AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Kate
I had finally been giventhe all-clear to slowly start speaking again, though most of my meals were still coming from a straw.
And I was also disconnected from my catheter. That was a win, though the trips to the bathroom were painful, to say the least. I was already being weaned off the heaviest of painkillers, and the agony I was in surprised even me. Although I shouldn’t have been surprised considering the extent of my injuries.
Swiss had had a… spirited argument with the doctors about my painkillers when I’d winced and collapsed into him the first time I’d tried to stand.
I’d shaken my head rapidly, grating out, “Stop, I’m fine.”
But I’d managed to communicate that, despite the pain, I wanted to be off the painkillers. Sure, they numbed things, but they made everything hazy and flat. Made my mind cloudy and unfamiliar. I didn’t like it at all. I wanted to be me, or as close to me as I could be. And I needed the pain. For clarity.
Swiss took a while to understand that, and it was hard to write it on a phone with weak fingers, but I managed.
He was the one who helped me to the bathroom, who stood in the shower with me. He would not hear of a nurse—male or female—doing either.
The first time I’d seen my face, it was with him behind me in the mirror. He’d showered and shaved in the bathroom inside my hospital room. He ate in my room. Slept there. He’d vowed at some point that he would walk out with me.
So very Swiss.
My body had jerked when I met my own eyes in the mirror. I barely looked like myself. The eye with the fractured socket had only just been able to open on its own again, since the swelling had gone down. One of my eyes had very little white, just bright, angry red where a blood vessel had burst in my eyeball. But both of them were black and blue. My cheekbone was the same. The split on my lip had healed, so the skin was scabbed.
It was my neck that was by far the worst. Even counting my midsection that was varying shades of purple with a new scar running down my stomach where they’d opened me up to stop the internal bleeding.
My neck was almost black at this point. It didn’t look real. It didn’t look as if a human could survive whatever had caused the skin to do that. The force it would’ve taken to create those bruises.
But I had survived.
“You let another man mark you. You’ll die with that mark,” Preston spat, dribble trailing down his chin.
His glasses had fallen off at some point, and his eyes were cartoon-like, they were so wide.
I clawed at the hands around my neck, trying to thrash. Something cut into my stomach. Something tore through my insides.
Black spots danced in my vision, my lungs burned. I was going to die. And Preston was going to be the last thing I ever saw.
“I fought him,” I rasped, holding on to Swiss’s espresso gaze so that memory didn’t yank me away.
I could only speak a couple of words at a time and hadn’t attempted full sentences yet. This was the first one I’d uttered since I woke.
Swiss jerked in the mirror, his hands tightening ever so slightly around my waist. But nowhere near as tight as he was capable of. There was none of that. Each of his touches were purposeful, consistent. Either to show tenderness or to help me stand, pee or walk. He hadn’t been afraid to hurt me… before. But now he touched me as if I might break at any moment. Now I was plenty hurt for him, I guessed.
I wondered idly if he would ever touch me that way again. Or if the image of me like this would haunt him. Already, I ached for him to mark me, so that Preston was not the last man who bruised me.
“When it was cl-clear he wa-was…” I cleared my throat and swallowed razor blades. “When it was clear that he was going to kill me, I fought.” My words came out slowly and were barely audible, but Swiss hung on every one.
He was shaking. Shaking with rage. With emotion. Hurt. Guilt. I didn’t know which. Maybe a combination of all.
“I fought,” I repeated. Both for him and for me. “For me,” I croaked. I held his gaze even though parts of me were breaking apart. “For you,” I managed before my voice gave out.
Swiss was still shaking. His eyes were shimmering with tears I’d never seen in his eyes. “I know.” His voice cracked. He laid his lips at the top of my head. “I know,” he repeated against my head. “And I’m gonna thank God every day for that.”
We stood there for a long time, staring at each other, staring at my bruises, staring into the abyss still lingering, close enough to touch. The one where I didn’t fight. The one where I died on the side of the road.
“Let’s get you into the shower,” Swiss said when he’d stopped shaking.
I nodded once, even that benign gesture sending splinters of pain down to my toes. I bit my lip trying to hide that, but of course, Swiss saw it. He was watching for every hitch in my breath, every pinch of my brow. It was as if he were waiting for something to fall from the sky, just so he could push me out of the way, save me from it.
His fingers worked slowly, getting me undressed.
