Page 94 of Lady and the Butcher
“I wanted—” I stopped. The heat crawled up my neck. “I wanted to stop holding the world up by myself. I wanted to be taken apart by someone who wouldn’t drop the pieces.”
His eyes softened. “Then that’s the truth I’m keeping,” he said. “Not the noise. I won’t bring noise to your father’s porch again. I won’t let men think your name buys them leverage over me. The doors—” He lifted one hand and closed it like he was taking something by the throat. “I’m shutting them.”
“You can’t say that because you’re high on hospital fluorescent lighting and hero points,” I said, mean because I was scared.
“I’m saying it because Stephen is in that bed,” he answered, not rising to my poke. “Because when you left, I heard what the quiet sounds like. Because your letter turned in my mouth and tasted like prayer. I’m not interested in piety. I’m interested in you.”
It should’ve been too much. It felt like almost enough.
I stepped into him—not to kiss him, not in that sterile, antiseptic-smelling box—but to put my forehead against his chest. His hand came up and cupped the back of my head.
“You terrify me,” I said into his shirt.
“You’ve said that before. And?” he asked, the question a smile I could feel.
“And I’m not asking you to be harmless,” I said. “I’m asking you to be mine. In a way I can handle. A way I can trust.”
“Good,” he said simply.
He didn’t follow me back into the room right away. He went to make a call. When he returned, his edges were different. If you didn’t know him, you wouldn’t have seen it. If you did, you would’ve felt the shift like a barometric drop. He’d moved pieces. He’d closed a loop. A man I would never meet would change travel plans. A door I’d never walk through would lock from the inside and gather dust. The world didn’t clap. It recalibrated.
That night, the hospital lights dimmed to something that tried very hard for mercy and almost got there. Mom dozed sitting up with a tissue balled in her palm. The twins took turns pretending the vinyl chairs were acceptable for sleep. Darla, who can hold a vigil like art, shooed me toward the family lounge and told me to lie down for thirty minutes or she’d body-slam me into the cot and call it sisterly love.
I walked the hall instead, because walking is the way my mind shakes things off.
I paused at the window where the city stuttered and glowed. Atticus found me there like he always did—not hunting me, just knowing where I’d look when walls were too close. He leaned one shoulder against the glass and stood companionable with my fear.
“When?” I asked.
“Prelim says I’m good,” he said. “They’ll confirm high-res fast because I asked them to. Harvest the moment they can take it. Unless they opt for peripheral collection. Whatever’s best for him.”
“Will it hurt you?”
“Yes,” he said, unbothered by truth. “They say it’s very painful.”
“Will you be okay?”
“I will,” he said. “I’ve lived through worse things done for worse men.”
I wanted to tell him not to say that. I wanted to repurpose it into a story where he hadn’t had to survive so much darkness to find me. But I don’t get to edit his past. I get to choose the present with him, or walk away.
We stood there until my eyes learned how to water without making my face ugly. He didn’t ask me for anything. He just let me lean a little into the breadth of him like the window had widened.
When I went back into the room, Stephen was awake enough to be himself in pieces. “You look like you want to fight something,” he told me.
“I do,” I said. “But I’ll settle for making you drink water.”
He grimaced and complied.
Mom started awake and pretended she hadn’t been sleeping at all. Darla texted me a string of knives and hearts thattranslated toI’m proud of youand alsoI will cut anyone who touches this family.
Atticus came to the bedside and hooked his thumb into his pocket like he didn’t know what to do with his hands. “You always did want to win,” he told Stephen.
“Gonna,” Stephen said.
“Good,” Atticus answered. “I’ll see to it.”
When the nurse took new vitals and the machines quieted, I found the little family chapel that smells like wood polish and someone else’s prayers. I didn’t kneel. I don’t like ritual I didn’t consent to. I sat in the back and let myself rest against a pew. I told the air the truth:I don’t believe in barter. I do believe in stubbornness.I asked for enough of that to go around.
