Making sure I gave him enough time to get dressed, I waited another few minutes before returning.
“Is it alright if I come in?” I asked with a light knock.
“Yes,” came the quiet reply.
He’d changed into the clothes I’d given him. The sleeves of the shirt hung past his elbows, making him look even smaller.
“Here, this will help with the pain and inflammation,” I said, handing him the glass and the ibuprofen.
Taking them, he drank the water in small sips before sinking back into the pillows.
“Let’s try to get some of that swelling down shall we?” I said, wrapping the large ice pack around his abdomen and securing it in place with the Velcro. At the initial chill, he winced before he exhaled, his body softening as the cold began to seep in. Reaching for a smaller pack, I placed it across his cheek and over his eye.
“There,” I said, brushing a strand of hair back from his temple. “I’ll let you rest now, but I’ll check on you throughout the night, and if you need anything in between, you give me a holler. My room is just down the hall, and I’ll keep my door open so I’ll hear. I’ll also have my phone on me if it’s easier to text or call.”
“Wait. Please. Ww . . . would you stay?”
It was a small plea, yet immense. With clearer thoughts he might never have asked, but in this state he did. He extended me trust because solitude scared him more than the company of a stranger, and I had no intention of letting him face the dark alone.
“Course I’ll stay. Lemme just grab a chair,” I said.
After bringing in the rocker chair from my bedroom balcony, and positioning it beside the bed within arm’s reach, I lowered myself into it.
His lips parted as if to speak, but no words followed. A single tear welled in the corner of his eye and fell down his cheek.
I didn’t tell him to stop or shush the shaky breath that followed. Sometimes you had to let the body break, let it crack open and pour out the pain and sorrow it’d been carrying toolong. Loss and hurt had to be lived because sometimes that was the only way the soul made it. I knew that firsthand. So I gave him space to let it out.
As the tremors in his shoulders grew more pronounced, and the silent weeping gave way to broken sobs, I reached out and laid my hand, palm open, on the bed beside him. He reached for it without hesitation, holding on tight.
“I made napkins,” he hiccupped.
“You made napkins?” I asked, not understanding.
“Yeah. I looked up how to fold them into these cute little hearts. I watched the video ten times and kept rewinding it at certain parts to make sure I got it right. I thought it’d be sweet.” His voice dissolved into another heaving sob. “But he didn’t care. He didn’t care! I know what working late does to him so I made dinner. I even walked to the supermarket to pick up fresh rosemary to put in the butter for the potatoes. He likes fancy things like that. The steak was cooked just how he likes it. Seared on the outside, juicy and pink on the inside. And it all... none of it mattered.”
Oliver taking such lengths to show some fucktard how much he cared and getting bruises and pain and violence in return gutted me. My chest burned hot with anger on his behalf. How did you take a person who showed love like that and treat them like trash? I tightened my grip on his hand, the closest thing I could give him to the hug I wanted to wrap him in.
After a few minutes, the sobs started to thin out. His fingers loosened around mine. His body sank deeper into the mattress, the fight finally draining out of him. His breathing slowed and then evened into sleep.
Fingers still laced with his, I watched him. In the stillness, the heartbreak I had hauled around since I was eighteen surged forward. Tears of my own gathered fast. The person before me wasn’t a stranger but the one I’d failed to save, the one who’dnever escaped the brutal fate such violence can bring. Oliver was a mirror held up to my past, a reminder of everything I’d lost and everything I’d never be able to fix.
Chapter 6
Oliver
Iwoke with a jolt, some mixture of a nightmare colliding with reality. The movement awakened the pain in my entire body, and I collapsed back onto the mattress with a gasp, blinking hard as the world swam around me. Careful not to provoke the ache again, I turned, glancing around the room.
Luke slouched in the chair, his body folded into the too-small recliner. One arm hung loose at his side, the other bent and tucked under his chin as a makeshift pillow. By any standard the position looked uncomfortable, but he hadn’t moved. He’d stayed beside me all night. The realization sat heavy on my chest.
Strands of his midnight hair had fallen across his brow, and sleep softened the strong lines of his face, though the faintest furrow still lingered between his brows, a trace of concern that rest hadn’t quite erased.
Luke stirred, eyelids fluttering. Lifting his head, he rubbed the remnants of sleep from his eyes. “Did you sleep okay?” he asked.
Afraid my voice might splinter if I tried to use it, I nodded.
“How are you feeling?”
“Okay.”
