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Maybe I don’t know him at all.

Matteo holds his position. "Is there anyone else here?" he asks.

I shake my head. Barely. I can only move a little. I can’t begin to consider what I need to do to salvage this situation.

My thoughts aren’t moving anymore.

“I’ll be fast. I promise,” he says.

Matteo searches the house, but I can’t say if it takes five minutes or two hours.

Only that the sky stays pale blue.

When he returns to the room, he drops to his knees and cuts the ties around my ankles. He checks Yorgos’s pocket for the key then he undoes that too.

"Since when do you shoot first and ask questions later?" I ask.

He gives me a funny look. "He had a gun to your head."

"It wasn’t even pointed at me anymore." I just barely get the words out. Time feels strange. Fast and slow at once.

"That seems like an important distinction under the circumstances," he says in a wry tone.

I’m almost too tired to recognize it as sarcasm. He does have that dry British wit.

It’s funny.

But I don’t laugh.

Which is funny in its own way.

He rubs my sore wrist. “Jamie, baby, are you okay?”

There’s something familiar about his tone. From when we were together. Care.

I let him give me care a few times. Not often. I never wanted to be too much. But I wanted him to feel needed too.

So I pretended I was sicker than I was when I had a cold. Or sadder than I was when a play wasn’t produced.

He was always so sweet.

So tender.

That side of him I haven’t seen in four years.

The side of him I never thought I’d see again.

Or am I back there? Am I off again? I can’t freeze like I did last time.

I—

Fuck.

I close my eyes. I feel the ground under my feet. “I’m here.” It’s all I can think to say.

“Can you stand up for me?”

I try. My body doesn’t move. "I’m not sure.”