Chapter 3 Unravelling
His breathing is steady. Peaceful. Completely at odds with the chaos he’s detonating around us.
Okay....I definitely need to handle this.
I tap his shoulder. Nothing. I tap again, harder, more of a shake, really. He inhales, opens his eyes just barely, and without even turning his head, murmurs, “What?”
The word is low and intimate in a way it absolutely shouldn’t be. I dart a cautious look around us, then back down at him. “People are staring,” I whisper.
He gives the smallest shrug. “Yeah.... I've been told I'm distracting.”
I fight the urge to roll my eyes and clear my throat, leaning down the tiniest bit. “I thought you were trying to lie low,” I say, voice hushed, strained, painfully aware of all the pairs of eyes boring into us.
His lips curve into the ghost of a smirk. “This is me lying low,” he murmurs. “You’re softer than the chair.... and warmer, too.”
The event officially starts, opening remarks from the author, polite applause, a brief summary of her book. The panel chimes in, pens scratch, people laugh in the right places.
I hear none of it.
Or I hear it, but it’s like sound underwater. And as the minutes pass, something settles in my chest. This is the longest I’ve had this kind of human contact in years.
Yeah....years.
Not a doctor’s gloved, clinical touch. Not a parent’s brisk handshake. Not an accidental brush of arms in a hallway. But real contact. A body trusting mine, resting against me like I’m something safe.
It hits me gently at first, then all at once, how starved I am for this. For connection that isn’t laced with worry or pity. For touch that doesn’t exist only in memory or longing or some desperate, embarrassed fantasy.
His weight is comforting. And it feels painfully nice. Dangerously nice.
I clench my hands at my sides, fingers digging into my own palms, because now my mind is trying to do stupid things....like imagine what it would feel like to touch him. To thread my fingers through his hair.
I force myself deeper into the chair instead, head tipping back, eyes fluttering shut for half a second. I’m tired. I get exhausted easier these days. Some days pretend to be normal, almost merciful. Today started as one of those. A good morning that made me believe that maybe I’d get a full day without my body reminding me of its betrayal.
But the longer I sit here, the more I feel myself slipping toward that thin edge of fear, the kind that whispers it won’t end as gently as it began.
I like to act oblivious, pretend I’m fine. It isn’t denial, not really.
I just don’t want to waste whatever time I have left dissecting the countdown. I don’t want to drown in data or prognosis or the bleak percentages my doctor keeps trying to explain in careful, softened words. I’m grateful for the days when my body lets me pretend. Lets me be Ryan instead of the ticking clock attached to him.
My head starts to throb, a pulse behind my eyes. I exhale slowly, glance down at Michael, asleep against me, and up at the stage. Elena is speaking now, her voice animated in the way only someone who loves stories can be.
I try to listen.
But something shifts inside me....an off sensation, a heat in my face that shouldn’t be there. I lift my hand, touch beneath my nose.....
And my fingers come away wet.
Red.
My breath stops.
Before I can move or react, a single warm drop slides free....and falls.
It lands on Michael’s cheek, a perfect crimson smear against his skin.
The color is startling.
Violent.
Too bright against the calm softness of his face.
My heart slams against my ribs, panic surging hot and immediate. I slap my coat sleeve across his cheek, wiping the blood away in one frantic motion, while my other hand clamps hard over my own nose.
He stirs, his eyes blinking open, brows pulling into a confused frown.
“Hey—” he mumbles....I don’t let him finish.
I pull him upright,.away from me, from the danger of staining him a second time,.and try to breathe through the rising terror clawing up my throat.
I stumble to my feet so fast the chair screeches. My vision tunnels. I mutter something...an apology, maybe, and shove sideways past the knees and bags and irritated whispers of everyone in my row.
I don’t register any of it. My heartbeat is too loud, drowning everything out. All I know is I need to get out.
I push through the door and the hallway lights hit me like a punch. Too bright. I squint, breathing hard through my mouth, turning left then right, trying to locate the damn washrooms.
I go left.
I walk fast, almost running,.but it still feels too slow, like the hallway stretches every time I blink. Relief should hit me when I finally see the washroom sign, but it doesn’t.
I push the door open, head straight for the sinks, and bend forward. Blood drips into the porcelain in small, obscene splashes. I twist the faucet on with trembling fingers, staring at my hand, at the red smeared across my skin like paint.
I shove it under the water. Breathe through the burn in my nostrils. Will it to stop.
It should’ve stopped by now. The other two times this happened, it lasted mere seconds, just long enough to rattle me before disappearing as if it never happened at all.
But this....
This feels like my own body staging a betrayal.The door opens behind me.
Footsteps.
I shut my eyes for a second, silently pleading for it to please just stop, but the blood keeps falling, cruel and warm.
And then a familiar scent hits me.
My eyes snap open.
I lift my gaze to the mirror.
And Michael Foster is standing behind me, his reflection sharp and inescapable in the glass. He tilts his head, watching me the same way he did in the elevator. Like he’s trying to read the parts of me I never meant for anyone to see.
“You okay?” he asks.
I immediately drop my gaze, bowing my head over the sink like I can hide inside the porcelain. “I’m fine,” I mutter. A lie with frayed edges.
I hope that’s the end of it.
I hope he leaves.
I hope he doesn’t.....
I hear him move before I feel him, slow footsteps that close the distance between us until he’s right next to me. His presence lands heavy at my side, warm enough that it makes my shoulders tense.
“You’re bleeding,” he says quietly.
I huff a breath, more of a strangled laugh than anything, and arch a brow. “I’m aware.”
I keep my eyes fixed on the sink, on the red spiraling down the drain, trying not to think about the more alarming truth.....
He followed me.
And I try, not very successfully, not to put any weight on that at all.