“You won’t do it again,” Rome said.
We really didn’t have anything else to say to him. The first strike I landed against the guy’s jaw rocked his head back. That hurt.
The next fifty or so were going to hurt a lot more.
CHAPTER 33
EMERSYN
After the twins left, I found myself staring at the door and waiting. I didn’t touch the food or the drink. Just stared at it. The last few days—well, I’d done nothing without being directed. The nurses came in, the orderlies fetched me, we went to see the doctor, or we went to the floating place. Even when I showered, I wasn’t alone.
When Rome asked me if I wanted him to close the door or not, I’d been torn. Privacy seemed almost novel, but at the same time, I didn’t want them to disappear. What if I opened the door after the shower to find myself back in my room at Pinetree?
Not that the bathroom had a door. But if I imagined all of this—the escape, killing Doctor Skate-Boarder, Rome and Liam—I didn’t want to wake up. No, the door had to stay open. When he’d said “I’m here,” everything in me just seemed to sag. Somehow, Rome understood.
The bed had made for crowded sleeping quarters, but I didn’t care. The minute they were on either side of me, all the panic and the fear subsided. Sinking into the exhaustion had been the easiest thing in the world. Made only that much better when I woke to Rome being right there with me this morning.
But now they were gone…
“Boo-Boo.”
I jerked and twisted to stare at Freddie as my heart slammed against my ribs.
He had a biscuit halfway to his mouth, but he paused and frowned at me. “Did you forget I was here already, Boo-Boo?”
“No.” The fact the syllable came out a bit of a squeak made a liar out of me. “I was wondering if I was going to wake up and all of this wouldn’t be real.”
“I get that,” he said slowly. “But you’re not naked.”
Laughter bubbled up through me and the balloon of tension just seemed to pop. “Right. I forgot.”
“You forgot you weren’t naked?” Freddie clasped his hands over his heart. “Boo-Boo. We need to work on that.”
It was funny, except it wasn’t. I’d been having trouble remembering a lot of things. Like my damn name. It wasn’t so bad here, but after the floating place and the white static… Tears escaped while I laughed and I swiped at them.
Freddie sobered almost instantly. “Come on, Boo-Boo. Don’t cry. I suck at tears. You start crying and I’m going to feel like I should be crying with you and no one wants to see me blubbering.”
Another soft chuckle escaped me, and I sniffed while I wiped at my eyes again. “I’m not going to cry—I just… My head feels so full.” Did that even make sense? “And, they were here and now they’re gone and—”
“And?” he prompted when I didn’t say anything more.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. I don’t even get why I’m upset they left. It’s better here, right? I mean, we’re in a hotel room.” It was kind of small, but it had clean sheets. There was food. I looked back down at the breakfast I’d stopped eating. Yeah. I didn’t want any more of that.
Cleaning it up, I climbed off the bed to put the containers on the desk with the others and then I stood there, just staring at the room. What were we supposed to do? They said stay in the room. But…
“You want to talk about it?” The question tugged at me. Freddie was cleaning up his own debris from eating. His pizza box was empty though.
“Not really.” I wouldn’t even know where to begin. “Do you?”
“If it will help you.”
I frowned. This wasn’t like confessions. It was daytime for one, and we were looking at each other. He held out his hand to me after he put the empty box by the trash can.
“We don’t have to talk about anything,” he offered. “We could watch tv. I bet they really do have pay-per-view movies.”
“I don’t really want to watch porn,” I admitted but let him tug me back to the bed. Only instead of mine, he patted his. When I sat against the headboard, he sat next to me then he put a pillow between our hips. “What are you doing?”
He dropped another between our legs. “This is no man’s land. You’re on your side and I’m on mine.” Even saying that, he rested his hand palm up on the pillow between us. “That way, we only touch when we want to.”
The tears burned in my eyes all over again. Clasping his hand tighter this time, I leaned my head back. “Thank you.” The relief was right there and some of the chaos churning in my mind quieted. Rome and Liam touching me when I was in bed with them hadn’t bothered me, but the longer I’d been awake the more the agitation was right there.
“I get it, Boo-Boo,” Freddie said, not looking at me as he picked up the remote. He turned on the television but muted the sound as he began to flick through the channels. His fingers threaded with mine easily and his grip was steady. “Touch is something you allow people to do. When they do it and you don’t want it, it’s—bad.”
That seemed like an understatement. Yet, he did get it. “I wished you didn’t know.”
“About you?”
I kept my gaze on the television, I think Freddie was too. But he didn’t loosen his grip from my hand. “About any of it. I wish you didn’t understand what it was like.”
“I could say the same thing, Boo-Boo.”
But he hadn’t. Maybe I shouldn’t have. “Sorry, I won’t bring it up.”
He squeezed my hand. “I don’t mind if you bring it up. I told you for a reason. It was weird—I don’t tell anyone, but telling you helped. I think.”
“Yeah?” I frowned. “Like group?”
I stole a glance at him when the channel flipping stopped. He stared at me. “Um—I wasn’t a big fan of group,” he admitted.
“But Bodhi was in your group.”
“That’s true.” Freddie grinned. “Weird guy, but I liked him.”
“Me too.”
Neither of us mentioned the doctor. The office. The blood— “Where’s my stapler?”
“It’s over there,” Freddie assured me. “It came in with us. Don’t worry.”
The chill skating over me was stupid. Taking that stapler with me was probably kind of dumb too. He squeezed my hand again.
“Do you need me to get it for you, Boo-Boo?”
I frowned. Did I? Closing my eyes, I tried to suck in a deeper breath of air past the panic scrabbling against the inside of my skin. “No,” I whispered. “I just—I wanted to know…”
Letting go of my hand, he slid off the bed. By the time I opened my eyes, he had rescued the stapler from behind the bags of takeout and food. I still couldn’t figure out why Liam brought so much. “It’s right here.” Freddie set it right in the middle of the desk and shoved everything around it back. “Better?”
Stupidly… “Yes.”
He grinned. “Good.”