26. Chapter 26
Her rejection is inconvenient.
Not unexpected, I had expected the resistance and anger.
Even the attempts to reassert autonomy, but the shape it has all taken irritates me.
Not because she refuses me, but because she refuses the logic of what I’ve done.
As if it is a giant leap to want to give her an environment where everything is stripped away but her own mind and me.
This cabin is optimal for that.
It’s remote and quiet, predictable in a way that tells me there won’t be interruptions or audience. A place where variables can be controlled and outcomes observed without interference. I had selected it carefully, with her and her history in mind. With the way she responds to pressure and silence.
One would think she would appreciate that.
Instead, she wakes furious, barbed, sharp-tongued, and entirely unimpressed by what I consider an almost elegant solution.
I relax back into my seat at the small table after breakfast, one ankle crossed over my knee, watching her pace the living area like a caged animal.
She moves with restless energy, fingers flexing and jaw tight.
Her eyes darting to windows and doors as if she’s mapping exits and hoping maybe just one of them will be her way out of here.
I don’t believe for a second she is afraid.
Though, that is the problem.
Fear would have simplified things.
“This isn’t a vacation,” she snaps, getting right back to our previous argument even if time has lapsed. “You don’t get to rebrand kidnapping because there are trees.”
“I didn’t. You did,” I retort evenly.
“Oh, fuck off.”
I let the insult pass. She needs to discharge some of this, and anger is a tool when directed correctly. She just needs help pointing it in the right direction. I’ve already got plans for that, but we aren’t quite at that step yet.
“I understand that you don’t like being isolated.”
“Congratulations, Doctor. Gold Star.” Her laugh sharp in the confined space.
“I thought you would,” I admit.
Her foot catches on the wooden floors and her head cocks. “You thought?”
“Yes.”
“Because?” She asks, eyes narrowing.
“Because you crave focus and struggle with divided attention. Your nervous system doesn’t get a chance to rest when you are being pulled in multiple directions.” I explain softly.
“And your solution to that was to remove my choices,” she says flatly.
“To remove the noise,” I correct.
I tire of this argument, but if she feels it imperative to have it over and over then I will walk this loop until reality finally settles in.
“You don’t get to decide what is and isn’t noise in my life.”
I don’t reply and her lips press into a firm line. I only lean back in my chair, studying her. She looks smaller in the cabin—less guarded without the city pressing around her—but no less dangerous. If anything, the isolation does what I thought it might and sharpens her edges.
She’s not wilting, but coiling. And that in itself is far more interesting than the debate we are having.
“I bought you something,” I change the subject in hopes we can stay off of it.
“I don’t want your apology gift,” She snarls past the clench of her teeth.
“That’s good, because it’s not an apology.”
“Right,” she deadpans.
I rise and cross to the corner of the room where I left the supplies shortly after arriving.
I retrieve them and set them on the table between us.
It’s simple things, but all things I know she will like.
A canvas that is fresh and stretched tight.
A set of paints—quality ones, not the student-grade nonsense she makes do with—whose pigments are rich and deep.
And brushes with clean bristles that have been thoughtfully selected.
Her focus drops to them then slowly climbs to me, only to drop right back to the canvas. And I watch in real time as her expression hardens.
“What is this?” She hisses.
“A resource you can use to regulate through creation. You can paint when you’re processing or overwhelmed. Just as you did in the bus, but without all the little side quests along the way.”
“I paint when I choose to, not when I’m cornered.”
“This isn’t a corner, Sadie. Don’t think of it as one. Think of it as a starting line.” I say softly and gesture to the supplies.
“You’re delusional.”
“I’m adaptive.”
“You’re compensating for what you took from me and now you’re trying to replace it with art supplies.” She continues to battle.
“You enjoy painting,” I argue.
“I enjoy autonomy too, but let’s skip that portion of our therapy.” She lashes back. I don’t flinch, I won’t allow it to form, but I feel it.
I study her again, recalibrating mentally.
She’s not rejecting the gift itself, but the implication and assumption.
I may have miscalculated this all. I do not believe she will quit fighting me on this, and I am all for healthy debate, but we can’t continue to butt heads and make it forward.
Not if we are stuck too deep in the trenches.
It’s not catastrophic by any means, but it does require adjustment.
“I could have asked and you would have said no,” I decide to introduce my own insecurity to the equation. Hoping that if she meets me on some human level she might see where I was coming from when doing all of this. That all of it was for her.
“I probably would have, yes. But you just skipped over the part where I get a say.” She huffs out, some of the bristle leaving her shoulders.
“Yes, I did.”
Her eyes search mine, looking for something I’m not sure she’ll ever find. “At least you’re honest.”
“I try to always be honest,” I supply.
“Then be honest now. You did this thinking it would make me compliant on some level.”
That word pricks at me in a way that I do not like.
“Comfortable, yes.” I amend, or at least try to.
She steps closer, looming over the table, and I watch as her fingers brace themselves against the edge. “You don’t get to comfort me after stripping my agency. That’s like the lion apologizing to the gazelle for eating it, Alexander. You do see this, don’t you?”
I take a deep breath and nod, cataloguing the response and the way her voice shakes only slightly. The way she holds eye contact even as her breathing speeds up.
“I see,” I murmur.
She snorts. “Do you?”
“Yes,” I say. “And I apologize that I did this the way that I did. I cannot change it now, and I do not wish you to leave because I do believe I was right. I just… maybe went about it the wrong way.”
“Maybe,” she drawls sarcastically.
“Maybe,” I admit.
“You’re not wrong. This isn’t working the way I intended.” I breathe out, wanting to reach out and touch her but knowing now is not the time. Nor the mood.
“A breakthrough,” she grumbles and drags her hands up into her hair, looking to the paint.
“I will need to revise my approach.”
She groans, her head dropping back to hang between her shoulders. “You mean you’re going to try harder?”
I smirk. “No. I mean I’m going to try differently.”
Her expression is wary, though rightfully so.
I add, “You won’t be painting today.”
“And you have decided this because?”
“Because right now, it would feel like compliance and I don’t want that.”
She studies me, searching for the manipulation I’m sure she believes I’m deploying. Finding none she can immediately name seems to bother her more than if she had.
“You’re still insane,” she mutters.
“Yes, but maybe I am learning too.”
She shakes her head and walks away, leaving the canvas untouched.
I watch her as she goes, fingers tapping on the edge of the table.
So this is far more complex than I anticipated.
Which yes, was an oversight but something that can be corrected, and something that makes all of this far more interesting.