Page 8 of My Ex-Military Biker

"Sorry," I say.

"Don't be. You're doing it right."

The way he says it. Like he's assessing my competence and finding it acceptable. Like my being good at this matters to him.

I tape fresh gauze over the wound, layer it properly, and make sure the edges are sealed. My fingers brush his skin more than strictly necessary. I tell myself it's because I'm being thorough.

I'm lying.

I wash my hands one more time at the sink, taking longer than necessary because I'm not quite ready to leave this small bathroom and return to not knowing what happens next.

"Where did you learn this?" He asks behind me.

I look at him in the mirror. He's still sitting there, shirtless, watching me.

"Workplace first aid course. Two years ago. We practiced on mannequins mostly. And each other, for the easy stuff."

"You're better than most people with training." He touches the fresh dressing, testing the tape. "Steady hands. Didn't panic when you saw the blood."

"Should I have panicked?"

"Most people do."

I dry my hands on the towel, then turn to face him fully. "You have other scars."

"Yeah."

"Military?"

"Yeah, combat medic. Nine years. Got out four years ago."

That explains the field kit. The way he assessed his own wound with clinical detachment. The calm when most people would be in an emergency room.

"Is that where you learned to do this?" I gesture vaguely at the bandaging, at his whole approach to being injured.

"Yeah. Learned to patch people up in the field, keep them alive long enough to get to someone with better equipment. Sometimes that was ten minutes. Sometimes it was three hours."

"Did you..." I'm not sure how to ask this. "Did you save a lot of people?"

"Some." His voice doesn't change, stays that same even tone. "Lost some too."

The way he says it makes me think the ones he lost matter more than the ones he saved. That he's counted them. That he still counts them.

I should leave it there. Should respect the boundary his tone just drew. Should be polite.

But standing here in his bathroom after putting my hands on him, after seeing the evidence of what his body has survived, I can't quite make myself perform politeness anymore.

"I spent three years with someone who needed me to be quieter," I hear myself say.

He looks at me, waiting.

"Tyler. My... the man I was supposed to marry today. He wasn't a bad person. Never hit me, never cheated, never did anything you could point to and say 'that's why she left.' But he needed things from me constantly. Small things, mostly. Could I pick up his dry cleaning because his meeting ran late. Could I cancel my book club because his friends wanted to do dinner. Could I be quieter in the morning because he needed to sleep. Could I just... adjust. Just a little. Just this once. Except it was never just once."

My throat tightens but I keep going because apparently I've decided honesty is what we're doing now.

"And I did it. Every single time. Because that's what you do when you love someone, right? You accommodate their needs. You adjust yourself to make their life easier. You become... smaller. More convenient."

I pause. He doesn't fill the silence. Just listens with that complete attention that makes me feel like what I'm saying actually matters.