where mine were permanently calloused from years of cutting them on metal strings.
I heard him suck in a breath the moment we were holding hands, and his eyes searched my face. I didn’t know what he was looking for, but after a short forever, he smiled.
Fuck, how could a total stranger make me feel this way? I was a poet—a songwriter—but there were no words for the emotion burning in my chest.
“I wish I’d been able to remember your name, but…” I paused for a beat, trying to figure out what exactly I was trying to say. “I think I’m glad I didn’t see you again until now. I was a mess before all this. I was angry and taking it out on the people I loved.”
“That’s normal,” he said fiercely. “And I hope they understand that.”
“They do. I think.” I bowed my head. “Right after it happened, my ex showed up and tried to fire me from the bandand the label. It…it took everything out of me. I wouldn’t have wanted you to see me that way.”
He was too quiet. Then, “Did you shove a crutch up his asshole? I don’t advocate for anything up there besides sex toys, but I’d make an exception for him.”
I stared, then laughed, leaning into him. “It was tempting. If I ever see him again, I’ll have my cane ready.”
He grinned, then lifted our joined hands and pressed his thumb against the tops of my fingers. “I like your laugh.”
My heart settled. “I like yours.”
He lifted my hand to his lips, grazing something like a kiss over my knuckles, and for a moment, I swore time stopped. I held as still as I could, terrified to shatter the moment. Everything he did was so…unthinking, like he was moving on instinct alone, and I didn’t ever want him to change.
“So,” he said after a heavy silence. “You came here to find me.”
I held in a sigh. “Yes, but I also came here to get away from my suffocating family. My brother’s been…a lot since the accident. I’m mostly walking on my own, but he thinks a stiff breeze is going to shatter my spine. And fuck, even if it did, I could learn to live with it. But the last time I made noise about moving out, he had a full breakdown, and I had to calm him down before he had a damn cardiac event.”
Ryan squeezed my hand. “I’m sorry.”
Turning just a little more toward him, I pulled our hands into my chest, then let him go, pressing his palm to my heart. He stroked fingertips over my T-shirt. “I snuck away. I didn’t tell him I left because I knew he’d try to stop me or—god forbid—follow me. I needed to get some fresh air and prove to myself that I could do this. My sister-in-law is pregnant, and I want him to stop focusing on me and start focusing on his family. I want tobe able to move on without having to center his fear around my health.”
