“No, but I should’ve—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head.
Should’ve what? Been there? Caught me? Wrapped me in bubble wrap and locked me away in the highest room of the tallest tower so no one but him could ever touch me again?
That doesn’t sound so bad, actually.
He moves to my knee next, carefully rolling up my torn leggings. The skin is already mottled purple and swollen. He presses an ice pack against it, and I hiss through my teeth.
“I know,” he murmurs. “I know it hurts.”
I watch him work, this man who once pinned me against the wall of a walk-in freezer for embarrassing him, now treating my scraped knee like it’s a mortal wound.
And I wonder which of us he’s really trying to fix: me or himself?
Neither of us speak as Bastian finishes with the wipes and the Neosporin and w
