A noise tore from his throat, his head shaking and eyes low.
“Hey now,” I soothed. “I’m not going anywhere. I promise. Can you look at me? Just for a second?”
His eyelashes left small drops of tears on the top of his cheeks when he blinked his eyes open.
“Good boy. Now, how about I get rid of this kit on my lap, and then we’ll hold this ice pack here together?”
His chin dipped in a nod I barely saw. It took him a handful of breaths before he was able to release my hands. The ice-pack slipped off his skin and hit the floor with a mutedplop.I expected him to reach for it but he remained unmoving, stoic and still as he stared at me.
“He’s waiting for you to help him.”
The conviction behind those words had me questioning whether Sebastian could hear them too somehow.
Devotion was a heady thing, and it swept through the room in a strong enough wave that I couldn’t discern whether it was his I was feeling or my own.
I moved quickly, closing the first-aid kit and placing it in the center of my desk. Standing from my chair, I swept Sebastian’s ice pack off the floor and approached him.
I gestured to the spot beside him. “May I sit here?”
Sebastian’s thumb lifted in permission, and I lowered myself on the couch. Foot propped on my knee, I rotated my upper body and held out my hand. The cushions dipped with soft movements when he slid a little closer. He shoved his injured hand at me in a gesture that felt both eager and desperate.
A sound escaped his lips when I repositioned the ice pack. He sunk into the couch, his loose curls swaying as his cheek pillowed against the cushion. The tension he held in his muscles seemed to melt away.
I ran my thumb over the tops of his icy fingers. “Was this the result of anger or sadness?”
He flashed me the number two.
Both.
“Okay.”
My mind raced, waging a war between thoughts of aggression and obsession. The psychologist in me was a think now, act later kind of man but Sebastian had drawn out the soldier. I was fighting for him now. Identifying the enemy had become priority number one.
I extended my hand toward him, unrolling my fingers and offering my palm. “Maybe you could draw me a picture of what happened?”
He sucked his bottom lip into his mouth, gnawing at the tender flesh as he nodded. The tip of his finger shook as it touched my palm, and I felt his skin glide across mine when he began to draw.
V I C I O U S
Letter by letter, he penned the word that tormented him the most, punctuating it with an aggressive exclamation mark.
“Somebody called you vicious?”
His eyebrows pulled tight, cheeks reddening as he shook his head. His mouth opened and closed, and he pulled his hand from mine in favor of wrapping it around his throat. Nails digging into the flesh, he tugged roughly at the tender skin and an ugly noise burst from his chest.
He was trying to speak to me… and when he couldn’t he took his hand and slammed it into the back of the couch.
I reached for him, pressing my thumb against his lips. “The words will come when you’re ready.”
I felt his sharp inhale against the pad of my thumb. He nodded, though his frustration remained clear in the way his chest collapsed and the sheen of tears that coated his eyes.
I wasn’t a weak man, but those tears made me want to beg for some mercy. I’d fall to my fucking knees if it earned him just a small sliver of grace.
Christ.
“Try again, baby bird. Show me what happened.”
He wrapped his hand around my wrist and guided it away from his mouth. Rather than seeking my palm, he used his own fingers to fold mine into a careful position. One by one, he manipulated my smallest limbs into a position that looked almost like…