Chapter 4
The light had changed. It wasn't the warm low glow from the night before anymore. Morning came in gray through the blinds and laid a hard stripe across the white bedding. I could hear the house quiet in a different way, the kind of quiet that meant daytime had started without me.
She was awake. Sitting in the chair beside the bed where she'd been all night, her light blue uniform still on, cap a little crooked, hands folded in her lap. The glass of water was still on the nightstand where she'd left it. The pill was there too, in its small plastic cup.
My stomach was empty. It had been since yesterday evening. I felt that hollow, sick ache that came before the pain got bad again.
"The six hours," she said softly. She didn't reach for anything yet. She waited.
I looked at the cup. Then at her. Last night I'd told her to get out. She hadn't. She'd slept on the edge of my bed because there was nowhere else to go and I'd been too proud to tell her where.
"I haven't eaten," I said. My voice was rough.
"I know," she said. "That's why it's due."
We sat there for a second. The clock on the dresser ticked. I could feel the sweat starting on my neck again, that familiar warning that the dose was late.
I had spent the whole night thinking about control. About how taking that pill felt like letting someone else feed me. About how being in this chair already made me feel like half a man. I didn't want her fingers at my mouth. I didn't want to be handled.
"Don't," I said. "Don't put it in my mouth."
She blinked. "Okay."
"Put it in my hand," I said. It was the first time I'd asked for anything instead of ordering her away. My palm was open on the blanket. It shook a little and I hated that she could see it.
She picked up the little cup carefully. She tipped the white pill out, but she didn't drop it. She held it between her thumb and forefinger for a second, then lowered it and placed it right in the center of my palm. Her fingers didn't touch my skin.
"Like that?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said. "Like that."
The pill was light. Almost nothing. I closed my fingers around it. I could do this part myself.
She must have understood what I needed next, because she picked up the glass of water and set it closer to my hand, on the edge of the nightstand where I could reach it without leaning too far. Then she turned.
She didn't make a show of it. She just turned her chair a quarter turn toward the window, her back partly to me, her hands back in her lap, looking at the blinds. Giving me privacy without leaving the room.
I stared at her back for a second, the white collar of her uniform, the dark ponytail under the cap. Then I brought my hand to my mouth. I put the pill on my tongue. It tasted bitter instantly. I grabbed the glass with my other hand — the wheelchair armrest creaked as I shifted my weight — and drank. Cold water, too fast, I swallowed and coughed once, but it went down. I drank again to be sure.
I set the glass down harder than I meant to. It clinked against the wood.
She turned back around.
"Good?" she asked.
I nodded. My throat still burned. "Yeah."
She didn't smile like she'd won something. She just reached into the pocket of her uniform and pulled out her phone. It was an old phone with a cracked case.
"Do you mind if I write it down?" she asked. "So we know when the next one is."
I almost said no. Logging it felt like making it official. But that was the point.
"Go ahead," I said.
She opened the notes app. I watched her thumbs type. She held it so I could see.
7:14 AM - pill taken, no food, water
"Is that right?" she asked.
I checked the clock on the dresser. 7:14. "Yeah."
"So next one is one fifteen," she said, typing again. "1:14 PM."
She showed me that too, then locked the phone and slipped it back into her pocket. That small action — the time stamped, the next clock started — made my chest feel tighter and looser at the same time. Someone had seen it. Someone would remember.
The pill hadn't kicked in yet. That would take twenty minutes. But the decision had. For the first time since the injury, taking it hadn't felt like giving up. It had felt like my hand, my mouth, my choice. She'd just been there to put it where I asked.
"Thank you," I said, and the words surprised both of us.
May you like
She nodded once, calm and restrained like always. "I'll get you some toast when it's time to eat."
We sat in the gray morning light, the empty glass between us, the clock now running.
