Chapter 2 - SHE COULDN’T AFFORD TO FEAR ME
Emma became the only person in my house who treated my temper like a minor inconvenience.
I shouted because the coffee was cold.
She walked past with towels.
I fired a nurse for discussing me with Luke as if I weren’t in the room.
Emma emptied my wastebasket.
I slammed a drawer hard enough to knock over a photograph.
Emma picked it up.
No lecture.
No pity.
No fear.
It was infuriating.
Then I started noticing things.
Her hands were cracked from chemicals.
She arrived after midnight already exhausted.
One evening she stumbled while carrying laundry.
“You drunk?” I called.
She turned.
“No.”
“Then why are you falling over?”
“I’ve been awake since five.”
“You work somewhere else?”
“A diner.”
“How long?”
“Nine hours.”
“And then you come here?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Something closed behind her eyes.
“Because I need the money.”
Later, Luke told me what she wouldn’t.
Emma’s mother lived in a memory-care facility.
The bills were crushing her.
That explained the diner.
The night shift.
The red hands.
What it didn’t explain was why I began listening for her footsteps.
Then came the phantom pain.
People think paralysis means feeling nothing.
They’re wrong.
Sometimes my useless legs burned so badly I wanted to tear them from my body.
At two in the morning, Emma found me bent over in my wheelchair, sweating.
“Where are your pills?”
“Get out.”
“Kitchen or bathroom?”
“Kitchen.”
She returned with one tablet.
“Bring two.”
“No.”
I stared at her.
“Emma.”
“The bottle says one every six hours.”
“I know what it says.”
“Then you know why you’re getting one.”
People had begged for their lives after hearing the tone I used next.
Emma simply held out the water.
“Did you eat?”
“That’s none of your business.”
“So no.”
I should have fired her.
Instead, I swallowed the pill.
Her fingers brushed mine.
Cracked skin.
A small chemical burn.
“You’re insane,” I muttered.
Emma looked tired enough to fall asleep standing.
“No,” she said.
“I’m broke.”
For some reason, that made me laugh.
May you like
It was the first real laugh I’d had in almost two years.
And Emma stared at me as if she had just discovered there was still a man somewhere beneath the monster.
