Bruises circle my wrists like bracelets, dark purple at the center, fading to yellow at the edges. There are more on my upper arms where I was grabbed too hard too many times, faint marks along my ribs where I was shoved into a counter two weeks ago, a shadow of pain across my shoulder blade where I hit the floor trying to get away.
None of them are fresh, but none of them are healed either, and together they tell a story of all the times I told myself it would get better if I just tried harder to be what he wanted.
I press my palms flat against the counter and close my eyes, breathing through the ache that rises in my chest like water filling a space I thought I'd sealed off. I want to cry, to scream, to scrub my skin raw until every mark is gone and I can forget how they got there.
I turn on the shower and step under water hot enough to sting, and I let it wash over me until my skin turns pink and the cold finally starts to leave my bones.
When I finally emerge, wrapped in a towel that smells clean and faintly like laundry detergent, I find clothes folded neatly on theclosed toilet lid. Morgan must have brought them while I was in the shower.
I pull the clothes on slowly. The flannel stretches across my chest, pulling taut over my breasts in a way that makes me hyperaware of my body, and the sweatpants sit low on my hips, clinging to my thighs and the curve of my ass instead of hanging loose the way oversized clothes usually do.
When I open the door, Morgan is waiting in the living room, standing near the fire with his back to me, and he looks up when I enter. His gaze moves over me once before settling back on my face.
"Feel better?" he asks.
"A little," I admit, because it's true even if I'm not sure better is the right word for what I'm feeling.
He gestures to the couch. "Sit. Let me see your wrists."
I hesitate, something in me still braced for the moment when kindness turns into something else, but Morgan just waits with the patience of someone who has time and isn't going to push.
"I won't hurt you," he says quietly, his voice steady and sure. "But those need attention."
I sit, and he kneels in front of me with the first aid kit open on the coffee table, reaching for my hand with a deliberateness that gives me time to pull back if I need to.
"I'm going to touch you now," he says, his voice low and measured. "Just to look. Tell me if it's too much."
I nod, and his fingers close around my wrist, gentle as a prayer. He turns my arm slowly, examining the bruises in the firelight,and his jaw is tight, a muscle ticking near his temple, but his touch stays soft.
"He did this," Morgan says, and it's not a question.
"Yes."
"How long?"
"A few months," I whisper, the words scraping out of me like gravel. "It got worse. I tried to leave twice before. He found me both times."
Morgan's hands are still for just a moment, and when he looks up at me his eyes are dark and burning with something that should terrify me but doesn't because I know it's not aimed at me.
"He won't find you here," Morgan says, and his voice drops into something hard and absolute, something that sounds like a promise carved in stone.
"You can't know that," I say, because hope feels too dangerous and I've learned not to trust it.
"Yes," Morgan says, holding my gaze. "I can."
He returns his attention to my wrists, applying ointment with careful strokes and wrapping them loosely in gauze, working in silence while I watch his face.
"Why are you helping me?" I ask suddenly, the question spilling out before I can stop it.
He doesn't answer right away. He finishes bandaging my second wrist, tapes it gently, and sits back on his heels before meeting my eyes again.
"Because you need it," he says finally, his voice quiet but certain. "And because no one should have to run alone."
Morgan stands and moves to the kitchen, returning with fresh tea that he sets in my hands before sitting across from me again.
"You should sleep," he says. "Upstairs, downstairs, wherever you feel safest. I'll be down here."
"You're staying awake?" I ask.
