I watch, dashing away the tears on my cheeks as he pulls the first aid kit out. He places it on the counter near my hip. It doesn't take him long to open it and then he's standing in front of me. I have nowhere to go.
He's pissed. His eyes on fire. No explanation on his tongue, and when he reaches for my foot, I expect that anger to be transferred. There's no irritation in his touch. His skin is warm and it makes me gasp. He immediately releases my foot and I find that I'm disappointed.
He read my reaction wrong. He saw it as me not wanting him to touch me rather than being surprised that his hands aren't icy cold as I imagine his heart is.
His eyes search mine for a long moment before he takes a step back and holds his hands up. “Get it cleaned up,” he snaps, before leaving the bathroom.
My tears are renewed and I know that I'm being a baby. I know it shouldn't hurt my feelings that I'm expected to tend to my own wound care. I'm not his responsibility in any capacity. I'm simply the girl he took from the beach because I snubbed him at first sight. Maybe this is the further part of his retaliation. Maybe he knows an ounce of closeness is what I crave and he refuses to give it to me.
I swallow down a whimper. The throbbing in my foot is intensifying but I know I can't sit here all night, bleeding on his floor. So I start to rummage through the first aid kit. It's high end and fully stocked. I sort through numerous sizes of bandages before pulling one out I think I can use. There's antiseptic spray and antibiotic cream but that's not what surprises me. There's an entire surgical kit with scalpels, and curved needles, and those weird scissors you only ever see on medical shows on television.
Why would he have a kit like this? A normal first aid kit has tape and bandages and maybe an aspirin or two. I look from the first aid kit to the door leading into the bedroom. Liam is ripping the sheets off the bed, his hands gruff and angry. I'd be surprised if there weren't tears in the fabric when he's done.
It scares me. It makes me wonder when I reenter the bedroom, if he's going to be unsatisfied with just being destructive to the bed. I take my time tending to my wound. Both because it hurts and I'm not a fan of causing myself pain and also because I'm terrified of how things are going to be when I go back into the bedroom.
He doesn't look over his shoulder. He doesn't glance back at me as he pulls fresh sheets from the armoire and remakes the bed. He's grumbling to himself, the same way he was in the kitchen, the same way he did when he left me standing in the middle of the exercise room. He's not speaking loud enough for me to hear him but it's clear it's not words of praise or anything like that.
I close up the first aid kit, biting my lip to stifle the grunt of pain as I jump down from the cabinet. I return the kit to where he had it and clean the droplets of blood off his bathroom floor before washing my hands. I have no idea why I didn't grab the scalpel from the first aid kit. I should be figuring out a way to use it on him.
I shake my head, bile burning my throat as I imagine what it would take to leave all of this behind. Murder. I'd have to kill him, and if I do that in an area of the room not close to the door, I will either have to drag his corpse across the floor or remove his finger to open the lock on the door. I shake my head, rejecting the thought immediately. There's no way I could kill him. But the scary part is realizing that I wouldn't want to.
He's to the point of putting the comforter back on the bed, but when I step up to help he gives me a look that tells me it wouldn't be appreciated. I can't offer to pay for the sheets I've ruined. I have no money. Hell, I have no freedom.
“I'll order some fucking night-lights,” he says, his voice no calmer than it was in the bathroom. “Since you can't manage to walk across the room without hurting yourself.” His words are angry, bordering on violent but there's nothing but concern in his eyes when he looks down at my bandaged foot. There's regret there as if he's the one who hurt me.
I hide a small smile by rolling my lips between my teeth. As his eyes skate up my body, they're not filled with desire or need or want or arousal. He's checking to make sure that everything else on me is okay. It's the first time I think that he's cared, or maybe it’s just the first time I’m catching him do it.
He doesn't walk around to his side of the bed and tell me to go the fuck to sleep like he's done numerous times. He holds back the covers on my side of the bed and it nearly takes my breath away. If this were a different time, or place, if this was a completely different situation, this is what I imagined being a normal loving couple would look like.
I look up to his eyes. “You're not getting soft on me, are you, Liam?”
His own eyes narrow but somehow glare at me at the same time. He doesn't look pleased with my words, but he doesn't say anything about it. He doesn't make a threat or slap the blankets down. He doesn't storm from the room, which is what he normally does when he gets to the point of irritation he can't control.
“Don't get things twisted up, Raya,” he says as I climb into the bed. He drops the blankets down on top of me, leans in close, one bunched fist on either side of my hips. He's not touching me but he might as well be. He's close enough that I feel the warmth of his breath against my lips when he says, “I'm still a fucking monster.”
Chapter 25
Liam
“Feel better?” I ask, my chest growing tight as she smiles up at me and nods. “Finish your shower and I'll work on lunch,” I say as I turn the water off on my showerhead. I don't take my eyes off her as I step out of the shower and grab my towel.
It’s not that I feel like I still need to watch her, like I have to keep an eye on her. I no longer feel the need to wonder if she's going to try to escape or if she's going to hurt me. Maybe it's stupid, but things have shifted. Her eyes no longer dart to the front door when she's out of the bedroom. I no longer get that feeling from her that she's going to try to leave. Some days I let myself imagine that she's happy here with me, that this is exactly where she wants to be. I let myself dream that this is where she would choose to be if the situation was different.
I know I’m delusional. I know she's probably still biding her time, waiting for just the right moment to get away from me. But she's also not miserable. The smile she gives me now is no longer placating and fake. Her laughter is new and has quickly become my most favorite thing.
Time doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if it's daytime or nighttime. The outside world has completely fallen away for me. It's only me and her spending time together. And that ache I have for her has only grown stronger.
We still don't touch. She still doesn’t reach for me in the middle of the night. She keeps her distance and out of respect I do the same. If she comes close, I back away. I don't know when that dynamic shifted. I can't pinpoint the exact moment where I relinquished control and maybe it wasn't a single measurable point in time. Maybe it was slow and gradual.
I don't have to make threats. It doesn't stop me if she's not moving fast enough or if she gets that petulant look in her eyes that tells me she's going to argue. Sometimes the words still slip out but instead of being angry and defiant, she just grins and does what I tell her to do, as if part of her needed me to issue the command.
I hate the rule I made in the beginning. It haunts me now. It's a constant block between the two of us. I was angry at her for the longest time because of how fake she was. Because she wouldn't allow herself to be who she truly could be. But now I'm the fake one. I'm the one not acting how I know I should be acting.
I shouldn't be obsessed with her. I shouldn't continue to lie asleep at night, listening to her breathe. I shouldn't be wishing for more. I shouldn’t wake up on the nights that I manage to get a little sleep with a smile on my face at the sounds of her snoring. There are a lot of shouldn’ts in my life right now but thinking I never should have taken her, isn't one of them.
I’m content right now but I'm not happy. I hate that there are no real conversations. I hate the silence constantly between us. I hate having things to say but being unsure of how they will be received. I hate that I think of her before I think of myself. I've never been this way before.
It's not all bad. The conversations we do have are simple. They're not heavy and weighed down the way conversations I've had in the past were.