I froze when my body once again began to react.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
“How many units do you take?” I asked. I knew I’d caught him off guard with the loudness of my voice when he flinched slightly.
“Ten units usually,” he responded.
I felt sick to my stomach as I remembered the scene when I’d found him. There’d been an empty insulin pen on the floor next to the couch. That in itself hadn’t been unusual. What had been unusual had been the plastic safety seal on the floor next to the pen. It’d meant the cartridge had most likely been a brand new one. Even someone taking a higher dose of insulin would never need to push the entire contents of a cartridge in one sitting.
That was how I’d known Lex had injected himself with more insulin than he’d needed. The note he’d left had only confirmed my suspicions.
I shook my head as I considered what would have happened if I’d decided to go home and eat lunch before checking on Birch Cabin. The idea of reaching out to touch Lex’s forehead and having it be cold left me light-headed. I told myself it was because the idea of his death was as disturbing as if he’d been anyone, but that little niggle in the back of my brain started bouncing around like a goddamn ping-pong ball.
“I tried to undo it,” Lex whispered. His voice broke through the tumultuous emotions I couldn’t make sense of. I was about to ask him what he was talking about when he added, “I knew as soon as I pushed the button that it was a mistake, but I was just…”
When he didn’t continue, I found myself leaning forward. “Just what?” I asked. Ten minutes earlier I’d promised myself I wouldn’t involve myself in the man’s personal life, but I found myself holding my breath in anticipation of what he’d say next.
“Tired,” he said after the longest time. “I had a couple of granola bars in my bag. I thought they’d be enough.”
I remembered the wrappers I’d seen on the floor. So he’d tried to raise his blood sugar to counteract the overdose of insulin he’d taken but the food hadn’t been enough.
“You had orange juice in the fridge,” I reminded him.
“I’d finally started to warm up…”
It took me a moment to understand what he was saying. He hadn’t wanted to leave the comfort of the cocoon of blankets because he’d been too cold?
“Why didn’t you start a fire, Lex?” I asked. “There were logs and kindling in the fireplace and a lighter on top of the mantle.”
Lex dropped his eyes. I saw his cheeks flush with color. When he didn’t answer, I found myself reaching out to tip his chin back up because I knew him looking away had absolutely nothing to do with not being able to see me. He was embarrassed, plain and simple.
Little sparks of electricity once again fired along my arm, but I ignored them and kept my finger where it was so he’d be forced to look at me as he spoke.
“I’m from LA, Gideon.”
Something about the way he said my name had all sorts of weird things happening inside of me.
“They don’t have fireplaces in LA?” I asked teasingly.
But he didn’t respond to my attempt to lighten the mood. “Lex—”
“I couldn’t find the switch, okay?” Lex snapped. He jerked his head away.
“What switch?” I asked stupidly.
Lex shook his head slowly back and forth. “I thought you turned the fireplace on with a switch.”
Understanding dawned and I felt like a complete and utter horse’s ass. “Lex, I’m sorr—”
“For what?” he bit out. “I’m the guy who’s too stupid to know—”
“Don’t do that!” I interjected. I grabbed his chin again and held it firmly. “Don’t call yourself that!” I repeated. I was practically nose to nose with him when I did it.
In the seconds that followed, I became very aware that Lex was looking straight at me for the first time. I knew he couldn’t actually see me, but he wasn’t trying to pull away, and for some reason that felt like progress. Like we’d finally gotten past some unseen line in the sand.
It made no sense.
I had no reason to want to make progress on anything with this virtual stranger. I didn’t want to know his problems or share in his burdens. Fisher Cove was my escape and there was no room in it for the vulnerable man in front of me. Even if I could get past the strange sensations he stirred within me, I wasn’t looking for a friend or confidante. And I wasn’t looking to be that for someone else.
I forced myself to release Lex. “Sorry about that,” I mumbled. I busied myself with looking through his kit.
“Me too,” Lex said.
I wasn’t sure what he was apologizing for, but I didn’t really want to know either. “What is this?” I asked, then realized the stupidity of my question. I reached for Lex’s hand and placed the object in it. He took a second to feel the small piece of plastic that looked like a chunky Band-Aid.
“It’s a patch pump. A disposable one.”
“It’s wireless?” I asked as I took it back from him.
“Yeah, it comes with a controller. It’s got a blood glucose monitor in it too,” Lex said.
“Really? That’s pretty cool,” I said. “I don’t think there was anything around like this when—” I began before I caught myself.
“When what?” Lex asked.
The wave of grief that settled over me was like a cloud threatening to steal every last ounce of oxygen from my lungs.
But I knew from experience that it wouldn’t. It wouldn’t be that kind.
“Gideon?”
The reminder that I wasn’t alone had me shaking my head before I remembered Lex couldn’t see me. “Why aren’t you wearing it?” I asked.
I didn’t look at Lex as I set the patch aside. The man was blind, but he wasn’t stupid. He’d recognize my switching the conversation back to him for what it was.
“The battery for the controller died and with the power out, I couldn’t recharge it. I keep the pens and regular glucose monitor as a backup.”
“Why didn’t you call Harvey about the power? He would have reached out to me.”
Lex dropped his eyes again and I felt the loss more than I wanted to admit. “I lost my phone outside when I was trying to get the generator started. Even if I could have found a landline inside the cabin, I wouldn’t have known the number to call. I was so cold and tired that I decided to just lie down and wait for the power to come back on.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask him how he’d gone from that to overdosing on his insulin and then trying to undo what he’d done, but then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to care. The silence between us grew awkward fast, so I returned all of his supplies to his kit and set it on the nightstand. As soon as I did, though, I couldn’t stop staring at the damn thing. “Try to finish your sandwich,” I murmured as I stood. “Call out if you need anything,” I added, though my eyes were still on Lex’s little black bag.
Lex didn’t say anything and he didn’t move, making the silence in the room even more pronounced. I climbed to my feet and turned to leave the room. In the process, I snagged the bag as discreetly as I could, hoping like hell that Lex hadn’t heard the rustling of the material as I did so. The whole thing felt wrong somehow, like I was deceiving him or something. But I took the bag anyway and left the room.