Chapter 8
Turo
I wakebefore the light changes. Not because I’m rested. Because my body doesn’t trust quiet.
The hotel room is dark in that expensive way. Blackout curtains, thick carpet, silence engineered to feel like safety. The air smells faintly of citrus cleaner and last night’s heat. Somewhere below us, a city moves on schedule. Cars. Delivery trucks. People who believe morning is guaranteed.
Beside me, she is asleep. I don’t move right away. I let myself register it. Her breathing, the slow rhythm of it uneven enough to tell me her dreams aren’t kind. Even unconscious, she keeps part of herself braced. Her hand is curled near her throat. Her knees tucked in slightly. Containment. Survival, even in rest.
The sheet has slipped down her shoulder. A scar sits there. Small. Round. Old enough that the skin has stopped trying to smooth it over. The shape is too familiar.
Cigarette.
My jaw tightens once. I have to make myself breathe through it.
There are bruises, too. Fading. Yellow-green at the edges. The kind the body tries to erase quickly, like healing is acrime-scene cleanup. Wrist. Upper arm. A shadow along the collarbone.
My gaze doesn’t linger because it doesn’t need to. The details settle into me, quiet and permanent.
I could find him.
The thought arrives calm, almost lazy, like it’s nothing. Like it’s just another resource to access. A lever. A number to dial. I could have his name by breakfast. Address by noon. A photograph by dinner. I could have a man in his building before sunset, waiting. I could peel the world apart and get to the ugly center of it with very little effort.
Power is easy. That’s what people don’t understand. Power isn’t the hard part. It’s not even the work.
The hard part is what you choose not to do with it.
My father never struggled with that choice. He tracked my mother like a hunter tracking an animal that belonged to him. When she ran, he brought her back. When she hid, he tore the house apart until he could drag her into the open. Doors locked. Keys taken. Voices lowered so the neighbors could pretend not to hear.
I remember the sound of her crying through the walls. I remember how quiet he was when he did it. Quiet meant certainty. Quiet meant she wasn’t getting away.
The memory sits behind my eyes like something that never stopped happening. Like time didn’t matter. Like all I have to do is blink and I’m a boy again, listening to a woman disappear behind a locked door.
She shifts beside me, a small movement. Her face turns slightly into the pillow, lashes brushing her cheek. Her mouth is parted. In sleep, she looks younger. Softer. Unarmored. Like she hasn’t had to learn how to disappear inside herself.
It hits me low in my chest. That pull. The same one that showed up on the plane the second her fingers locked aroundmy wrist. The same one that turned into a kiss last night. Slow at first, careful, like we were both waiting for the other to take it back.
And then not careful at all.
I don’t touch her. I don’t smooth the sheet back up. I don’t move closer. I stay still because stillness is the only honest promise I can give her. No pressure. No claim. No trap disguised as tenderness.
My ear itches. The place behind it pulses with that stupid old tension, the gesture my father used to call weakness.
My fingers twitch toward it.
I stop myself before the habit wins.
Stillness isn’t peace. It’s discipline. And discipline is sometimes the only thing standing between a man and the worst version of himself.
I reach for my phone instead. Order coffee. Food. Quietly. Nothing indulgent. Nothing that feels like a performance. Just enough normal to keep her tethered to the morning.
When the knock comes, it’s soft enough not to wake her. I stand before she can wake fully, taking the tray and closing the door without letting the hallway spill into the room too loudly. The aromas hit immediately. Coffee, warm bread, butter. Ordinary things. They shouldn’t matter, but they do.
I set everything on the table near the window. Pour two cups. Keep my body angled away from the bed while I move. A careful choreography. Space. Respect. No suddenness.
She wakes while I’m pouring. I feel it before I see it. The shift in her breathing, the way her body tightens as she comes back into herself. Not waking up like someone who expects comfort. Waking up like someone who expects consequences.
I look over slowly. Her eyes are open, fixed on the ceiling for a second too long, like she’s orienting by sound instead of sight. Then her gaze flicks. Door. Window. Bathroom.
