Chapter Fifteen #2
I hadn’t had to demand any ingredients, because as soon as I’d seen his cupboards, I’d had an instant idea.
A pasta dish I’d loved making, back before Sean.
I was even going to make my pasta from scratch, cut my own ravioli, and stuff them with a delicious flavourbomb of…
well, I’d look again and decide that on the fly.
Suddenly I was so excited! Cooking! I loved it once, before it became part of my trap.
My cage. Henley wouldn’t bitch if it wasn’t perfect, hell, he’d probably eat it stone cold or raw, just to make me smile or feel better.
He wouldn’t yell or hit me. I knew that.
Which is why I wouldn’t be able to figure out later why things went the way they did.
Everything was going great, with the pasta made, filled, and just going in the pan of boiling water, and the side dishes all done.
Henley walked in and called out to me, so I turned to talk to him, leaning on the island style counter between the doorway and the cooking area.
“You cooked? Aw sweetheart, I can’t fucking wait.” His smile was so wide and happy, and it felt good to put that look on his face, rather than sadness or disappointment. I made him happy, and I didn’t do it out of fear, or duty. I did it because I wanted to.
“What did you make?”
“Oh well, that’d be telling, but I did it all from scratch, and I loved every minute of it.
Oh!” The timer went, and I spun to grab the pasta from the pan before it overcooked, and that’s where it went wrong.
In my haste to grab the pan, I accidentally unbalanced it, and that unleashed a fiery wave of boiling water.
My scream was my first hint that I’d messed up, and that was followed rapidly by the sensation of actual flames burning their way across my forearm.
The sad part was the sense of familiarity.
That it’d happened before, and hadn’t been an accident. This time I did it to myself.
“Fuck! Glory, let me look at that!” Henley pulled me away from the cooker, switching off the burners as he reached for my arm. Oh god. It was blistering, and the pain. Oh god, the pain.
“Jesus, sweetheart. We need to get you to urgent care. This is… this isn’t good.”
“Ya think?” I practically screamed at him, as he grabbed his phone and scrolled on it.
“I think we’re supposed to run it under water, but it’s blistering, so I just…”
I shoved past him and turned the cold tap on, sticking my arm under it as another pained yelp unleashed from my lips. It hurt so much, the cold seemed to burn as much as the heat had, and almost my entire forearm was an angry red, and there were several large blisters already.
“Fuck. No. We’re going now.” Henley reached for my arm, gently pressing a clean towel to the underside to catch the water drops.
He groaned, catching the bracelet I wore always, fumbling with it as he unlatched it, and panic kicked in the second it was away from my skin. I thrust my left arm at him.
“Put it on me. I can’t… I don’t… I need to wear it.
” He frowned but fastened it with fewer fumbles than it’d taken for him to remove it.
Cupping the towel under my arm, he grabbed his car keys and led me outside.
I forgot my phone in my haste, but what the hell did that matter?
What mattered was getting some help with this.
The cool air outside seemed to burn and sting my skin just as much as the water had. My god, would it ever stop throbbing?
Henley helped me into the car, and leaned in to carefully lock the seatbelt around me, making so much effort to avoid my arm that I wanted to scream.
I knew he was being sensible, and caring, but I wanted painkillers immediately.
It wasn’t his fault though, so I kept my mouth shut, except for the pained gasps and whines now and then.
Sounds I realised I could make around him without him taking offence and punishing me for.
Henley drove fast, his high end Jeep a sense of luxury that I didn’t relish for once, because all my focus was on the pulsing pain in my arm.
For someone who’d suffered so much violence and cruelty, you’d think my pain threshold would be higher, but this wasn’t something I could just shrug off. It was agony.
“This is all my fault,” Henley was muttering under his breath, and I think he must have murmured it a dozen times before I finally picked up on the words.
“Hey! Stop that. I did this. Me. You weren’t anywhere near me.”
He shot me a glance as he pulled up into the car park for the hospital, which thankfully was near his home, although the waiting time would be longer.
“I shouldn’t have distracted you. It was all under control, and I fucked it up.”
“I’m the idiot who splashed myself!”
He shook his head stubbornly, parking up, and coming around to pull my door open, helping me with the seatbelt once more, and then guiding me out of the car.
He acted like a loving boyfriend, rescuing me, just like he’d rescued me the day I showed up in town with nothing.
If he’d wanted me back then, would I have stayed?
Would I have said no to Sean and saved myself years of horror?
Why was my mind going there right now? Oh, maybe because it was something to dwell on rather than the pain, and the knowledge that it’d get worse before it got better.
I already had scars on that part of my arm, and I worried about how this new burn would affect them.
“Hey, we need help. She spilled boiling water on her arm.”
The nurse at the booking in station took one look at us, then seared him with a fierce gaze.
“Did she?”
He hesitated, his brow pinching into a frown. “Uh… I’m not the bad guy, I swear.”
They whisked me away from him, and I cast a few looks back as we walked, seeing him standing desolate and afraid in the waiting room.
I kept telling them he didn’t do it, but that’s the thing about abused women.
We protect our abusers out of fear, or love, sometimes both.
It means that our protests get seen as conditioned behaviour.
If I hadn’t been there myself, I wouldn’t recognise it for what it was.
“He didn’t do it!”