Page 25 of Break the Ice
“Can I?” I hover my hands over hers. “Can I help?”
Tears streak silent down her cheeks. She nods. “They’re stuck to my skin.”
“Okay. Sit back down.” I anchor my hands gently at her waist and help her lower. “I’ll be right back.”
In the bathroom I soak clean washcloths in lukewarm water, grab the first-aid kit, scissors, wipes, ointment, gauze, wraps.
She’s rigid when I return, fingers denting the duvet. Her eyes jump to the scissors.
“Where is the fabric stuck?” I crouch again. She points, and I lay the warm cloths where she indicates, cutting along the outer seam. “We’ll get you new clothes and everything you need. Your bathroom has basics—brush, paste, the rest. I stocked it, but I’m sure I missed things.”
“When did you do all of that?” she asks through a hiss as I ease the fabric free.
How has shewalkedin this? Lashes crosshatching her thighs—raw, weeping, angry.
“How did you do it all so fast?”
A different heat flushes my face. “I did it when I bought this place.”
“You’ve been waiting for me.” Her eyes light, and the vise on my ribs loosens.
I nod and finish the other side in careful silence—peel, pause, breathe, peel. She exhales in short bursts, knuckles whitening in the bedding.
When the pants are gone, I work ointment over the wounds, hands steady even as my mind reels. I know the answer to the question before I ask it. I’ve felt the leather kiss bone. I can still feel the ghost of it on my feet.
“Who did it?” I place gauze, smooth it gently. “Can you stand? The back needs cleaning up too.”
She rises slowly, turns away. I kneel again and clean what I can see—lighter lashes up the curve of her hips, across the small of her back, along her sides, fainter below the knees.
“I can’t believe you still make that ointment,” she says, dodging the question. “Surely there are better remedies out here than coconut oil and turmeric?”
“It worked perfectly when you made it for me.” When my grandmother split my feet open so my sin would bleed out. When the strap sang and the world went white.
“I kept that home remedies book after my grandma died,” she murmurs. “That’s where I got the recipe for the bruise ointment, too.”
“You didn’t answer my question.” I wrap a bandage around each thigh.
Her eyes shine. “You already know the answer, and I’m not speaking it so you can add it to your conscience.” Her fingers slide into the front of my hair, gentle. “I like this. Better than the short hair you used to keep.”
“I think so too.” I tape the ends and sit back on my heels. She keeps fussing with my hair like it soothes her. It soothes me.
“It really isn’t your fault, Elijah. I should have left when you asked me. My grandma told me that every day until she passed.”
“She needed you.”
“It got so bad so fast. She couldn’t get out of bed even with the oxygen tank to help her breathe.”
“I’m sorry,” I say, standing to pull her into me.
Maybe a hug won’t be enough later. Right now, it’s everything.
The week goesby in a blur of constant anxiety. Finley’s injuries are looking better, not enough that I can sit next to her on the couch without wanting to hunt Presley down and making sure he never hurts her again.
Every fucking hole.
That’s the one sentence I can’t get out of my mind. It’s fucking with me the same way the night he made that promise has ruined me for years.
A chill shudders through me as I focus on the burn from this morning’s five-mile run as I head back to the apartment. It’s still going strong as my phone starts ringing. With the bag of art supplies I picked up to surprise Finley with in one hand, it takes me a moment to pull it out of the armband.
