With that, he stepped back, closing the door behind him.
I sat there with my wrapped ankle throbbing, my wrists tender under their bandages, my chest still aching with the memory of water and glass and Tobias looking at me like I was something holy in a tank built to keep me.
Then my stomach growled loudly.
I ate because I was hungry, because I needed strength, because refusing food would not unlock the door, and because spite required energy.
Not because Tobias brought it.
Not because he asked.
Not because some terrible part of me remembered the dream and the worship in his eyes and wanted, against all reason, to understand why this was hurting him too.
* * *
By the time I finished in the bathroom, I was in an even worse mood.
Which was impressive, considering where the bar had started.
Tobias had not found a crutch.
Or, apparently, anything“sufficiently stable”to use as a temporary one, because of course he couldn’t just hand me a damn broom and let me hobble ten feet with my dignity barely intact. No, everything had to be assessed, judged, and rejected according to whatever internal Tobias Kelly standard existed for acceptable emergency mobility equipment, which meant that after several minutes of waiting and several more minutes of me refusing—vehemently, repeatedly, with increasing creativity—to use the camping toilet in the corner, the final solution had been Tobias assisting me to the bathroom.
Assisting.
That was the word he used.
As if he hadn’t put one arm around my waist and let me grip his forearm while I limped through the hall with all the elegance of a newborn deer recovering from a bar fight.
I hated that I needed him.
I hated that his arm had been steady.
I hated that he hadn’t said a single thing about the way I leaned on him more heavily than I wanted to whenever my ankle sent a sharp burst of pain up my leg.
Most of all, I hated that he had been careful in exactly the right way. Not too close, not too forceful, not dragging me or rushing me or treating my irritation like something he needed to correct. He had let me set the pace even though every line of his body seemed strained by the desire to simply lift me into his arms and be done with it.
Then we had reached the bathroom, and somehow the situation had managed to get worse.
Because Tobias had handcuffed me for the bathroom trip.
Technically, one wrist was cuffed to a short length of chain connected to his own hand, which he had explained with the kind of awful calm that made me want to bite him, but the distinction did not matter when I was standing outside my office bathroom staring at polished tile.
“I am not going to run,” I had hissed.
“You ran last night.”
“Because there was a body.”
“Yes,” he’d said, like that did not undermine his point at all.
The argument had gone nowhere, and then Tobias had given me two choices in a voice that was far too level for a conversation about my bodily autonomy.
I could pee standing with more of his assistance, since the cuff situation made closing the door impossible unless I wanted him in there with me.
Or I could sit down, and he would remain outside with the door cracked.
I had stared at him for several seconds, waiting for the universe to reveal that it had a hidden camera and a terrible sense of humor.
