Chapter Fifteen #2
I don’t know whether he portioned things out in his head.
Whether there’s a schedule for what gets used when.
Whether I’m supposed to fend for myself if he vanishes into whatever dark mood swallowed him after the session, or whether he’s going to reappear in ten minutes and act like none of this is unusual.
None of this is unusual to him, maybe.
I crouch to open one of the lower refrigerator drawers, then stand again and keep looking.
There is food here, yes. Plenty for now. Fresh vegetables. Fruit. Cheese. Yogurt. Eggs. Some containers with leftovers. Meat. Condiments.
Bottles of water lined up with absurd neatness. But not enough for three months. Not even close. Certainly not the way Vito eats.
And he definitely eats like a man who works out hard enough to deserve it.
So, there must be a supply run happening at some point.
The thought sharpens immediately.
Of course there must be.
Maybe not by him personally. Maybe not in any way I’ll get to witness.
But food does not magically appear. Someone comes to the island. Or a boat does. Or something arrives. There has to be a system.
And systems have openings.
Maybe there will be a way off the island after all.
I stand very still with my hand resting on the refrigerator door and let that thought play in my mind for a second. Not hope exactly. Hope is too soft and too likely to disappoint. But possibility.
Then my stomach reminds me of the more immediate issue.
I’m hungry.
I open the fridge wider and spot a tray of chicken skewers wrapped and ready, marinated and assembled. They look like they were meant to be grilled today.
They look good too. Better than good. The vegetables between the pieces of chicken are glossy with oil and herbs, the whole thing arranged neatly.
I stare at them for a moment.
I could cook those.
Probably.
But I don’t want to touch them.
Maybe because they feel like his plan, if he had one. Maybe because they look too deliberate.
Maybe because something in me resists the intimacy of cooking the meal he prepared for both of us. Or maybe I just don’t feel like doing anything that involved tonight.
So I keep looking.
There are eggs. Bread. Cheese. A carton of cherry tomatoes. Fresh basil. Leftover pasta that could be reheated.
Rice. Soup.
I settle on something simple and easy: grilled cheese and tomato soup.
Comfort food. Childish, maybe. Basic, definitely. But at this point that sounds exactly right.
I pull down a saucepan, pour the soup in, and set it on the stove. Then I take out a skillet.
I put mayo on the bread instead of butter—a trick I learned from a roommate when I was at UofM—slice the cheese, and put the sandwiches together.
The kitchen glows warmly around me while I work, the sunset fading by degrees beyond the windows.
The motions are familiar enough to settle me a little. Stir soup. Flip sandwich. Nothing complicated. Nothing requiring much thought.
By the time I carry the soup and sandwich to the table, the sky outside has deepened. The first interior lights that came on automatically a while ago are doing most of the work now, leaving the kitchen warm and softly lit.
I sit down by myself.
And it feels oddly strange without Vito on the other side.
I don’t like admitting that to myself.
It shouldn’t matter whether he’s here or not.
In most versions of this situation, his absence should be a relief. Easier to breathe. Easier to think. Easier not to feel watched or pushed or studied in return.
But after a week of his presence as a constant in the room, the lack of it leaves me feeling uneasy.
I eat anyway.
The soup is good. The sandwich too, all melted cheese and crisp bread and heat.
I focus on that. On the fact that I’m feeding myself.
On the practical comfort of it. On not wondering whether he’s somewhere on the island reliving the session or avoiding me or punishing himself in one of those physical ways men like him seem to prefer.
That isn’t my problem.
At least, it shouldn’t be.
Still, by the time I finish, I’ve looked toward the doorway countless times without meaning to.
He never appears.
I clean up the kitchen afterward, because cleaning gives me something to do with my hands when I find myself restless. I wash the pot and skillet, wipe down the counters, put everything back where I found it. When I’m done, the kitchen looks untouched again.
Then I stop with both hands resting on the counter and think about what comes next.
I could go back to my room.
The bath is tempting. The giant tub, the expensive soap, the chance to sink into hot water and let the day dissolve for a little while. That sounds good. More than good, honestly.
Or I could sit in my room and go over my notes again, turn the session over in my mind until I find some new edge in it.
I don’t really want to do that.
Not yet.
What I want, unexpectedly, is air.
The evening is still warm and inviting, despite the sun having set. I can hear the sea faintly from here.
The thought of walking on the beach in the darkening warmth, with the sand finally at non-scalding temperatures and the water catching the last of the light, pulls at me more strongly than the bath does.
So I decide to take a walk.
By the time I step out onto the deck, the last of the direct sunlight is gone, leaving everything in that strange in-between glow where the sky still holds color but the island itself has started to take on more shadow.
The sea is darker now, blue deepening toward ink, the surface catching the last ribbons of light in broken streaks.
The air is still warm but not oppressive.
I go down the steps and onto the sand.
It still holds some warmth from the day but I can actually walk on it comfortably. The waves come in with that same easy, hypnotic hush that has already become too familiar.
A week ago, the sound felt surreal. Now it is simply there all the time, under everything, like a second pulse.
I’m getting quite used to it when I fall asleep. I should get a noise machine when I get home.
I start walking without much direction, just following the line where damp sand darkens near the water.
For a while, that’s enough.
The island at this hour feels different than it does during the day. Less like a place I’m enduring and more like a place I’m observing.
The house glows behind me through the palms and glass, warm and expensive and somehow still too beautiful to be real.
Farther down the beach, the silhouettes of the other structures sit quietly.
The cabanas. The little guest huts. The rest of this meticulously arranged world I was never supposed to see.
I keep moving.
A breeze lifts my hair off the back of my neck, making me shiver lightly. Somewhere farther out, I catch the faint shape of a light bobbing on the water. It’s holding in one spot.
I stop.
A boat.
Not close enough to make out details, but close enough to confirm what I already knew: this island does not exist without supply lines. Without movement. Without people somewhere beyond what I can see.
My pulse ticks up just a little.
Possibility.
I stand there for a moment watching the light move, trying to judge direction, speed, distance.
It could be a patrol. It could be supply. It could be nothing useful at all. But it’s something. A reminder that this place is not truly sealed off from the world even if it feels that way.
By the time I start walking again, my mind is already working at the problem.
How often boats come.
Whether they dock openly or approach one side of the island over another. Whether supplies arrive by water only or if there’s some other system I haven’t seen yet. Whether Vito handles it himself or if someone else does. Whether I’d even get close enough for it to matter.
I turn those questions over for several minutes before I realize I’ve drifted further down the beach than I meant to.
The house is smaller behind me now, still visible but less dominant. The stretch ahead curves gently, broken by palms and the dark outlines of the smaller buildings set back from the sand. I slow near one of the cabanas and look inland for a second, half expecting movement.
Nothing.
There’s no staff on the island. No guards walking the property. No one in the shadows watching me.
Which is eerie and makes me feel just as uneasy.
I glance toward the tree line, then back at the water. Nothing.
I keep walking.
The first stars begin to prick faintly in the sky. I hug my arms loosely around myself, not from cold but from the strange feeling of being suspended outside my life.
I should be home. I should be rinsing dishes and answering emails and maybe opening a patient file one last time before bed.
Instead, I am walking barefoot on a private island after eating grilled cheese alone in the kitchen of the man who brought me here.
That thought should scare me, make me uneasy.
Instead, it drifts through me almost gently, and that unsettles me in a completely different way.
I slow again when I see a shape ahead near the waterline.
At first, it’s only shadow. A darker vertical line against the dim wash of sea and sand. Then the outline sharpens into the silhouette of a man.
He’s far enough away that I can’t read his expression, but I know the way he stands by now. The stillness of him.
So this is where he’s been?
Not gone from the island. Just gone from the house. From me.
I stop walking.
For a second I consider turning around. Leaving him there. Letting whatever distance he wanted to put between us remain intact until morning. That would probably be smarter.
But the image of him walking out after the session keeps replaying in my head. The shutdown. The abrupt end. The fact that he disappeared for the rest of the day.
And before I can talk myself out of it, I start moving again.
Not fast. Not directly at him either. Just along the beach until I’m close enough that if he hasn’t already heard me, he will in another few steps.
He turns before I say anything.
Of course he does.