20. NINEAH
NINEAH
GENTLE AND METHODICAL, he untangled my hair with such precision and care, it surprised me more than I wanted to admit. Despite having only been gone for a little under an hour, Abraham really did seem lighter, if not just resigned to his situation.
I wouldn’t say I wasn’t still annoyed at being cast aside like a band roadie while he charged full speed ahead.
Even still, I could respect that he was just as knee deep in the shit as I was.
In a way, I got off easy. I couldn’t recall our first date, what I wore on those Parisian summer nights skipping through tourist attractions and stuffing my face with sugar.
But I also didn’t know who’d hit me so hard against the side of my face there was a bruise there, and the truth was, I was grateful for that.
What I wasn’t ready to admit, to him or to anyone, was that I wasn’t afraid of the unknown. I was terrified. Not because someone had clearly tried to ensure I never saw the surface of that sea again, but because deep down, I knew what I was truly capable of.
A glaring question I didn’t want to acknowledge, but could no longer ignore picked at my conscience, all because a man I’d clearly underestimated was already proving to be ten times the person I was.
What had I gotten myself into this time?
And how could I mitigate the damage before any of it blew back on him?
I wasn’t naive. The nature of my world was that sometimes you gave a little in exchange for what you hoped would be a lot, then prayed it didn’t return as a problem you had to handle later.
I’d always been honest with my boss about any favors I promised to some of my more questionable connections for information in return, but this was different.
Abraham seemed to know me in ways that unnerved me, and yet he hadn’t once approached me with accusations or questions and as far as I knew, hadn’t examined the circumstances of my disappearance with his suspicions aimed in my direction.
Of course, that could have been deliberate.
Abraham wasn’t exactly the type to swap strategies and it was fully plausible he was holding his cards this close to the vest because he didn’t trust me.
However, it was hard to reconcile the man who’d crossed the world for me and was now combing out my hair like he’d done it a thousand times, with the lethally intelligent marine I’d vetted, recruited, and hired.
Holding my breath, studying the mottled, but hard planes of a man whose expressions were terminally set to their bristly default, I wracked my brain for anyone else I knew who was equally as competent.
Zajre, possibly. Maybe even myself on a properly medicated day.
Somehow though, I was certain Abraham was in a league of his own.
When he was finished, he pulled the wild top pieces out of my face and clipped them back, letting the rest fall over my shoulders.
I faced myself in the mirror, noting four years’ worth of changes.
A couple lines in my forehead that hadn’t been there before.
A few strands of silver near the top of my scalp.
The laceration on my cheek that’d scabbed over and would eventually scar.
I’d also lost a few pounds which explained the tired circles underneath my eyes and the dull pallor of my normally bright skin.
Small, nearly imperceptible signs that I was neither infallible against time nor the world.
“You’ll heal.”
I glanced over my shoulder and found him watching me. I snorted, but I hated that he’d read me so accurately. “You say that like I’m vain.”
The corner of his mouth lifted into a smile that surprised me. “You are vain.”
“Spoken like someone who never had to hide out in the nurses’ office at lunch to avoid their bullies,” I said.
“I had headgear because government subsidized dental didn’t cover the fancy jaw expanders at the time, and none of my foster parents knew how to do my hair, so they chopped it off every three months.
I bet no one fucked with you in school.”
“That is true,” he murmured. “No one spoke to me, either.”
Turning around in my chair, I folded my forearms on the back and rested my chin on my hands. “I would have… You know, if I wasn’t learning how to chew solid foods at that time.”
Staring at me in that unnerving way of his that made my skin feel like someone was trying to figure out how to peel it from the muscle, he raised a hand to my cheek. His rough fingers grazed my skin in the same gentle manner he’d combed out my hair.
God, that shouldn’t have felt… nice.
I was always far clingier than normal when I’d gone a long while without human contact. It reminded me of when Zajre and I had been attached at the hip in grad school until she’d gotten married, and our wine nights in front of the TV had turned into my wine nights in front of the TV.
Was that why I’d been so eager to get hitched? Because everyone around me was growing up and I was still… the same?
Abraham made a soft noise under his breath that cut through my brain static and I looked at him. “What?”
He shook his head, muttering something under his breath I couldn’t hear.
“Care to share that with the class?”
Bracing his hands against the desk, leaning forward until his face was inches from mine, his dark, assessing eyes landed on my mouth. “No.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. “You know what’s not fair?”
He set my comb down and closed my jar of leave in. “This should be good.”
“Being at the disadvantage because someone else knows more than you, giving them full authority to hold it over your head in every single conversation,” I answered. “But you know what else is unfair?”
He raised one of his thick brows.
“Denying yourself genuine human interaction in favor of your force field.”
Abraham didn’t have many tells. Since he appeared perpetually grumpy, never spoke unless he had something to say, and had developed a mastery over his own emotions I could only dream of, he was unreadable to a fault—save for one exception.
His stillness.
There was Abraham-still. And then there was that statuesque rigidity that took over his body when he dissociated. I’d recognized it twice—once at the hospital, and earlier this morning when I’d entered his bedroom unannounced. I’d mistaken his reaction for offense, but I knew now I’d been wrong.
Wetting my lips, officially fed up with his silence, I straight up asked. “What about me is so awful that you’d rather leave the house than speak to me? Even if it’s just to be angry. Even if you barely say anything at all?”
The statue finally swallowed. His eyes cutting to mine, he slipped and I caught a split second glimpse of his pain. His own fear. Gone as quickly as it’d arrived, he locked it all back down.
“You told me if I wanted to know something, to ask you directly,” I tried again. “So I’m asking you… If this is real and we’re not just two lonely mutualistic parasites, why did you come for me?”
“Because,” he said, in a frighteningly calm tone that sent a shiver up my spine. “You are my wife. And regardless of what you remember, I found you, I took you home, I took care of you. That’s your answer.”