Chapter 3 - What She Saw Under the Strap
She didn't let go when my sister spoke. That was the first thing that stuck with me. Everyone else at that table froze, but the nurse kept both hands around my left wrist, steady, her thumbs holding the lifted edge of the strap up so it wouldn't fall back down.
The candlelight was right there off the plates. My gold-rimmed plate caught it and threw it back up at us. I could see the underside of the black leather, darker with sweat, and then the skin underneath. I hadn't looked at that patch of skin in years. The ink from my tattoo ran right up to where the watch always sat, and in the pale gap the band usually covered, my skin looked raw.
"You've got redness here," she said. Her voice stayed low, professional, like we weren't sitting at a dinner table. She tilted my wrist a fraction toward the light. "Right along here where the case sits."
I wanted to pull away. Not because she was hurting me, but because my sister was staring and the two men behind us had gone too still. I could feel the heat from the candles and the weight of the fork still by my plate where her elbow had almost knocked it.
Then the pain hit. Late, dull, like when you press a bruise you forgot you had. A throb started under the red patch and spread up toward my thumb. I breathed in through my nose and tried not to flinch, but she felt it. Her grip loosened just enough to let blood back into my hand.
"Sorry," she murmured. "Does that sting?"
I didn't answer right away. I was looking at what she was looking at. It wasn't just red. There was a tight, irritated ring where the back of the watch had pressed, and inside that ring were three small marks, too even to be scratches. Little dots, close together, one already scabbing at the edge. I stared at them and tried to place when I'd last taken the watch off.
That was the part that made my stomach turn. I couldn't remember taking it off that day. I couldn't remember putting it on that morning either. I always put it on with my right hand after I buttoned my cuffs. It was routine, like checking my pockets for my phone. But when I tried to replay getting dressed, all I got was the bathroom mirror and the sound of water running. No click of the buckle. No tug to settle it.
She shifted her left hand to support my forearm and used her right to hold the strap clear. The stethoscope around her neck swung forward and tapped the edge of the table. She didn't seem to notice. Her eyes kept moving from the marks to my face and back, calm and focused, not scared like my sister.
"When did you notice this?" she asked quietly.
I shook my head before I realized I was doing it. "I didn't."
The word came out rougher than I meant. My free hand was still half-raised from when I'd gestured at her, and I set it down hard on the tablecloth to stop it from shaking. The water glass near my plate trembled. The reflection of the curtains moved in the dark wood of the table.
She didn't argue with me. She just held the watch a little higher so I could see the inside of the band. The leather there looked newer than it should have. Or cleaner. My strap had a crease where I always fastened it on the second hole. This one was sitting on the third, tighter against the marks.
I felt confused more than angry then. At dinner, in my own chair, with food going cold in front of me, I was looking at my own wrist like it belonged to somebody else. I should have known if someone had changed the fit. I should have felt that tightness all day.
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I looked up at her. She was still waiting, not pushing, just watching my face the way she'd watched the skin. And behind her calm, I could tell she had already decided what she was seeing mattered.
I couldn't remember the morning. I couldn't explain the tighter strap. And the three little marks kept throbbing under the light like they'd only just happened.
