Page 28 of Empowered

The doctor moved around Shyam so that he was closer to me. “Are you able to see my fingers clearly?” he asked, holding two in front of my eyes, and moving them around to watch me track them.

“Yes.”

“Are you able to tell me your first and last name and where you are from?”

“Amelia Becker from Seattle, Washington.”

“Very good,” he said.

He continued to check the rest of my body, including the gash on my cheek, which was sealed up with stitches and covered with bandages. He also inspected the bottom of my feet, which had been pretty scratched up from being shoeless most of the time in captivity. He removed the IV that had kept me hydrated during my unconscious state and sealed the puncture on my arm with a piece of gauze and medical tape.

“Your cheek seems to be healing nicely, too. I’ll be back in three days to remove the stitches. Keep the area clean and dry in the meantime. Also, stay off your feet as much as possible to give the blisters a chance to heal. Shyam has been taking great care of you, so let him keep doing so.”

I narrowed my eyes, puzzled by his admission.

“I guess you wouldn’t know since you were out cold, but he’s been by your side since you came home. Wouldn’t leave you alone no matter how hard I tried to convince him to get some rest for himself,” he said as he packed up his medical bag.

I stared at Shyam, who wore a tender expression as he looked back at me. That probably meant he was the one who cleaned the dirt that had accumulated on my skin since I had been taken. Imagining him giving me a sponge bath made me blush.

“Before I go, I need to check your wounds too,” the doctor said, pointing to a chair across from the bed, signaling for Shyam to sit.

I had completely forgotten about what Tarun did to him—the bite and the dagger. Stress tensed my brows as images from that day replayed in my head. Shyam squeezed my hand again to reassure me that he was okay. He followed Dr. Khan’s order and sat on the chair. The doctor inspected the wounds on his neck.

“These are healing well. You’re lucky he didn’t get you too deep. It probably just bled a lot since this area is highly vascularized. Have you been continuing your course of antibiotics?”

“Yes.”

The doctor motioned for him to lift his shirt. “Let me see your waist.”

Shyam lifted the hem, exposing a reddish-pink scar.

The doctor pressed around the scar, causing Shyam’s face to tense in discomfort. Reflexively, I moved to push myself up to go over to him but stopped when dizziness took hold of me and forced me back down on my bed of pillows.

“Don’t,” Shyam warned. I heeded his orders and stayed put, fighting my need to hold his hand through his pain.

“Scar tissue is minimal. No damage to any organs. Continue massaging the area around the incision to promote proper healing and minimize scarring.”

“I don’t care about the scar, Doc,” he said light-heartedly as he lowered his shirt.

The doctor gave Shyam a rundown of the antibiotics and pain medications I was to take for the next few days. To my embarrassment, Shyam asked him to leave me with birth-control pills so I could start them today and verified that they wouldn’t interact with my course of antibiotics. The doctor obliged and bid us farewell, promising to return to remove my stitches in a few days.

The door clicked. After weeks of despair and loss, we were finally alone. Together.

Silence filled the space between us. Our eyes never broke contact.

I wished he would touch me just to ease the awkwardness I felt. I had longed for this moment in my dingy cell in Tarun’s dungeon, and now that it was here and I was living it, I was too nervous. What should I say? What should I do? Maybe I should at least thank him for flying all this way to save me?

I cleared the bubble in my throat. “Um…thank you.”

“For what?” he asked.

“Um…coming all the way from New York…to save me. I didn’t think I’d get out of there.”

“You did that all on your own. I didn’t save you. You did it yourself.”

Images of Salena lying lifeless in her wedding gown, surrounded by her own blood, replayed like scenes from a movie in my head. I hadn’t kept my promise to her, to save her. I fought back the tears threatening to fall as I remembered how she looked splayed out on the ground in her wedding outfit.

“Hey. Talk to me.” Shyam moved to lie next to me on the bed, wrapping his arms around me. I rested my head on his chest and let his steady heartbeat soothe my emotions.

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