AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I placed the brown bag on the bed, and it fell over, the big M pointing to the ceiling.
“Why have you been crying, my girl?” I brushed a tear away with a gentle thumb. “Don’t let guilt kill you when nothing else was strong enough.”
I shifted her stretched-out legs and sat on the edge of her bed.
“She can eat?” I asked, my hand on her leg while I waited for an answer.
“She can.”
I’d washed and bandaged my hand before returning here. So, I didn’t worry about dirtying the food I’d bought for her when I placed it atop her legs and tore open the bag, pulling out enough food boxes to feed a small army.
Everything smelled so good. It was worth the fourteen autographs I had to sign in order to stop the drive-through staff from squealing when I failed to hide my face.
“Talk, Doc.”
“We did a full checkup, and there are some things that need addressing. I’ll start with the easiest. She’s had stitches in her shoulder, and the area has been cleaned. It was at an unusual angle, and she may need some muscle therapy. She also needs a root canal in her first lower left bicuspid.”
“She hasn’t complained about a toothache.”
“She hasn’t complained about anything, and that tooth won’t cause pain.” Doctor Rodregez pushed up from the chair, moving to stand opposite us in front of white cabinets, where the bright lights bounced off and tried to blind me.
I looked away, back to Cat, who stared in fascination, as I drew back a lid and revealed a tasty-looking burger. My hands continued peeling back lids and opening boxes. She watched, paying close attention to my fingers. Was it my injury, or was she looking for something else beneath the bandage? Definitely not my injury. She could see I had no trouble bending and revealing French fries, more burger buns, and a bunch of things that looked tasty and not healthy.
But she was probably starving.
And fast food was great for those moments.
I bobbed my head, encouraging her to take something, and she did, the measliest crispy-looking French fry that taunted her just because it strayed from the others.
“Keep eating,” I told her, then insisted the doctor tell me more.
“The tooth won’t hurt her. It’s dead. But there is an infection, and it’s quite severe. She also has some minor tearing between the legs, in and around the vagina. I have placed three stitches. They will dissolve, so she will not need to return to take them out.”
Cat didn’t flinch, weary fingers still picking out random fries, but my whole body turned to stone. Stone that rumbled and cracked like a volcano as anger pushed my hot blood through my veins. My blood pressure rose, and I did all the calming exercises I could think of to overpower my obvious fury, only because I didn’t want to give the doc a reason to insist on me staying here longer, and high blood pressure would do that. That, and I didn’t want to frighten Cat.
A deep breath of the rose-scented air crept into my lungs through flared nostrils. I kept my eyes on Rodregez because looking at Cat, and knowing how badly injured she was, would have driven me out the door on a rampage.
Fuck, my blood pressure.
It got harder to fight the urge to leave, and Rodregez noted that, picking up on my tell-tale signs. My fingers curled into fists, my legs twitched to run, and my jaw ticked as I bit down through all the anger I wanted to spit out into the fucking world.
I found Rodregez at the door when my gaze flicked there.
The food Cat picked at, while her rumbling stomach begged her fingers to move faster, pulled my attention back. She was here, safe, and filling her tiny body with energy.
I swallowed and tried to mask the anger coating each word that bounced from my tongue when I said, “Keep eating, my girl.”
There was confusion in her eyes, drowning in the tears of guilt clawing their way back to her waterline.
If I had to guess, I’d say she didn’t understand why I cared about her. Went there for her. Saved her. And I told myself that was all because she had no memory and not because after I’d done all that, I’d disappeared, rushing off to another woman.
Another fry made it into her mouth after she dipped it into ketchup from a sachet I opened for her.
I tried to block the tension from traveling down my limbs when I tucked her hair behind her ear. It was so much frizzier than I remembered it.
“There is severe genital mutilation.”
“What kind of mutilation?” I snapped, almost jumping from the bed.
