Page 233 of Deep Cover

26

Annie

He stood in the doorway, still wearing what he'd worn for our run, a pair of old and worn out shorts, his running shoes. He'd taken off his shirt and his beautiful chest was bare.

The expression on his face in that split second when I looked up and our eyes locked was shock. He wasn't even angry yet. He was processing what he saw, probably determining in that instant whether or not I was in immediate medical danger.

In his eyes, I saw Cole rise up against the dark man who had taken his place in Paris. If I had expected anything, it would have been to get caught when he disciplined me or cleansed me or if he decided that it wasn't up to me and fucked me.

I had never thought of him walking in on me.

The different Coles in his eyes battled it out. He wanted to hurt me far more than I had managed to hurt myself. That's what I expected. That he would punish me if for no other reason than I had dared to act as if this body was mine to control.

His medical training won out. He knelt gracefully at my feet, taking my bloody left foot in both hands and gently turning it outward so he could look at it. Gingerly he pressed the skin around the cut, making fresh runners of blood flow. At a guess, he was making sure the cut was fresh as it looked.

My hands fluttered uselessly in my lap. I wanted to reach out to him but I wasn't sure what I wanted. To stop him from looking at it? I couldn't. To stop the blood?

To hide, really. If I could have gotten away with it I'd have buried my face in my hands. There's something deeply embarrassing about getting caught cutting. It's partly that the person who walks in on it has no frame of reference and no way to understand.

It's partly that it's a completely personal and intimate act. Though why doing something to help my mental health should feel that way, I didn't know. It had always felt silly to me to be caught. Maybe because the person looking at me, no matter who they were, always looked so horrified and I know it's nothing.

Nothing at all.

It doesn't hurt. It totally helps.

And it wouldn't matter if it all went wrong. Because I'm nothing.

Nothing at all.

Kneeling at my feet, Cole cradled the one foot in his hand. I had an urge to pull free of him, as if he meant to wrench the foot right off my body, a kind of You don't deserve this if this is how you're going to treat it thing.

Though if that were true, he'd have to remove my whole body. I've never gotten along that well with the meat puppet. Best we've ever done is an uneasy alliance or a truce.

"Is there rubbing alcohol in this bathroom?"

Cole's voice seemed to come from a long way away. Unfair that it should feel like I was the one going into shock instead of him. Plus the question made me want to giggle. Shouldn't he know what was in his bathrooms?

"In the medicine cabinet." I'd only noticed it because I thought it a strange thing to leave with someone battling addiction. I think it can kill if you lose your mind and drink it. I'd never been tempted. Alcohol wasn't my thing.

He rose as easily as he had knelt and I appreciated his grace as well as the amount of his body I could see.

The world did some kind of folding up flashing thing and then Cole was at my feet again. That was a good trick.

"You have to keep this clean," he said, as if I were a neophyte. As if this were the first time I'd ever cut. "Otherwise you could end up losing your foot."

I know, I said, but it didn't end up coming out aloud.

That was interesting.

"Annie?"

I heard you, Sir.

Oh. That didn't come out either. I put a hand to my mouth. It was closed. Okay.

"Annie!"

Had he already been crouched with my foot in his hands the last time he spoke? He looked terrible. Like he hadn't slept in a month.

"Annie. Stay with me."

And he didn't use the gauze in his hand. He just upended the alcohol over my ankle.

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