Chapter 28
Chapter twenty-eight
Emma
The spa smelled like eucalyptus and questionable life choices.
I lay face-down on a heated massage table, my face smushed into one of those padded donut holes that promised comfort and delivered mild suffocation.
Somewhere above me, a speaker piped in what I could only describe as "whale sounds meets wind chimes"—music that was supposed to be relaxing but mostly made me feel like I was trapped in an elevator to enlightenment.
This was my life now.
The thought still made me want to laugh. Or cry. Possibly both.
Two weeks and a day ago, everything had almost ended. But somewhere between the lies and apologies, I'd found myself here.
Rules.
Actual, formalized rules.
Rest—mandatory, non-negotiable. Meals—real ones, not coffee and stress. Sleep—in a bed, not passed out on the couch with spreadsheets dancing behind my eyelids.
And the hardest one: immediate communication.
That last one was going to kill me.
But here's the thing—if it was a rule, it wasn't a weakness.
It was obedience.
And that was… nice.
Unlike the elbow currently drilling into my shoulder blade.
I flinched.
"Too much pressure?" The masseuse—Ingrid, according to her name tag—paused mid-stroke.
"No, it's fi—"
The word died on my tongue.
"Actually," I heard myself say, "it's a little too hard. Could you ease up?"
"Of course." Ingrid's hands softened immediately, the pressure shifting from "medieval torture device" to "firm but humane." "Better?"
"Much. Thank you."
She resumed her work, and I lay there in the eucalyptus-scented silence, having a tiny internal celebration.
I did it.
I asked for what I needed. Out loud. Without apologizing seventeen times or convincing myself I was being difficult or dramatic.
It was such a small thing. Ridiculous, really. A massage. Pressure preferences. Boundaries a normal person set without thinking twice.
But I wasn't a normal person. I was me—chronic people-pleaser, professional martyr, woman who would rather chew off her own arm than say, actually, that hurts.
Damien would be proud. Warmth spread through my chest, chasing away some of the tension Ingrid's hands couldn't reach.
But tonight, I'd have to explain why that mattered to a stranger.
We had an appointment tonight.
Our first.
He'd threatened—well, suggested—therapy when all this began.
And out of anger, frustration, and exhaustion I'd reminded him.
Stupid fucking idiot.
Now it was no longer a suggestion.
Damien had found her—vetted her, probably interviewed her, definitely researched her credentials down to her undergraduate GPA. He'd assured me she was "kink-aware," which was apparently a thing therapists could be, and that she came highly recommended by people in "the community."
A community I was officially a part of... I guess.
I'd been trying not to think about it. Trying to let the eucalyptus and the pseudo-spiritual soundtrack do their job, to exist in this hour of mandated peace without my brain racing ahead to everything waiting on the other side of it.
It didn't work.
The massage table suddenly felt less like a sanctuary and more like a holding cell. Sixty minutes of enforced stillness before I had to walk into a warm, quiet office and say things out loud that I'd been very carefully trying not to say.
My jaw tightened against the headrest.
He'd apologized.
I'd threatened.
We'd moved on.
Or pretended to.
Ingrid's hands moved to my lower back, and I forced myself to breathe. To let the pressure unknot something physical, even if the mental knots stayed tied.
My mind drifted as Ingrid worked her way down my arms, the knots in my shoulders slowly surrendering. The piano had replaced the whale sounds, and I let myself think about something easier.
Sebastian was probably driving the nurses crazy.
He'd been increasingly restless the past few days, his sharp wit returning in full force now that the fog of medication had lifted.
Yesterday he'd convinced Candace to smuggle in a burger from the place down the street—against doctor's orders—and somehow charmed the night nurse into looking the other way.
But the best news had come earlier this afternoon. Discharge planning. Maybe by the end of the week if his numbers stay stable.
Rosie had burst into tears.
Happy ones, for once. Ones that came with laughter and hands pressed to her mouth and rapid-fire Italian that none of us understood but all of us felt.
She'd hugged me so hard it hurt, and then she'd hugged Candace, and then she'd hugged the nurse who happened to be walking by, and by the time she got to Damien she was laughing and crying and saying something about il mio ragazzo coming home.
Home.
Sebastian was coming home.
Not healed—not yet, maybe not for a long time—but alive. Breathing on his own. Cracking jokes and flirting with nurses and driving his brother up the wall.
It felt like a miracle.
Candace would probably still visit—she'd become a fixture at this point, showing up with puzzles and paperbacks and that particular brand of sunshine that seemed to make Sebastian's gaze go soft.
I'd noticed. So had Damien.
My lips curved against the face cradle.
Maybe things were actually going to be okay.
The thought felt reckless.
But lying here, muscles loose, mandatory relaxation working despite my best efforts to resist it—
Maybe I could let myself believe it. Just for an hour.
That was the rule, after all.