Page 109 of Say You Will

As I reach for one last piece of wood to add to my already large armload, a splinter lodges itself deep in my thumb, and I hiss at the annoyance of it.

I have things to do and standing here ruminating over my regret changes nothing.

I carry the wood into the cabin, stacking it next to the hearth, then move to the kitchen sink. The splinter is large enough that I should be able to remove it without tweezers, but my fingers slip off the wood when I try, so I use my teeth and yank the fucker out. Blood gushes from my thumb as I spit the splinter into the sink. I turn on the faucet, letting the small wound bleed for a few seconds under the stream of water, then I wrap it in a paper towel to stop the crimson flow.

This is what Franki expects me to do with MPD. She wants me to rip it out of our lives entirely to prove that she’s my priority.

I turn back to face the living room. She’s closed the door to the bedroom against me.

I try to access the numbness I’ve lived with for the last several years, but Franki burned it away, and now every raw, aching nerve inside me is nothing but feeling. I’m filled with layer after layer of emotions. Hurt and regret and, more than any of it, tenderness and love for her, even though she’s infuriating. Strangely enough, there’s relief in the realization. Going back to being that man would mean respite from the pain, but it would also be a return to the hollow void of my life without her.

I tap on her door with a knuckle.

“What do you want?” Her voice is muffled.

“I need a shower. The only bathroom is on the other side of this door,” I say testily. I suppose she’ll tell me to bathe in the sink or the panic room. It’s her cabin, after all. She can tell me to sleep on the porch, and I’ll do it.

“The door’s not locked.”

When I try the knob, it turns easily under my hand. Franki is lying in bed with her hair piled in a sloppy bun and glasses perched on her nose, a book in her lap. She refuses to look up at me as she waves her hand toward the bathroom door. “Go ahead, before you stink the place up with man sweat.”

I prowl through the bedroom on my way to the bathroom and try to pretend my heart doesn’t feel as though it’s been stabbed, then set on fire. I shower, washing away the grime andman sweat, and work through a different plan. Controlling MPD is no longer my goal. I no longer even want it. It’s nothing but a reminder of how I’ve hurt Franki.

I return to the bedroom, a towel wrapped around my waist to find Franki standing at the dresser and sorting through one of her cases. I join her, opening a drawer and removing a pair of boxer briefs, pajama bottoms, a T-shirt, and a cardigan sweater.It’s sheer habit to strap on my ankle holster. I won’t remove it until I’m ready to climb into bed for the night.

Franki is silent beside me as she pulls out a tiny cardboard box with a prescription label on it, a Band-Aid, two alcohol wipes, and a syringe shrink-wrapped in plastic. She lays the items out on the bedside stand, then goes into the bathroom to wash her hands. When she returns, I’ve dressed and torn open the box and syringe packaging. She freezes at the sight of me, then shakes her head. “I can do it.”

“I know you can. You’ve been doing it for months by yourself, but you don’t have to because you have me now.” I hadn’t realized she’d done it last week until it was over. She never even considered asking for my help.

She shakes her head in one brief jerk, then appears to reconsider and gives a stiff nod. “I’m not cutting off my nose to spite my face. Tonight would have been rough. Go wash your hands, please.”

I do, despite the fact that I’ve recently showered. I use a clean hand towel from the linen closet to dry off and return to find her reclining on the left side of the bed.

After I read the prescription, I confirm the number of cc’s with her. She tells me, then starts to give me directions, but stops when she sees me swipe the alcohol wipe over the top of the bottle unbidden and begin the process.

“How do you know how to do this?”

“Training.”

“You’ve given injections before?”

She has no idea. “Yes. Usually under far more harrowing circumstances than this. You’re not even bleeding, love, and you’re entirely conscious. You’ll have to start screaming and frothing at the mouth if you want to rattle me. At the very least, we need a good explosion or two going off around us.”

Her eyes go wide, then they narrow. “I’ll skip the screaming, thanks. Maybe next time we can arrange for some fireworks.”

She doesn’t seem to realize what she said.“Next time.”As in, we’ll be doing this again. She’s not leaving me, whether she’s ready to admit it yet or not.

She shimmies her fleece pants down her legs. “It’s the left thigh this week.”

I swab the area with another alcohol wipe and wait for it to dry, sneaking a look up at her as I do. Her knuckles are red and swollen tonight, so I’m not surprised the injections are a challenge for her. The plunger in the syringe is tight and requires a steady pressure to both fill and depress it.

I squeeze her thigh when the alcohol is dry and gently slide in the needle. Franki doesn’t react to the poke at all, but a few seconds after I’ve withdrawn and applied the bandage, she breathes out through her teeth. “Ouch.”

“It hurts?”

“Not the jab, but the medication, itself, feels like a wasp sting. It’ll settle down in a few minutes.” Franki pulls up her pants and indicates a sharps container she’s set on the dresser.

By the time I turn back after discarding the syringe and cleaning up, she’s sitting cross-legged on top of the covers, watching me with a serious expression.

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