Page 25 of Embers

“It’s okay. It’s gonna be okay. You’re gonna be okay.”

“Everything hurts now.” It does. It feels like needles are sticking into my hands and feet and cheeks.

“I know. It’s just the blood getting going again. I know it hurts, but it’s a good thing.”

“You’re not the one hurting.”

“I know I’m not. I wish I was. It should’ve been me.”

That makes me cry even more. I find the energy to turn around in his arms so I can sob into his chest. He wraps both arms around me tightly and also surrounds me with his bent legs.

Even when I finally stop crying, he doesn’t let me go.

It takes a long time, but eventually I stop shivering and those agonizing prickles of pain go away. Then the only thing that really hurts is my ankle.

When Cal finally starts to pull away, I cling to him shamelessly. I need him. I’m not going to let him go.

“It’s okay, baby. I gotta fix up your ankle. I’m not goin’ anywhere.”

I sniff and settle back down on the bed.

He checks out my injured ankle, moving it around to gauge how bad it is and then binding it up tightly. He makes me swallow some ibuprofen, and then he helps me get out of my damp clothes and into the warm flannel pajamas I’ve been wearing all winter.

I start to object when he goes to the other side of the room, but then I see that he’s changing clothes himself—into the sweats he’s been sleeping in lately.

He finally returns to the bed and climbs in beside me. I scoot against him, and he turns me over toward the fire so he can spoon me from behind.

“You okay?” he asks softly after a couple of minutes.

“Yeah. Better now.”

“I’m sorry you got hurt.”

“It’s just my ankle.”

“No, it isn’t. You almost died, and it was my fault.”

“No, it wasn’t.”

“Yeah, it was.” The warm scent of him fills my senses. He nuzzles the side of my head, and I almost cry again. I never thought I’d feel him like this again. The real Cal. “I’m sorry ’bout everything. I was tryin’ to do what’s best for you, but I did it wrong. I never should’ve pushed you away.”

6

The weather doesn’t improvethe following day, so we have to stay inside yet again.

Cal is different though. Better.

He’s still not talkative or particularly friendly, but he never was. When morning comes, he’s softened just slightly back into the man he was with me last year.

My ankle is still swollen and painful, so he won’t let me walk on it. He waits on me all day, bringing me food and anything else I need. And during the long afternoon, he reads out loud to me.

It’s the best day I’ve had since those men invaded our cabin. When, on the second morning, I wake up to the smell of Cal fixing breakfast for us, I almost cry in relief that he’s back.

Back for real.

The freezing cold days aren’t any fun. I don’t like being cooped up, and I hate having to pee in a pot at night because Cal won’t let me go to the outhouse when the temperature drops to its lowest. But for the next few days, I’m still happier than I’ve been in a really long time.

A few days after I injured my ankle, I wake up in the middle of the night with my teeth chattering. When I sit up and blink in the dark, I realize why. The fire in the woodstove has died down, so it’s not putting out as much heat as it should.

---