Page 12 of Deathless
There was noise coming from below, and I leaned over the railing to take a cautious glance. Malik was the only one in the kitchen, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows as he dried dishes with a towel. He sang something under his breath, whistling on occasion. The guy just seemed…content. Happy, even. I wondered if that would change once the fighters and I began unloading our traumatic stories onto him, or if the good doctor stayed cheerful because listening to horror stories just rolled off his back like water off a duck.
I didn’t know which would be worse.
Something must have alerted him to my presence, because he stopped whistling and turned around to look up at me. “Hudson! Good to see you again.” Malik smiled like we were longtime friends who hadn’t seen each other in weeks, rather than strangers who’d met only a few hours ago. “Are you hungry?”
He made no mention of me coming out of my room, which was a relief. I didn’t want to be praised for every little thing like a child.
“Um, I could eat, I guess.”
“Good! The rice just finished cooking.” He pointed to a pot on the stove with a lid that was too big. “There’s vegetables andchicken in the fridge that need to be cooked before they go bad. I figured we could do a simple stir-fry. How does that sound?”
I shrugged. “Works for me.”
“Great! Have a seat. Would you like anything to drink?”
“I’ll just get water from the tap, thanks.” Despite Devin’s constant reassurances that nothing was tampered with, I couldn’t bring myself to accept drinks from just anybody yet. It was just a few days ago that I’d started to feel okay about the food that was made.
Malik was all over the kitchen in a way that was very energetic but also controlled. He wasn’t chaotic in the slightest but actually calming. Whether he was chopping, tossing things in the pan, or stirring up a sauce for the stir-fry, he kept that warm friendliness he exuded when he first came to my door.
It made me feel like I was at my dad’s house years ago. He’d make pancakes for breakfast while I sat at the table, my feet swinging because I was too short to reach the floor. And he’d talk to me about anything and everything while he cooked, just as Malik was now.
“My son is a chef, and he taught me this little trick.” Malik tapped a white powder from a box into his sauce mixing bowl. “A little bit of cornstarch to thicken your sauce and make it richer. Might sound silly if you know what you’re doing in the kitchen, but it was like magic to me! I never learned this.”
“I think my grandma told me something about that. Or it might’ve had to do with baking. I don’t remember.”
Malik smiled broadly at my reply. “Cooking and baking really are art forms in the right hands, aren’t they?”
I dropped into a seat at the table. “Never thought about it that way, but I guess it’s true.”
“Well, I’m no artist, but I can promise a meal that’s edible. Maybe even flavorful.” The doctor returned his attention to thestove. “So, what do you like to do, Hudson? What’s your art form?”
My fingertips tapped together as I thought about how to answer. An honest response would be, Sit in my room, hide from the world and half the population in it. Hate everything and almost everyone.But that was melodramatic, and probably not what the good doctor was looking to hear.
While ruminating on polite responses, it dawned on me how far removed I felt from all that churning, bitter hatred already. It wasn’t even like my imprisonment was long ago, I’d only been freed for two weeks. But today, it felt like I’d shed a layer of that anger, discarded it like a shirt that no longer fit. Something transformative had happened today, and it started when Devin helped me take control of my body back.
Fuck, my mind was wandering back to him again, the sight of him stretched out and panting on my bed. And Malik was still waiting for me to answer his question.
“Um, I don’t know,” I finally said. “I haven’t really pursued any hobbies or anything since they got me out.” I stared at his back facing me. “Youdoknow where I’ve been the last six years, right?”
“I do,” he said lightly. “And I understand it’s been an adjustment since you’ve been rescued. Hopefully I’ll be able to help with that process.”
“So how’s that gonna work?” I placed my elbows on the table and crossed my forearms. “You gonna have me talk about how it felt to raped on a daily schedule, and tell me how it’s important to trust women again?”
“No, Hudson. I’m not going to do that.” Malik brought down a couple of bowls from a cabinet and began scooping rice into them. “You relive your trauma often enough as it is, don’t you think? When you’re about to fall asleep at night. When you’re alone and your thoughts wander. When you’re mindingyour own business, and then you’re suddenly back there with seemingly no trigger. Am I right?”
For a long while, the only sound was the gentle clink and scraping of the pan as Malik poured the stir fry over the rice.
“How’d you know that?” I whispered.
“That’s post-traumatic stress disorder, my friend.” He turned to face me, holding a bowl in each hand. “Your trauma becomes a monkey riding on your back. A body of water that always feels like it’s about to drown you.” Malik set one bowl in front of me and the other across the table. As he turned again to find silverware, he said, “What I’d like to work on with you is making that monkey smaller so it’s not so heavy on you all the time. After a while, maybe we can turn that drowning sensation into a puddle you step in. Inconvenient, but not constantly triggering your fight or flight response.” He sat down across from me and placed a fork next to my bowl. “How do you feel about that, Hudson?”
“That…sounds amazing,” I admitted, and then swallowed. “But honestly, a little far-fetched. I don’t know how this…being on edge all time, I don’t see it diminishing.”
Malik smiled kindly at me as he started to dig into his food. “I’m going to ask you to trust the process. It will take time and parts of it may be uncomfortable, but if you work with me, I promise you will have the tools to put yourself in a better head space than you are now.”
“Okay. I’ll give it a shot.” I picked up my fork, twirling it through my fingers before stabbing some well-sauced veggies. “I just want a normal life again.”
“First thing I want you to think about.” Malik set his fork aside and looked at me squarely. “You already are a complete, whole human being. You always have been. You aremorethan what was done to you.”
