Chapter 14
Chapter fourteen
Dante
For a moment I don’t know where I am. The surface beneath me is too hard, too narrow, the angle all wrong.
My neck aches and my lower back is screaming in protest. Then memory floods in and I remember.
The sofa. The horrible, ancient sofa that I’ve been meaning to replace for years and never bothered because I so rarely use it.
Because I never have guests. Because no one has ever needed my bed before.
I lie still and listen. The sounds are coming from the bedroom. Soft footsteps, the creak of floorboards, the rustle of fabric. Dylan is awake. Dylan is moving around.
Dylan is still here.
The relief that washes through me is embarrassing in its intensity.
Some part of me, some paranoid corner of my brain, had been convinced I would wake to find him gone.
That he would have somehow escaped in the night, slipped out through a window I forgot to lock, or picked a lock or simply vanished like smoke.
But he’s here. Still here. Still mine.
I catch myself on that thought and shove it away. He’s not mine. He’s my prisoner. My responsibility. There’s a difference.
Isn’t there?
I sit up slowly, every joint protesting the movement. I’m too old for this. Too old to be sleeping on furniture that was outdated when my grandmother was young. My spine cracks audibly as I stretch, a symphony of pops and clicks that speaks to years of physical neglect.
The flat is quiet except for Dylan’s movements. Grey morning light filters through the gaps of the industrial shutter covering the living room’s single small window, painting stripes across the worn carpet. I check my watch. Seven thirty. I’ve slept for nearly five hours.
It’s the longest uninterrupted sleep I’ve had since Dylan arrived.
I stand and roll my shoulders, trying to work out the worst of the kinks. The bathroom first, then breakfast. Routine. Normal. As if anything about this situation could ever be normal.
But as I move through my flat, I’m struck by how different it feels. How different I feel. For years I’ve woken alone in empty silence, moved through my mornings like a ghost in my own home. The only sounds were the ones I made. The only presence was my own.
Now there’s someone else here. Someone breathing, moving, existing in my space. And instead of feeling invaded, instead of chafing at the intrusion, I feel...
I don’t know what I feel. That’s the problem. I don’t have words for this strange warmth in my chest, this loosening of muscles I didn’t know were tense. It’s like I’ve been holding my breath for years and only just now remembered how to exhale.
Coming home last night to someone waiting. Even if that someone should have been asleep. Even if that someone hates me. It felt good.
It felt like something I didn’t know I was missing.
I splash water on my face and stare at myself in the bathroom mirror. Dark circles under my eyes. A shadow of stubble across my jaw. I look tired and old and nothing like the monster I’m supposed to be.
Get a grip, I tell myself. He’s a prisoner. A complication. A problem to be managed.
But even as I think it, I know it’s not true anymore. Dylan stopped being a problem the moment I realized he was innocent. Now he’s something else entirely. Something I don’t have a name for.
I dry my face and head to the kitchen.
Breakfast. Focus on breakfast. Porridge again, because it’s easy and bland and good for someone recovering from illness. I add honey and a handful of dried raisins I find in the back of a cupboard, a small attempt at variety. Then I pour a glass of orange juice and arrange everything on a tray.
Domestic. That’s what this is. Domestic and strange and utterly foreign to everything I know about myself.
I carry the tray to the bedroom and pause outside the door. I can hear him in there, moving around. The television is off.
I knock softly before pushing the door open.
Dylan is standing by the shuttered window.
Standing. On his own two feet, without support, without trembling.
He’s pulled back the curtain and is peering through the gaps in the shutter at whatever the gray morning light is revealing.
His strawberry-blond hair is mussed from sleep, sticking up at odd angles.
He’s still wearing my clothes, the t-shirt hanging off one shoulder, the sweatpants pooling around his feet.
He turns when he hears me, and I brace myself for the usual flinch. The widening of his eyes, the stiffening of his shoulders, the almost imperceptible retreat.
It doesn’t come.
He looks at me steadily, those hazel eyes clear and alert in a way they haven’t been since before the pneumonia.
There’s still wariness there, still a guardedness that I doubt will ever fully fade.
But the raw terror is gone. The desperate, animal fear that made him look at me like I might strike at any moment.
Progress. Real progress.
“You’re up,” I say, and immediately feel stupid. Obviously he’s up. He’s standing right in front of me.
“Couldn’t sleep anymore.” His voice is stronger today. Less raspy. The congestion in his chest has cleared almost entirely. “My body is tired of being in bed.”
I set the tray on the nightstand and study him properly. The gray pallor is gone from his skin. His cheeks have a hint of colour that wasn’t there yesterday. He’s still too thin, still fragile-looking, but he no longer looks like death warmed over.
The pneumonia is gone. Actually, properly gone.
Something tight in my chest releases. I hadn’t realized how worried I was until this moment.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
Dylan considers the question seriously. “Weak. Tired. But better. Much better than yesterday.” He pauses, something flickering across his face. “Thank you. For taking care of me. You didn’t have to.”
The gratitude in his voice makes me uncomfortable. I don’t deserve it. None of what I’ve done deserves thanks.
“I’m the reason you got sick in the first place.”
“I know.” His gaze is steady. Unflinching. “But you’re also the reason I didn’t die.”
I don’t know what to say to that. The simple truth of it sits between us, undeniable and uncomfortable.
“I made breakfast,” I say instead, gesturing to the tray. “Porridge with raisins. And orange juice.”
Dylan eyes the tray with something that might almost be appetite. “It looks good.”
“You should eat. You need to rebuild your strength.”
He nods and moves toward the bed, then hesitates. “Would you...” He stops, pressing his lips together like he’s regretting the question before he’s even finished asking it.
“Would I what?”
“Nothing. Never mind.”
But I’m curious now. “Tell me.”
Dylan’s cheeks flush pink. It’s the first real colour I’ve seen in his face since he arrived, and something in my chest does an odd little flip at the sight of it.
“Would you stay?” he says quietly. “While I eat? It’s...” He shakes his head, clearly embarrassed. “It’s too quiet when I’m alone.”
The request catches me off guard. He wants me to stay. He’s actually asking for my company. After everything I’ve done, after the terror I’ve inflicted, he’s asking me to sit with him while he eats breakfast.
I should say no. I should maintain distance, keep boundaries, remember that this is a captive situation and not some cozy domestic arrangement.
“Of course,” I hear myself say.
I settle into my usual chair by the bed as Dylan climbs back under the covers and reaches for the tray.
He eats slowly, carefully, but with more enthusiasm than I’ve seen from him before.
The raisins seem to please him. He picks them out and eats them separately, saving them for last like a child with sweets.
It’s oddly endearing.
“I used to do this at the bakery,” he says between bites. “Save the best bits for the end. Sean always teased me about it. Said I ate like a five-year-old.”
Sean. His assistant. Someone from his real life, his actual life, the one I tore him away from.
“Tell me about the bakery,” I say, surprising myself again.
Dylan looks up, searching my face for something. I don’t know what he finds there, but after a moment he starts to talk.
“It’s small. Just a little shopfront in Borough Market with a kitchen in the back. I bought it three years ago with money Aunt Moira had been saving for me. She said it was my inheritance, that she wanted me to have it while she was still alive to see me use it.”
His voice softens when he mentions his aunt. The affection there is unmistakable.
“What do you make?” I ask. “What’s your specialty?”
“Traditional Irish bakes, mostly. Soda bread, barmbrack, porter cake. But I do modern things too. Sourdough. Fancy pastries. Wedding cakes, sometimes.” A ghost of a smile crosses his face. “Mrs. Murphy was supposed to pick up her anniversary cake the day after you... after I...”
He doesn’t finish the sentence. Doesn’t have to.
“I’m sorry,” I say, and the words feel inadequate. Pathetic. What good is sorry in the face of everything I’ve done?
“I know.” Dylan sets down his spoon and looks at me. “I believe you, actually. Which is strange. I shouldn’t believe anything you say.”
“No. You shouldn’t.”
“But I do.” He tilts his head, studying me with those clear hazel eyes. “You’re not what I expected. When I first woke up in that room, I thought... I thought you were cruel. Sadistic. That you would enjoy hurting me.”
I think about the studio downstairs. The tools. The chair. All the things I’ve done in that room over the years.
“I am cruel,” I say quietly. “I have been sadistic. There are people who would tell you I enjoyed every moment of their suffering.”
“But you didn’t enjoy mine.”
It’s not a question. He says it like a fact, like something he’s worked out on his own.
“No,” I admit. “I didn’t.”
The silence that follows is different from the silences we’ve shared before. Less tense. More thoughtful. Dylan picks up his spoon again and takes another bite of porridge.
“This is good,” he says. “The raisins were a nice touch.”
“I found them in the back of the cupboard. I don’t even remember buying them.”
“You should get more. And maybe some fresh fruit. Bananas would be good. And apples.” He pauses, then adds almost shyly, “I could make you a list. If you want.”
He’s offering to help. Planning for a future here, in this flat, with me. Like he’s accepted that this is where he lives now.
The thought should trouble me. Should remind me of the wrongness of this situation, the coercion inherent in every interaction we have.
Instead, it makes that strange warmth bloom in my chest again.
“I would like that,” I say. “A list would be helpful.”
Dylan nods and returns to his breakfast. I watch him eat, this man I broke and am trying to put back together. And I think about what it felt like to come home last night. The knowledge that someone was waiting on the other side of the door.
I’ve spent so many years alone. I told myself it was necessary, that isolation was the price of what I do.
That connections were liabilities, that caring about anyone was a weakness that would eventually be exploited.
Or nothing more than a falsehood built on lies because who would want to be near me if they knew my profession?
But sitting here now, watching Dylan eat raisins one by one, I wonder if I was wrong. If the isolation wasn’t protection but punishment. A prison of my own making, no less confining for being invisible.
Dylan finishes his porridge and sets the bowl aside. He looks better already, colour in his cheeks, clarity in his eyes. The human body’s capacity for healing never ceases to amaze me.
“What happens now?” he asks.
The question is simple. The answer is anything but.
“Now you rest. Eat. Recover your strength.” I hesitate, then add, “The construction crew is coming tomorrow to start the soundproofing. You’ll need to stay in the bedroom while they’re here. They can’t see you.”
He nods, accepting this without argument. “And after?”
After. I haven’t let myself think about after. About what kind of life we might build in this strange situation, what kind of routine we might establish.
“I don’t know,” I admit. “We’ll figure it out.”
It’s not much of an answer. But Dylan seems to accept it. He settles back against the pillows, a ghost of a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.
“Okay,” he says softly. “We’ll figure it out.”
We. Such a small word. Such a monumental shift.
I sit in my chair and watch him, and I let myself feel it. The warmth. The relief. The dangerous, wonderful pleasure of not being alone.
Whatever comes next, whatever complications arise, this moment is enough. This quiet morning with porridge and raisins and a man who should hate me but doesn’t.
It’s more than I ever expected to have.
It’s more than I deserve.