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“You are finishing it,” he told me as if he had just made up his own part of the assessment.

“No, I’m not, I’m…”

“You’re shaking,” he cut in, and he was right, because I couldn’t seem to get my hands to stay still. So, I started to lower them to my sides when he stopped me, catching both of them at the wrists. And everything in him went hard as he frowned down at my hands.

“Have you taken your insulin today?” he asked and I hated how much it sounded like he cared.

“Yes,” I replied and I knew what was coming next,

“Have you eaten?”

“I…”

“Anna.” This time he said my name as a reprimand.

“I had a candy bar in the car before my shift.”

He was quiet for a second, and in that silence, I felt a great deal of weight to it.

“I see,” he said, and there was nothing pleased about it whatsoever. “And before that? Because a candy bar in a parking lot is not a meal, and you didn’t lose weight and get those shadows under your eyes overnight.” His hands closed tighter around my wrists.

“I will not have you doing this to yourself. Do you understand me?”

“It’s under control,” I argued, despite knowing he was right. I should have been taking better care of myself.

“No. Now you are under my control. So, take a good look at your own hands, little bird, and then tell me again.” I didn’t look at my hands. Instead, I tested the strength with which he held me and tried to pull them away, without success.

“It’s just the stress, it’s not…”

“Is it time for a candy bar?” he cut me off, and I gave him a pointed look in return. I couldn’t help it as it was the exact look I would have given a patient who had asked me for the ninth time in a shift whether he could have his shoelaces back.

He laughed as if delighted by my defiance.

“There she is,” he muttered with that infuriating smirk of his.

“I don’t need a candy bar,” I stated as firmly as I could.

“Are you certain? Because you go a very specific color when you are low on sugar.”

“I am fine. Can we please just get this over with.” Unsurprisingly, he didn’t let go.

He wasn’t hurting me. But then, that was never the point. He just kept his hands exactly where they were until I understood that I wasn’t going anywhere until he was finished with me.

“Tsk tsk, little nurse.” He said it almost fondly, which was worse. “You have fifty-six days to make up for, and I intend to enjoy every single minute of this. Which means we are going to go through this at the pace I set, whether you like it or not.” I closed my eyes tight at this, and he felt the shiver run through me again. Then he let me go and my eyes opened to find him reaching into the pocket of those sweatpants before he held something up between two fingers.

A fun-size bar.

I knew that wrapper the second I saw it. Because it was the same kind I usually bought, and the very same one I had dropped on the floor of an infirmary the second time I ever laid eyes on him.

He remembered.

“How did you even get that?” I asked, shocked, and as usual, he simply shrugged one enormous shoulder.

“You should know by now, little bird, that I have my ways.” I felt like this was the biggest understatement of the year. Then I watched as he peeled the wrapper back with his thumb, unhurried and watching my face the entire time he did it. And then came the order I had been expecting,

“Open.”

I stepped back on instinct but even without his large hands shackling my wrists, still… I didn’t get very far. Not when all he needed to do was lean forward slightly so he could hook an arm around my back. Then he pulled me in against him, almost casually but this time he found a new way to keep me there. He crossed his ankles behind the back of my legs and locked them there. And just like that, I was standing between his knees in a treatment room with nowhere on this earth left to go.