Page 138 of Liberating Lily

“It’s all right, baby. Just take a breath for me. One breath. Okay, listen. Place your hand on my chest and breathe with me.” He moved her hand to his chest. “In through the nose, one, two, three, four. Now out, one, two, three, four. Good girl. That’s it. And again.”

Gradually, she started breathing easier.

“I’ve got you, mo bhreáthracht. You’re all right. I have you.”

She shook her head.

He took her hands in his and squeezed them tight. “Just hold on to me. Let’s do that again. In through the nose and out through the mouth. That’s it. Good girl.”

“What did you find out?” she asked. “I know there’s something you’re not telling me, and I can’t stand not knowing anymore. Did you walk away before because whatever it is horrifies you? Is that why you didn’t come back up to the bedroom when you got home? Are you disgusted by me now? Was it something so horrific that you don’t even want to look at me?”

“Oh my God, no. Baby, no.” He sat next to her, and drew her onto his lap, wrapping his arms around her. “There is nothing I could find out that would disgust me. There is nothing that would make me turn away from you.”

“Then how come you can’t look at me? You can barely touch me.”

“I’m so sorry, mo bhreáthracht. I found out something and I don’t want to tell you. I don’t know how to tell you, and I don’t know the full extent of what is going on yet. I thought I’d wait until I knew it all, and until I could figure out the words.”

“I just need to know,” she said to him. “I just need to know what’s going on. I deserve to know. This is my life. It was done to me, and I don’t want to be kept in the dark anymore. Do you know how horrible it is not to know what is going on in your own life? To have missing patches of memory? It’s horrible, and the truth can’t be worse than living like this.”

The way he was staring at her told her that the truth might indeed be worse, and that made her pause. What the hell had he found out?

“Breakfast, then a shower,” he said. “And then we’ll talk.”

“Shower first,” she said. She wasn’t sure that she could actually eat any breakfast. Not with the way her stomach was rioting.

And she could really use a shower. She felt gross.

“I just want to make something clear first, though,” he said, grasping hold of her chin. “There’s no time, any time, day or night, that I do not want to touch you, that I do not want to hug you and kiss you and keep you close. Okay?”

Lily nodded. She wanted the same. She hated any sort of distance between them.

After their showers, which they’d had separately, much to her disappointment, she sat at the island while he made them breakfast.

“One day I’m going to have to learn how to cook.”

“I like cooking for you.”

“You do? But don’t you want me to sometimes cook for you?” she said.

He shrugged. “I like doing things for you. It makes me feel good. You don’t wanna take that away from me, do you, baby?”

“Well, if it makes you feel good, I guess I’ll just have to make the sacrifice of letting you cook for me.”

He set a plate of food in front of her and she stared down at the pancakes with bacon and banana on top of them.

They looked delicious, but she just couldn’t bring herself to eat anything. When she glanced over at him, he seemed to be having the same problem. Whatever he had to tell her was putting him off his appetite, and that made her feel even more stressed.

“Please just tell me,” she said. “The truth surely isn’t worse than what I’m imagining.”

He shot her a look. “I’m not sure. It could be.” He sighed. “Paddy found a video on the doctor’s home computer. We don’t know what other videos there are yet, or what the doctor was doing with them.”

“What was on the video?” she asked.

He turned to face her and she spun so she could look at him. He looked pale and stressed. She’d never seen him like this, and it worried her.

A lot.

“It was you, baby. You were on the video, and you looked like you were out of it, like you had no clue what was going on.”