by Natasha Boyd
The bone-jarring shivering had stopped, thank goodness, but I still hurt. Especially when I tried to move my eyes, which seemed to be immobile and bolted securely into the back of my skull.
Wincing, I eased a leg out from under the covers into the blessedly cool air and tried to shift onto my side so I might make out the figure I was sure was next to me.
God, I was so weak. And thirsty, wow. How long had I been in bed? Mid shift, I became aware that a heavy arm was draped across me. I froze and swallowed, my parched throat sticking closed. Jerking, I heaved the arm away, and the body shifted in the shadows.
“Sorry,” it mumbled, and my chest relaxed.
“Tom?” I rasped.
“Mmmm.”
He was still here? I peeled my sticky throat open through another swallow and forced out a whisper. “I—I need water.”
His shadow sat up, dragging a hand down his face. He inhaled noisily like he’d been in a deep sleep. His body swung to the side of the bed. “I gotta turn on the lights, okay?” he said quietly. “They’re on dim, but you might want to close your eyes.”
I did. My head still ached, but now it felt more to do with being thirsty than the kind of rusty-spoon-gouging-into-brain-matter feeling I’d awoken to before. I listened to the rustle of him moving about the room and coming to my side of the bed.
“Okay,” he said. “Do you think you can lift up your head?”
Keeping my eyes closed, I pulled the covers from my face.
“Never mind. I’ve got it.” A rough hand slid under my neck and eased my head up. Cool glass touched my lips, and I let the sweet water soothe my dry mouth and throat. I wrapped a hand around the thick wrist that held the glass and greedily swallowed more, protesting as he eased it away.
“You’ll choke. Take it slow.”
I lay my head back down and blinked my eyes open.
Tom blurred in and out of focus before stabilizing. What I could see of his face was drawn and tired. His caramel eyes were bloodshot. His hair was in wild disarray, looking more like a lion’s mane than ever. I smiled, or tried to, wincing as my lips cracked. “Ow,” I whispered, squeezing his strong wrist where I still held him, his pulse thrumming beneath my fingers.
He pulled back gently, and I closed my eyes and held onto him. “Let go,” he said, his voice soft. Amused. “I’ll be right back.”
Reluctantly, I relaxed my hand and he pulled away. A few minutes later, he pressed a rough, warm palm to my face, cupping my cheek. I opened my eyes in alarm.
“It’s just lip balm, okay?” His thumb slid along my lower lip back and forth. I nodded once, my heart thudding, and he moved to my top lip, massaging the ointment into the cracked skin until it was smooth and soft, pliant beneath his strokes. I watched his eyes as they tracked the movement of his finger. Then he blinked and pulled his hand away, as if he only suddenly realized he was touching my lips.
My throat felt dry again. “Thank you,” I whispered. “For being here.”
He looked up briefly and nodded before busying himself with the tube of lip blam and clearing his throat. “How are you feeling?”
“Better after some water, thank you.”
“Good. You’ve been out of it for a while. A few days. If you hadn’t woken and asked for water by morning, we were going to have to get a drip.”
“We?”
“The doctor. Dr. Butler. He was on the island for a wedding, thank God.”
“I don’t remember.”
“I don’t doubt it, you were pretty delirious. You have the flu.”
The flu? I’d been out of it for days?
He laid the lip balm next to the water. Seeing me eye the glass, he brought it back to me for another sip. Water had never tasted so good.
“I should let you rest now that your fever has broken,” he said and moved toward the door.
“Tom?” My voice cracked.
“Yeah? Oh, sorry, I need to turn off the light.” He headed toward the bedside light he’d turned on when I’d first woken him.
“Will you stay in here? Like you were?”
He stopped midstride.
I looked away, lest he see how much I needed him to say yes. I focused on the patterns of faded florals decorating the comforter.
“Uh, sure,” he said finally.
“Thanks,” I mumbled and sank into my pillow, squeezing my eyes shut.
The red behind my lids went black as the light clicked off and the bed shifted under Tom’s weight. I inhaled his smell of salt and weathered wood.
“No problem.”
“You were right. I do sleep better when you’re around,” I admitted quietly. The darkness made it easier to speak.
“It’s fine… good night.”
We lay in the dark, and I listened to his breathing, waiting for it to even out. I’m not sure if I thought he’d leave as soon as I was sleeping, but I wanted him to sleep first. I thought about what I might be really afraid of. Why did I feel so comforted having this man, who’d been a relative stranger to me just a few weeks ago, close to me?
I should feel threatened by him, shouldn’t I? I mean… he was a man. Men had urges. Needs. Needs that made them act like animals. Needs that controlled them. Right?
For me, the things I did had only ever been a mechanical necessity. A curiosity. A way to control someone or something. A situation.
Did Abby enjoy sex? Had she had it with Tom? With Whit?
I SLEPT MOST of the next day, and Tom checked on me frequently, giving me water and some chicken broth when I finally felt hungry.
He walked me to the bathroom, his arm wrapped almost completely around my waist, and I got the feeling he just wanted to pick me up and carry me there. It made me feel tiny and protected. My mind was too groggy and tired to think on it much. But I knew I’d think back and be embarrassed.
When the light beyond the thin curtains began to fade, I wondered how to ask him to stay again. When I woke late in the night in the dark, I felt him next to me.
“Tom?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Do you see her sometimes? Do you see Abby?” I desperately wanted to know if it was all in my mind, or if somehow Abby was imprinted here in this cottage, and that’s why I kept seeing her. Her ghost? I’d never believed in stuff like that, but I couldn’t deny that it felt like Abby was with me all the time, trying to tell me something. Or my subconscious was. Or my meds were making me crazy. Speaking of meds, I hadn’t had mine for days.
“See her?” He let out a long, slow breath.
I waited.
“You remind me of her sometimes, despite your hair. But no. No, I don’t see her in you. I just see you.”
God, that wasn’t what I’d meant at all. But I stayed silent, absorbing his words. Somehow he’d answered a question I hadn’t even realized I needed answered. And the way he answered it made my stomach clench. He’d just offered me something I’d been craving in the deepest parts of me… I wanted to be seen. I didn’t want to just be Abby’s little sister to anyone. And especially not to Tom. But who did I want to be? And what did I want to be to Tom?
AS WE LAY there in the dark, the silence wasn’t remotely relaxing or conducive to sleep. It seemed heavy. Laden. Pregnant. Tense. A weird energy pulsed between us. Pulsed deep inside me. Like a low-grade buzz in my belly, making me restless.
Shifting onto my side away from him, I closed my eyes. As I lay there, I suddenly realized something monumentally confusing that filled me with utter shock. Something I knew but had refused to acknowledge.
I was attracted to Tom.
Completely.
On a visceral and bone-deep level.
This was no longer a curiosity or reacting to him just because he was a male. This wasn’t about the way I admired him, depended on him, felt safe with him. And I had no idea what he even looked like really, if he was good-looking or nerdy. He was strong; his body was beautiful. I’d basically ogled it out the kitchen window the other day. Etched, define
d and tanned, the kind of body I’d cut out of magazines and Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs once upon a time and pasted into my journal.
But had I been attracted to him back then? I didn’t think I had. Maybe it was his gentleness with me, or the way I saw him struggle to be even keeled even though I was a bitch on a daily basis. Maybe it was his writing? The way I felt like I had a sneak peek into his soul. Perhaps it was his shock and disappointment at hearing me talk and act so casually about sex and act like some fucked up Lolita, which for the first time in my life actually made me feel ashamed.
It hurt him for some reason. And, I realized, that hurt me.
But seeing him crack the other day and go ape-shit with the ax had done something to me that I couldn’t explain. I’d never known a man capable of that kind of raw emotion. I was realizing now that it may have cracked something in me.
I just didn’t know what to do with this new information. I’d felt defensive and antagonistic toward him, and now I was feeling weirdly tender. No, it wasn’t tenderness alone. Perhaps after everything, it turned out I could actually feel something sexual for someone. Unfortunately, that someone turned out to be older. Way older. Someone who was sort of looking after my sorry ass.
Christ, did I have daddy issues or what?
And shit. Now I needed to pee, again.
I already knew I was still too weak to get there on my own. And now the thought of his hands wrapped around my waist, made my breath stop. The humiliations just kept coming.
I GAINED STRENGTH over the next few days, and Tom left one morning for Savannah but was back before that night. Unfortunately, I missed my Tuesday workday, and again on Wednesday.
“It’s a bad idea. You’re not up to it yet,” Tom had informed me on that Tuesday.
I disagreed. and even felt like I should walk to get some exercise.
I made it about three minutes down the road before I sat on a fallen pine, exhausted. Tom rode up thirty seconds later, having predicted my demise. “Well, you certainly are consistent in your stubbornness.” He laughed.
I gave him the finger and rolled my eyes as I climbed into the cart, which just made him laugh more.
Something had shifted in me since my realization. I wasn’t sure how to act around him anymore. I’d started off switching between barely speaking to him and trying to goad him. Now, I agonized over every word I said. Though my childishness seeped out every now and again, I strived to sound smart, intelligent… older. Which resulted in me clamming up. If he noticed I’d suddenly become wooden around him, he didn’t say anything.
“I have something for you,” Tom said when we got back to the cottage. He shut off the engine and came around to my side, offering me a hand to help me out. I took it, reveling in the sensation of my hand feeling tiny in his large, rough one. He didn’t let go until we got to the front door, and I ached when he did.
“Call Marjoe first and let her know.” He nodded to the phone in the hall.
Marjoe knew about the flu and hadn’t been expecting me anyway. I hung up with a promise to come in as soon as I could. The thing was, I was desperate to work and do something. More desperate than ever to get myself together. Not be a burden to Tom.
I walked back out to the kitchen area. Tom was sitting on the other side of the table, arms folded. Sitting in front of him, in the middle of the table, was a smartphone. With a tilt of his head, he indicated I should sit down.
I sat. “You got me a phone?” I wasn’t sure what to think. It was an extravagant gift, first of all. But I was also confused as to his motives. “Thank you.”
“It’s not just a phone.”
“Yeah, I know. It’s a smart phone, access to the Internet, et cetera, et cetera.” The idea that I could have a link to the outside world terrified me all of a sudden. I didn’t want anyone piercing this bubble I’d built out here on the island with my lonely lion guy. I’d almost broken it the other night with the stupid Tyler stunt. Not only did I not want to break this bubble, but I didn’t want to even peek out of it. I realized that made me borderline agoraphobic in a way, but I didn’t care.
“Actually, there’s fairly limited data access out here, so no. That’s not what it’s for.” He brought his hands up to his face, rubbing them over his eyes.
I frowned. “I don’t understand.”
He exhaled and sat up straighter. “Just hear me out, okay?”
“This is sounding less and less like a gift, you know,” I mused.
“I know. Sorry. Look, the thing is, when you were sick and Dr. Butler was here, I asked him about your anxiety and your panic attacks.”
My heart hammered in a weird dance of betrayal. He’d been discussing me? While I was incapable of being a part of the conversation? I was so shocked, I couldn’t react right away.
“Well, I told him which medications you were taking, and obviously I didn’t know the history of why or when you started taking them and how often. I didn’t want to tell him some of them might not have been prescribed—”
“You had no right,” I finally choked out. How dare he? I pushed back from the table, my anger leaking out of my eyes in the form of tears.
“I’m sorry, Liv, but—”
“Don’t call me that! That’s Abby’s name for me, not yours. Only people I trust can call me that.”
He flinched and sat back, but I barely gave it a thought.
“I can’t believe you’d speak to a doctor about me, it’s not your right. You have no right,” I repeated. Part of me knew he’d done it out of care and concern, but it didn’t make up for the fact that this was my problem. Mine. It was my battle to fight.
“Please, Olivia.” Ugh, I hated that. No, please keep calling me Liv. “If I thought you’d take the suggestion, I would have asked you to do it and not done it without your permission. But I also didn’t plan on it, okay?” He raked his fingers through his hair. “First of all, I thought you’d been fucking drugged. And I’ll never be completely convinced that wasn’t part of it. Plus, you went days without taking any of your meds, and I needed to know what to do. He was here, and I was scared shitless I was doing something wrong or not doing something I should be. For all I knew, you were slipping into a coma, which was not outside the realm of possibility given how out of it you were,” he finished, chest heaving.
I stared at him and saw in a clear and unguarded moment deep in his eyes, now locked to mine, how legitimately scared he’d been. I hadn’t truly thought about it from his perspective. Come to think of it, I hadn’t taken much medication in the days leading up to getting ill either. I’d been trying to space them out and make them last longer, and it occurred to me that perhaps my attacks were lessening. Not my nighttime ones, but my everyday anxiety that could sometimes be tripped by a simple feeling of nervousness or unease. A prime example was the night I’d been with Tyler. Everything about that situation should have set me off, and perhaps it would have manifested later, but Tom had showed up, and I’d thankfully never know.
“So what did Dr. Butler say?” I asked, surprising him with my abrupt change of attitude.
Tom sat back. “Well, like I said, without knowing your medical history, he did happen to mention that, in some people, use of psychiatric medication to relieve a certain symptom can sometimes have the effect of worsening it. Especially with anxiety and depression medication, doses can be very important as well as the age and chemical makeup of the person taking it. So, I’m just throwing this out there because I am in no way telling you your anxiety isn’t real and based on real stuff—”
“It sure does sound like it,” I snapped, my initial forgiving mood eclipsed by the need to defend my condition. “You sound like my damn parents. You are not responsible for me, Tom.”
“You’re the one who showed up on my fucking doorstep and made me responsible. And if your parents knew this was a problem, why didn’t they try to get it altered?”
I barked out a laugh. “Because getting me medicated was the primary objective. Once tha
t had been accomplished, why on earth would they spend time and money asking a shrink to tinker with the doses? If I freaked out, I got more meds. That was it. My parents were happy because they got to feel like they’d done something about their problem, the shrink was happy to write another scrip, and I was happy to have an arsenal of medications to drown out the world around me.”
He stayed quiet as my outburst ricocheted around the small cottage. I’d never really articulated my feelings about what my parents had done, but I realized this was exactly how I felt.
God, the kitchen clock with its ticking was driving me crazy. How did he stand it? I got up and walked over to the bookshelf, pulling out the book of fairy tales absently, then sliding it back in with my index finger. “And by the way, it’s my doorstep.”
“How old were you when you first starting taking medication?” he asked quietly, ignoring my childishness.
“Fourteen.”
“Why?”
I knew the questions were coming, and I felt too weak to put up my defenses. “Because I started having panic attacks and night terrors.”
He exhaled slowly. “Do you know why you started having panic attacks and night terrors?”
He was asking the wrong questions. I suddenly, desperately wanted to talk to him, to tell him, but I didn’t know how. Not unless he asked me the right questions.
“Stop trying to be my therapist.” My tone was biting. I paused and looked over to where he sat hunched over the table, so weary, so… concerned. “And stop making me feel like your pity project.”
“I’m not. You’re not,” he said, blithely spinning the phone around on the table with a finger. “I’m just facing our obvious predicament that, firstly, we aren’t sure you’re taking the right stuff in the right amounts and secondly, you’re going to run out of it soon if you haven’t already.”
“No shit. So what’s the phone got to do with anything?”