The tremor in my hands spreads up my arms, intomy shoulders, and my teeth chatter despite the warmth of the room. “You don’t understand. You need to leave. Now.”
“No.”
As footsteps approach, my spine stiffens. He stops, giving me space without leaving me alone.
“Saint.” My name comes out as more of a plea, and the sound cuts through the static in my head. Not enough to calm me, but enough to anchor me to the present for now.
I can’t face him, though, can’t let him see the raw terror that reveals the scared boy beneath the violent man.
“You’re not breathing right.” Gabriel takes another step closer. “Try to slow down.”
A harsh laugh escapes me. “Fuck off with that shit.”
The shadows in the room shift as he moves, circling to my side rather than approaching from behind. Smart. He’s giving me a chance to track his movement, to keep him in my peripheral vision.
“Let me turn on a light.”
“No.” The word bursts from me in panic. I can’t let him see me like this, can’t bear the brightness exposing everything I’m trying to hide.
A car passes outside, its headlights sweeping across the wall and catching on the tight lines at Gabriel’s brow, the locked jaw, and the mouth set with stubborn resolve. The light flashes over the photo in my hand, too, gleaming off the glossy paper. I shove it back into the envelope, hiding the proof of who I used to be.
My fingers tremble so hard I almost drop it, and I clutch the envelope over my thundering heart as if I could absorb it into my body and make it disappear.
Gabriel takes another step closer, his expensive cologne curling around me, along with the subtle pheromones his body releases in response to my distress.
“Whatever that is,” he says, gesturing toward the envelope, “whatever’s happening right now, you don’t have to deal with it alone.”
My throat closes, my chest constricting so tight I have to force each breath through narrowed airways. The room tilts. The floor shifts beneath my feet.
“You should go,” I try again. “This isn’t your problem.”
“I’m not leaving,” he says, his jaw jutting out. “Not unless you throw me out. And even then, I’ll just wait outside your door.”
His stubbornness would infuriate me if I had anyemotion left beyond this crushing terror. I don’t move to eject him. I don’t think my trembling legs would support me. If I weren’t already sitting on the couch, I would be on the floor.
Another car passes outside, illuminating Gabriel’s hand reaching toward me again. He doesn’t touch me, though, as his palm hovers inches from my arm, close enough for the heat radiating from his skin to scorch me.
“Saint,” he says, my name a lifeline thrown into churning waters. “Talk to me.”
The envelope crumples further in my grip as my fingers curl into a fist. Inside, the photo of sixteen-year-old me stares back with dead eyes, while the message on the back claws at me, threatening to return me to that hell.
I’ve missed you, Sammy boy.
“I can’t,” I whisper, the admission torn from somewhere deep inside me. “I can’t talk about this.”
“Okay.” Gabriel’s acceptance wraps around me, steadying in a world falling apart. “You don’t have to talk. But I’m staying.”
A muscle in my jaw twitches, my teeth grinding together so hard my skull aches. The pressure builds inside my chest, a silent scream with nowhere to go.
“I don’t want you here,” I say, but the words holdno conviction. The truth betrays me with every shallow breath, every tremor. I don’t want to be alone with this ghost from my past.
My body takes over, standing, steering me down the hall and into the bathroom while my legs barely register the movement. I hit the switch, and the fluorescent fixture explodes to life with a brittle buzz, the light biting straight into my skull.
Blood clings to the creases of my knuckles, rusty brown stains beneath my fingernails giving evidence of the man I killed outside Foundation. Evidence of my past is catching up faster than I can outrun it.
I place the crumpled envelope on the counter and turn the shower knob with a jerky twist. The pipes groan in protest, water sputtering from the showerhead. Steam rises in thin tendrils as I adjust the temperature hotter, then hotter still.
The blood on my hands suddenly becomes unbearable on my skin. I thrust them under the faucet, cranking the hot water until it burns. My movements turn frantic, nails scraping my palms, fingers rubbing raw as I try to erase all evidence of violence.
