Page 27 of Only the Small Bones
“You don’t…” I’d been about to tell him he didn’t have to go, to promise I’d never suggest it again. I got sidetracked when his gaze fell to my feet. To the sheet of paper that had landed there when he’d made his explosive escape from me. I made a slow show of picking it up, giving him ample time to let me know if he didn’t want me to.
When he didn’t, I looked at the page, the corners crumpling in my fists as I read the horror smeared across it.
Burned!
Stab!
Cut!
Drugged!
Slave!
Cold!
Hungry!
Chained!
Floor!
Beat!
And the last one, written three times...
Broken!
Broken!
Broken!
“No,” I breathed, close to tears, looking him over as though I could see through his clothes to the scars his words screamed were beneath them. He’d told me what happened to him. He was telling me he wouldn’t talk about it with anyone, but in doing so, he’d shared it with me.
He must have realized that, because his eyes watered as he shook his head and scrambled to his feet. He’d never given me a head gesture before, and it felt almost like he’d finally said something to me. I wished it wasn’t this. I wished he’d gotten to live a normal life, gotten to fall in love, wished he’d gotten away. I wished he’d never been taken in the first place.
“Wait!” I called when he turned for the hall. “You don’t have to go to Safe Haven. You don’t have to…” I clutched the paper I still held, my blood boiling, demanding the immediate hunting down and torture of the people responsible for all this. I shut down the voices attempting to take those thoughts a step further, my guilt didn’t need any more ammunition. “You don’t have to tell anyone about this, if you’re not ready to. But I need you to see a doctor.”
He spun toward me, nearly falling over again.
“I know you don’t want to be touched, but what if…” I looked at the paper again, noticing the absence of the four-letter word I dreaded seeing, hoping it wasn’t because he hadn’t gotten a chance to write it down. “What if something is medically wrong because of what they did to you? Something we can’t see?”
Ryan wasn’t examined at the hospital. Davidson said he wouldn’t let anyone touch him. He’d had to be restrained and sedated after having a meltdown when they tried. I strengthened my resolve before meeting his tearful eyes again, because I couldn’t afford to back down now. I couldn’t let my need to make everything right for him cloud my judgment. Not about this.
“My doctor makes house calls. I’ll get examined too, if it helps.” It was almost time for my annual check-up anyway. “It doesn’t have to be today, or tomorrow, but youneedto do it. This is my compromise.”
His face blanched at the seriousness in my tone, and he clutched his t-shirt as though already fighting to hold on to hisautonomy, to hold on to his right to choose. I wouldn’t force him, regardless of what I’d said. I just hoped he would agree.
“Don’t let them keep you chained,” I whispered, still seated for fear my legs wouldn’t hold me up. “Don’t let them win.”
Ryan stayed in his room for two whole days after that. I went back to leaving trays of food by his door, and notes that went unanswered. I went back to taking my little oval pill again.
William
I’d been taking my anxiety medication on an as-needed basis, but recently that method hadn’t been as effective as in the past. If I called Dr. Stein, she’d tell me what I already knew but didn’t want to hear. That I was only treating one symptom of a bigger issue.
She’d urge me to get treatment for my dysthymia, which had obviously returned. I’d ignored her professional opinion when she cautioned me about what could happen if I didn’t keep up with my maintenance treatment. I didn’t keep up with it because sometimes it didn’t seem fair to be self-content, after all the things I’d done. Sometimes not suffering for it all felt too much like forgetting.
She would also want me in her office, and once there, she’d want to know what changes had interfered with the carefully cultivated structure of my life.
