He kicked off his shoes and socks, dropped his jeans, threw his t-shirt off, rounded the bed and climbed in. She was just lying there, doing nothing.
He pulled the covers over them and pulled her close, “Hold me, baby. I need you to wrap yourself around me.”
She wrapped her arms around him. He buried his nose in her hair and absorbed her scent and the feel of her wrapped around him. He didn’t deserve it but at that moment he really fucking needed it. He hooked her leg over his hip and nuzzled in. He fell straight to sleep thinking that at least he had this. Even if he didn’t deserve it.~~~The bed was shaking; it jolted him awake. It was morning. It was shaking because her body was jerking, as if she was having some sort of seizure.
“Kyla!” he shouted. Her eyes opened at hearing her name but she kept shaking, jerking, eyes to the ceiling, neck arched, back bowed.
“Hurt,” she said with a hard T, pain punctuating the word.
“What hurts, sweet girl?” He tucked her in closer to him but she was still shaking hard.
“Me,” she whimpered.
“Your foot?” He threw the blanket back over and reached down for her foot and lifted it, removed the bandage, and saw it was 100% healed. No sign whatsoever of the crescent shaped cut that’d been on her heel at bedtime. He put pressure against it and couldn’t feel any trapped glass.
“Does your foot hurt?”
“No,” she answered.
“What hurts?”
“Me.”
He threw the bandage to the side and got back under the covers and pulled her tight against him. Her teeth were chattering and her body was burning up with fever. He put one hand around the back of her head and held her close, kissing her forehead.
“Stop shaking, okay? It’s okay. I’ve got you. What do you need?”
“Got me?” she asked in a whisper and he felt her body relax, sink into him, even. Her forehead was wedged into his throat. Her mouth against his skin. He felt her breath warm him. He closed his eyes and absorbed the feel of her. One of her tears hit the concave part of his throat.
“You still hurting?”
Her shaking paused.
“Yeah.” Another tear began to trail its way down her cheek. He caught it with his lower lip and sucked it in. It tasted like her tears had before. And it landed like a lump in the centre of his chest. Her shaking resumed.
“How do I make it stop?”
He heard her teeth chatter.
“I don’t know.”
“Where does it hurt?”
“I...”
“Where?”
“Don’t know.”
Fuck.
“Close your eyes, baby. Go to sleep, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Who am I? You still know who I am?”
Silence. She’d been answering quickly up until then, way quicker than she had been.
“Baby?”
“Tristan.”
“Yeah. Say my name sometimes when you talk to me. Okay? Okay, baby?” He needed to know she knew him.
“Okay, Tristan.”
“I love you. No one’ll hurt you again, sweet girl. I’m so sorry, baby.”
“M’kay, Tristan.”
He felt her body relax further. He closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried to find sleep. Every few minutes for a good hour her body would jerk.
He woke every time she did it. Fuck but she felt so good in his arms. He was worried, didn’t know what was going on, but every time she jolted awake, making him jolt alert, his first thought was worry but his second thought was about how right it was to hold her while they slept.
The last few days he’d been sleeping slumped in a chair, avoiding having this because he was avoiding the pain associated with having her beside him without her being herself but the alternatives? Not having her at all because she was dead? Or not having her willing to do this because she’d look at him with a sour and completely repulsed expression at the mere idea of a snuggle?
All of this sucked but for right now, with just the two of them there, it’d do.
He didn’t know what hurt or how he could make it stop. A voice nagged that Adrian might be able to help and that was probably the only reason Adrian wasn’t already dead, because Tristan didn’t yet know what he was dealing with here, but he fell asleep with a scowl being the last thing he remembered doing because the idea of letting Adrian Constantin anywhere near Kyla when the motherfucker could do even more harm? Right now it was unfathomable.~~~That evening was much the same. He left her upstairs all day. He told her to exercise for an hour after lunch, thinking that she needed to do more than sit around staring off into space. He’d found an exercise video online and played it on the tablet that was in the bedroom and left her to follow it. She did but sort of in a delayed reaction slow motion sort of way, like her brain wasn’t registering what she was seeing immediately. Like it had to pass through a filter first. He left as she got into a plank position on the floor beside the bed.