Chapter 118 You're hiding from me
I’m sitting on the bed, watching Ryan move through his closet, fingers brushing past hangers with a kind of quiet deliberation. He’s choosing something to wear for today. For the hospital. For another round of something that's meant to help. I expect him to lay the clothes out on the bed. Instead, he gathers them and turns toward the bathroom.
I frown slightly.
Then he steps inside and shuts the door behind him. My gaze sharpens. He did the same thing yesterday. And I think back to a couple of mornings ago when I walked in on him dressing, he’d fumbled with his shirt, his movements frantic as he tried to cover himself.
I sit there for a second longer, then I stand and cross the room. My hand closes around the handle, I twist. It's locked. I knock. There’s a pause, then his voice from the other side...light and inquisitive. “Michael?”
“Can you open up for a second?”
There's some shifting and movement before the lock clicks. The door opens just enough. He’s standing there in the clothes he slept in. My eyes move over him before I can stop them. Assessing him instinctively.
He blinks at me. “Everything okay?”
I swallow, then I push the door open a little wider, enough to step inside. I close it behind me. He glances at the door, then back at me. The bathroom is small and quiet. Too contained.
My gaze drifts and lands on the vanity. His clothes are folded there. Something about that, about the quiet intention to dress alone and unseen, settles wrong in my chest. Like something slipping out of reach without permission. I reach for the hem of my t-shirt and pull it off. He frowns immediately. “What're you doing?”
I don’t look at him as I speak.
"Conserving resources," my voice is steady despite the hammer of my heart. "The environment is in shambles. We should share a shower and do our part for the planet."
His lips part, a clear flicker of unease darting across his face. I can see the rejection forming in his throat. The quiet resistance. He doesn’t like this, doesn’t want it.
Good.
That means I’m not imagining it. My fingers hook into the waistband of my sweats.
“Michael—”
He says my name softly. Then gives a small shake of his head. I ignore it, not out of cruelty but out of something far more intentional. I step out of them, then the rest, until there’s nothing left between me and the truth of the room. Between me and him. When I look back up, he’s watching me. Guarded. There’s something heavy in his eyes now. Not just discomfort. Something deeper. Something he’s trying to keep contained.
I step toward him. Closing the distance he tried to create the moment he locked that door. I stop when the air between us is gone, my chest nearly brushing the soft, worn knit of his sweater. I reach for the hem, my fingers catching the underside of the fabric, but Ryan’s hand is there in an instant. His fingers wrap around my wrist with a desperate weight.
His eyes stay lowered, fixed somewhere between us, like if he doesn’t look at me, this moment might pass on its own. I want to see him. All of him. The jagged parts, the thinning parts, the parts that ache. I want him to know that there is no version of him I will ever look away from.
“Ryan,” I say quietly.
There’s something in my tone that makes him reluctantly look up at me. His eyes meet mine. They're swimming with a thousand things he isn't saying...shame, exhaustion, and a fierce, heartbreaking pride. I give a small, slow shake of my head, my thumb tracing the pulse point in his wrist
“You’re hiding from me.”
His grip tightens just slightly around my wrist. “I’m not—”
“You are,” I cut in, my voice dropping, softening until it’s just a low vibration between us. My thumb shifts against the heavy knit of his sweater, grazing the place where his ribs have become too prominent. “You really thought I wouldn’t notice? I’ve spent every hour of the last six weeks looking at you, Ryan. I know when you’re pulling away.”
A flicker of something crosses his face, a flash of exposure before he tries to shut it again.
“I don’t feel like myself right now,” he says finally, voice quieter now. Not defensive, not even resistant...just honest.
My other hand, the one he isn't holding, slips beneath the hem of his sweater. His skin is too warm, too thin, but it's undeniably him. I move my thumb over his side in a slow caress that demands he stay present, stay here with me in the room.
“Then don’t,” I urge. “Don’t feel like yourself for a while.”
My gaze doesn’t leave his. “But don’t shut me out because of it.” My thumb shifts again, like I’m trying to remind him of something real. "It’s me, Ryan," I step into the last inch of his space until our breaths tangle. “You can do whatever you need to get through this. Pull back, take your time, hate everything for a bit if you have to...” My hand tightens slightly at his side. “But you don’t get to disappear on me. I won’t let you.”
He swallows hard, the movement of his throat tight and labored. For a second, his fingers remain locked around my wrist, a final, desperate instinct to stay private. Then, slowly, the tension breaks. His hand falls away, his arm dropping to his side like a lead weight.
I lean forward, pressing a slow kiss to his forehead. I stay there for a long moment, my eyes closed, just feeling the heat of him before I start inching the fabric of the sweater upward.
"Lift," I murmur.
He hesitates, then does so with a shaky, shallow breath, raising his arms just enough. I slide the sweater the rest of the way off, tossing it on the floor without looking away from him.
And then the difference hits. His chest is narrower than it should be. There’s a fragility to him now that wasn’t there before, something that makes him look breakable in a way that feels like the world has taken too much without asking.
Faint purple bruises bloom across his skin from the cruel fragility of his blood. Scattered and uneven, like evidence of something happening beneath the surface that neither of us can control.
I don’t say anything. There’s nothing to say that wouldn’t make it worse. He looks down, his shoulders hunching forward in a reflexive attempt to hide the damage, but I don't let him. I move my hands to the waistband of his pajama pants, my fingers hooking into the cotton. I drag them down slowly. I need him to know that I'm a witness to every inch of him.