Chapter 15 Shay #2
I managed to get my shirt off, then my pants, though everything felt too heavy, requiring too much coordination. My arms didn’t want to cooperate, kept getting tangled in fabric like they’d forgotten how clothes worked. The buttons were impossible to undo, my fingers clumsy and thick.
“You gave me too much,” I said, frustration bleeding into my voice as I struggled with my sports bra, the elastic fighting me.
“I didn’t. I gave you less than the usual dose.” Tom kept his back turned, staring at the door. “You’re just weak because you won’t eat.”
That shut me up. Because he was right, and I hated that he was right. Hated that my own stubbornness had brought me to this—so weakened that a standard dose of sedative hit me like a freight train.
I finally got myself undressed, discarding my clothes in a pile on the bathroom floor, and looked at the bathtub. It seemed very far away all of a sudden, even though the distance couldn’t be more than a few feet.
“I need…” I swayed slightly, the room tilting. “I can’t…”
“Do you need help?”
Yes. God, yes. But admitting it felt like another surrender. Another piece of myself handed over.
I tried to lift my leg over the edge of the tub and nearly fell. Tom moved fast, catching my elbow, steadying me with firm hands.
“Just… help me,” I said finally.
He did.
He kept his eyes averted as much as possible while helping me into the tub, his touch impersonal and careful, like I was a patient and he was a nurse. He turned on the water, adjusting the temperature until warmth cascaded over me, and I made a sound that was embarrassingly close to a moan.
It felt unreal. Better than anything I had felt in days. The warmth seeped into my bones, washing away layers of grime and exhaustion. I could feel the dirt lifting from my skin, could feel myself becoming human again instead of something feral and caged.
“Lean back,” Tom said, and I did, letting my head fall against the curved edge of the tub.
The porcelain was cool against my skull, a pleasant contrast to the warm water cascading around me.
He knelt beside the tub and reached for the detachable showerhead, bringing it close to wet my hair.
His fingers threaded through the tangled mess, gentle and patient, working out the knots with the kind of care you’d use with something precious and fragile.
Then came the shampoo. The scent was familiar—my shampoo, the one I kept at his place for when I stayed over—lavender and vanilla.
His fingers worked the lather into my scalp, massaging in slow circles that made my eyes close involuntarily. The sensation was overwhelming in the best way, tingles spreading across my scalp and down my neck.
For a moment, I could pretend this was the before. The time before everything went to hell, when his touch meant comfort instead of danger, safety instead of threat.
The drug made it easy to pretend. Made it possible to forget.
He rinsed my hair carefully, the water running through it in warm rivulets, his hand cupped to shield my eyes. Then came the conditioner, and it was the same patient process, like he’d memorized my ritual, spreading it through the length of my hair, letting it sit while he massaged my scalp again.
He reached for a loofah and body wash, lathering it up until it foamed. “Can you do this part yourself?”
I tried to lift my arms, but they felt too heavy, like my limbs had been replaced with lead.
“You do it,” I said, too tired to be embarrassed anymore.
He listened, but he wasn’t inappropriate about it. There were no touches that lingered for too long or wandered where they shouldn’t. He washed my arms, my back, my legs, taking care of me the way you’d care for someone sick or injured.
Which I kind of was, I supposed.
His touch was gentle, careful around the bruises that mottled my skin in purple and yellow, as if the gentleness could somehow undo any of the previous violence.
The drug in my system made it hard to hold onto that clarity, made it hard to remember why his tenderness was a lie, why I shouldn’t lean into it.
When I was clean, he helped me out of the tub.
My legs were shaking, barely holding my weight, threatening to buckle.
He wrapped a large towel around me, the fabric soft and warm from sitting on the radiator, then another around my hair.
He guided me to sit on the closed toilet lid, and I collapsed onto it gratefully.
He dried me off with the same careful attention he’d used to wash me until I was mostly dry.
He helped me into a bathrobe, guiding my arms through the sleeves, pulling it closed over my chest, tying the belt at my waist with a neat bow.
I expected him to take me back to the basement then. Back to the concrete, the dim light, the chains.
But he didn’t.
Instead, he guided me out of the bathroom and down the hall. To the bedroom. The one we used to share, where I’d slept beside him dozens of times.
“No,” I said, but it came out weak. “Not here.”
“Just for a little while,” he said, his hand steady on my elbow, steering me forward, “Until the medication wears off. I promise I’ll take you back after.”
His promises meant nothing. We both knew it. But I didn’t have the strength to fight him anymore, didn’t have the will to resist.
The bedroom looked exactly as it always had, frozen in time. There was still some of my stuff scattered on the nightstand—my hand cream with the cracked lid, an open paperback novel I’d been halfway through, my reading glasses folded on top.
It felt like another lifetime.
He sat me on the edge of the bed, and I felt the familiar give of the mattress beneath me.
He picked up the brush from the nightstand and started at the ends of my hair, working out the tangles carefully, never pulling too hard.
When he hit a particularly stubborn knot, he stopped and worked it loose with his fingers before carrying on with the brush.
It felt nice.
I let my eyes close. Let myself focus on the sensation of the brush moving through my hair, on the slight tug on my scalp. On the warmth of the room and the softness of the bathrobe against my clean skin.
“There,” he eventually said. “All done.”
But he didn’t stop. He kept going, long strokes from root to tip, even though my hair was already smooth and tangle-free.
I knew I should tell him to stop. Should pull away myself, reclaim whatever small piece of autonomy I still had left.
But I didn’t.
The repetitive motion was soothing, reminding me of the time when I was a child, when my father used to brush my hair before bed.
Tom set the brush down eventually and reached for something on the nightstand. A jar—some kind of cream. He opened it, and the scent of chamomile and aloe filled the air.
“Give me your hands.”
I didn’t even think about it, didn’t question or resist. I just extended my arms like an offering.
He took my right hand in both of his, cradling it gently, and began applying the cream to the damaged skin. His thumbs moved in slow circles, rubbing the ointment in. The cream was cool and soothing, instantly relieving some of the burning.
“I really wish you wouldn’t do this to yourself,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on my wrist.
“I didn’t do this to myself.” The words came out slurred, dreamy, but still carrying the hard edge of truth. “You did this to me. You cuffed me, chained me up like some kind of wild animal.”
“You fought against them. If you’d just stayed calm—.”
“Only you would tell a prisoner to stay calm. Every single thing that has happened to me is because of you.”
“I know.” Tom’s voice was soft. Regretful. He moved to my other wrist, repeating the process with the same careful attention. “I know. I’m sorry.”
He said it like that word meant anything. Like it could undo any of this.
But I didn’t want to think about that anymore.
There were much nicer things I could be focusing on. The massage of his fingers working the cream into my skin felt unbelievably good, and I made another embarrassing sound, caught somewhere between a sigh and a hum of pleasure.
When he finished with my wrists, he didn’t let go of my hands. He continued to hold them, his thumbs rubbing gentle circles over my knuckles.
The moment became charged with something I didn’t want to name, my skin prickling with awareness despite the drugs dulling my senses.
“Shay,” Tom said, and his voice was low.
I made the mistake of looking up at him.
His eyes were dark, intense, fixed on my face like I was the only thing in the world that mattered.
And god help me, something in my chest responded. Some stupid, traitorous part of me that still remembered how it felt to be looked at like that. To be wanted like that.
He leaned in slowly, giving me time to pull away. To say no. To turn my head or push him back or do anything but sit there and let it happen.
I didn’t move, my body unwilling to obey the commands my brain was screaming at it.
His lips brushed mine—soft and tentative, asking a question I couldn’t answer. It would be so easy to give in. To let the drug smooth over all the sharp edges and just… feel. To pretend for a moment that nothing else mattered. That we were just Tom and Shay, two people who loved each other.
The kiss deepened slightly, and I felt his hand come up to cup my face, his palm warm against my cheek. His thumb stroked my cheekbone with heartbreaking tenderness, and the gentleness of it made something crack inside me.
I turned my head away, breaking the contact.
“Don’t,” I whispered, my voice cracking. “Please don’t.”
Tom pulled back immediately, his hand falling away from my face like I’d burned him. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have—”
“No. You shouldn’t have.” I wrapped my arms around myself, suddenly cold despite the warm robe. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to touch me like that. Like we’re… like this is…”
I couldn’t finish the sentence. I didn’t know how to articulate the wrongness of it.
The moment shattered, and reality came rushing back—muted by the drugs but still there. The basement waiting below. The chains. The concrete. The truth of what he’d done and what I’d become.
“You should rest,” Tom said, his voice carefully neutral. “The medication will wear off in a few hours.”
He stood and pulled back the covers of the bed. The sheets underneath looked impossibly inviting, soft and comfortable in a way I’d almost forgotten existed.
“I’ll take you back downstairs when you wake up,” he said. “I promise.”
I lay down, the mattress conforming to my body like an embrace; it felt like coming home. The pillow was soft against my cheek, cradling my head. The sheets smelled like him, and I had to force myself not to inhale.
Tom pulled the blankets over me, tucking them around my shoulders with the same care he’d used for everything else.
“Sleep,” he said softly, his hand smoothing my hair back from my forehead.
I let myself drift. The drug, the warmth, the exhaustion of days without proper rest—all of it pulled me down into darkness like an undertow.
The last thing I felt was his hand in my hair, stroking in long, soothing motions.
Sleep took me under, and I dreamed of moths flying into flames, of drowning in warm water, of love and violence so tangled together that I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.