I stand in front of it.Listen.
Breathing.Ragged.A wet, shallow sound.And under that, a voice.Barely.
“...please...”
I open the door.
The curtains are drawn.The bed is pushed against the far wall—old iron frame, the kind that doesn’t move easy.And on it—wrists bound to the rails with padded leather cuffs, bruised, dehydrated, one arm cradled against his ribs—is a man.
He’s mid-thirties.Dark hair matted to his forehead.His eyes are open but barely—two slits of bloodshot white tracking me like I’m something he’s not sure is real.
His mouth moves.
“Help.”
One word.Barely audible.But enough.
I stand in the doorway.I don’t move.I don’t reach for my phone.I don’t cross the room.
I look at the restraints.The water glass on the floor, empty.The protein bar wrapper.The ibuprofen bottle on its side.
She’s been feeding him.Medicating him.Keeping him.
The shower turns off.
I hear the curtain slide.The squeak of feet on porcelain.The bathroom door opens and steam rolls into the hallway.
I don’t turn around.
I wait.
24
Marin
The shower is the only place I don’t listen for Charles.
For seven minutes, I am just a woman standing under water that’s never quite hot enough, letting everything else disappear.No moaning.No double-checking restraints.No emails from clients who’ve already replaced me.Just steam and abhorrent water pressure and the brief, merciful illusion that I am someone who has her life together.
I turn the water off and feel it immediately.Something is off.
I wrap the towel around myself.Open the bathroom door.Steam follows me into the hallway like it’s trying to warn me.
The second bedroom door is open.
I left it closed.
My whole body goes cold in a way the shower should have prevented.I walk down the hallway, wet footprints on the hardwood, hair dripping down my back, and I know before I reach the doorway.I know the way you know when a deal has gone sideways—not from what anyone says, but from the specific quality of silence in the room where they’re not saying it.
Luke moves into in the doorway.Arms at his sides.Still.He’s looking at Charles the way I imagine he used to look at scans—clinical.Thorough.Every detail logged and filed before the patient even knows they’ve been read.
He doesn’t turn around when he hears me.He already knows I’m here.
“I can explain,” I say.
The words come out before I can choose better ones.Rookie move.I sound like every client I’ve ever coached through a PR disaster—the ones who lead withI can explainand then can’t.
He turns.Slowly.And looks at me.
