41. SOPHIE
SOPHIE
It’s the middle of the afternoon by the time Dr. Rossi comes to check on Vin. Vin is half-asleep with his head in my lap, his color better than it was yesterday, but still worse than I need it to be to feel like I can leave him alone.
I didn’t sleep much last night. I kept waking up to make sure he was still breathing.
I smile as Dr. Rossi enters, but he frowns, stopping short and looking me up and down.
“You look terrible,” he says, not to Vin but to me.
“Well, good afternoon to you too, signor dottore.”
Rossi sets his medical bag on the chair and crosses to the bed, as Vin fully wakes up and sits up for the examination. With impersonal efficiency, Dr. Rossi removes the old bandages, cleans up the stitches, and puts on a fresh bandage.
Vin tolerates it, but under the blanket, he slides his hand to my thigh and grips me tightly, grimacing. I pat his hand gently without drawing the attention of Dr. Rossi and give him a small smile. He grips me tighter, staring at my mouth.
“These are healing well,” Dr. Rossi says. He presses two fingers along the bruised ridge of Vin’s ribcage and Vin’s jaw tightens but he says nothing. “Any difficulty breathing?”
“No.”
“Sharp pain on deep inhalation?”
“No.”
“Dizziness when you stand?”
“A little.”
I glance at him, my smile frozen. That’s new information. Vin notices, and rubs my thigh.
“I’m okay, Soph,” he says softly. “I promise.”
Dr. Rossi makes a note, and then turns back to me with a measured look.
“Your turn,” he says.
“I’m fine.”
“Ms. Bellamorte, you did not allow me to examine you after the explosion, and you do not appear to be—”
“I’m fine. Vin needs you right now.”
“Vin,” Dr. Rossi says, without looking at him, “is stable. His wounds are clean, his vitals are good, and he will be insufferable for the next three weeks regardless of anything either of us does.”
Vin chuckles, and I roll my eyes. That’s probably true.
“Sophie.” Vin’s voice is rough like sandpaper. “Do it. For me. Please.”
Please.
In the past few weeks, I’ve heard ‘please’ from him more times than I can count. Before that? Never. Not once.
“Fine,” I say. “But keep it brief. I don’t want him left alone.”
**
Dr. Rossi examines me in the sitting room off the bedroom with the door open so Vin can listen in.
Dr. Rossi checks my blood pressure twice, frowning at the second reading the same way he frowned at the first, and asks me a series of questions.
When is the last time I slept more than four hours consecutively? Have I been drinking water? When is the last time I ate a full meal rather than just tasting things while I cooked them?
I open my mouth, and he raises a hand to stop me.
“Not a taste,” he clarifies. “A meal. Sitting down. At a table.”
I close my mouth.
He nods and produces a small kit from his bag. “I’d like to run some blood work, a few standard panels. Confirm my assumptions.”
“Which are?”
He glances up at me. “That you have been running on adrenaline for several days, likely dehydrated, not getting enough sleep, and suffering as a result.” He finds the vein at the inside of my elbow. “I will likely prescribe some supplements pending results.”
“There was a bombing. This is hardly worthy of your time.”
“There was a bombing. And yet the sun continues to rise.” He withdraws the needle and presses a small square of gauze to the inside of my arm. “Until the results come back: sleep. Real sleep in a real bed, not sitting up watching Vin.”
When I come back into the bedroom, Vin is asleep.
I watch him for a moment, monitoring the steady rise and fall of his chest. He looks younger when he’s asleep. The tension in his jaw and his brow melts leaving the strong line of his nose, the dark lashes against his cheekbone, the mouth that knows how to make me feel amazing or devastate me.
The emotions practically overwhelm me, and I waver on my feet. I love him. I love him so much that he has become a structural part of my life, load-bearing, the thing the rest of me is built around.
Gently pulling back the covers, I slide into bed behind him. Doctor’s orders, I tell myself.
But love is not the question. Love has never been the question. The question is what it costs.
The costs of being with Vin flash through my mind. The look he gave me the morning after he killed Aurelio, like I was nothing. The horrible things he said to me in front of our friends. The way he pinned me up against the wall.
I think about the way he could turn off his warmth and attention like a light switch. How he could go from fucking me and coming inside me while making me feel safe and loved one minute and then tell me that he’s done with me minutes later.
I remember what it felt like to believe that I wasn’t good enough for him or anyone else. I won’t go back to that. Not for him. Not for anyone.
I know exactly why I cannot be with him. And yet I lay my hand on his chest so I can feel his heart beat.