Page 102 of The Wrong Man

I make it to the living room before my legs give out.

I sink onto the horrible orange sofa and put my head in my hands. My chest is tight. My eyes are burning. My whole body feels like it is being crushed under the weight of what I just witnessed.

Dylan’s face. That terrible, glazed expression. The sound he made when I stepped toward him, like a wounded animal expecting the killing blow.

I have seen that look before. On dozens of faces, in dozens of basements and back rooms and abandoned warehouses. In my studio, most of all. I have caused that look, cultivated it, used it as a tool to extract information and compliance.

But seeing it on Dylan’s face is different. Seeing it on the face of someone I care about, someone I have held in my arms, someone I have kissed and touched and wanted with an intensity that frightens me.

It is unbearable.

A sound escapes me. Something between a laugh and a sob. The absurdity of it all is crushing. I spent last night making him gasp and moan and call my name. This morning I watched him make eggs in my kitchen, wearing my shirt, looking for all the world like someone who belonged here.

And now he is huddled in my bathroom, naked and terrified, reliving the worst moments of his life because I ran the hot tap.

The universe has a sick sense of humor.

I sit in silence. Minutes, maybe. Or hours. Time has lost all meaning in the face of what I have done.

Eventually, I hear movement from the bathroom. The soft rustle of towels being picked up. The quiet shuffle of feet on tile. The door opening and closing.

He is moving. He is out of the corner. He is putting on clothes and trying to pull himself back together.

I should check on him. Should make sure he is alright. Should offer tea or food or whatever small comfort might help.

But I cannot bring myself to move. Cannot face him again. Cannot look into those eyes and see the fear that I put there.

So I stay where I am. Alone on my ugly sofa. Drowning in guilt and self-loathing and the growing certainty that I have destroyed something precious before it ever had a chance to bloom.

This is who I am. This is what I do. I break things. I break people. And no matter how much I want to be different, no matter how desperately I wish I could undo the past, the evidence of my true nature is cowering in my bedroom right now.

Dylan deserves better than this. Better than me. Better than a monster who cannot even comfort him because he is the source of the trauma.

But I don’t know how to give him better. I don’t know how to let him go. I don’t know how to be anything other than what I have always been.

So I sit in the silence of my empty living room, and I wait, and I wonder if this is what it feels like when your sins finally catch up with you.

Chapter twenty-nine

Dylan

I’m curled up in Dante’s bed, wrapped in his blanket, and I cannot stop shaking.

The tremors have nothing to do with cold. I’m warm now. Dry. Dressed in soft clothes that smell like laundry detergent and something underneath that is purely him. But my body hasn’t received the message that the danger has passed. My body is still convinced I’m in that torture chamber, tied to a chair, freezing wet clothes clinging to my skin and taking all my warmth.

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to breathe.

It was just the shower. Just the pipes. Just a stupid plumbing issue that made the water turn cold. It used to happen at Aunt Moira’s old place all the time. There was no malice in it. No intent. Just bad timing and old infrastructure and the universe’s cruel sense of humor.

But my body doesn’t care about logic. My body remembers the cold. The endless, bone-deep, soul-crushing cold that seeped into every part of me until I could not remember what warmth felt like.

A sob catches in my throat. I swallow it down.

I had a full-blown panic attack. Over cold water. Over a shower that got a bit chilly. I fell apart completely, lost all grip on reality, and ended up naked and terrified in the corner of a bathroom like a wounded animal.

How broken am I?

The question circles through my mind, vicious and relentless. I thought I was doing better. I thought I was healing, adapting, finding some way to survive this impossible situation. I made macarons. I smiled at his rusty half-smile. I kissed him on that hideous orange sofa and felt something other than fear for the first time in weeks. I had sex with him. Let him touch me, hold me, make me feel things I have never felt before. I woke up in his arms this morning and felt safe.