Page 13 of Love What's Left
She doesn’t take her eyes off me. Fair enough. I don’t take mine off her for long either. I retrieve her new phone from a drawer with a charging station inside and carry it over to her. Maybe it’ll prove to her that she’s not a prisoner. It’s worth a try to make her feel safe and comfortable. At the very least, it can’t hurt.
I crouch to her level and control my wince of pain. “We never recovered your last phone, but this one has your cloud data loaded onto it. I put the same style of clear cover on it for you. All your friends’ numbers are in your Favorites if you want to talk to them.”
She snatches it from my hand. I nod and return to packing, watching her uneasily in my periphery as I retrieve a suitcase from its shelf.
Without a moment’s hesitation, Sydney types the PIN into the lock screen, then gnaws on the corner of her bottom lip.
After a few moments, she lowers the device, slips it into her side pocket, and makes eye contact with me. “Have to use the b-bathroom.”
Earlier, her muscles had to have been operating on pure adrenaline. She’s cooperated with physical therapy all week, but she hasn’t been getting around without someone guiding her. She has to be exhausted. “Do you need help?”
She shakes her head jerkily. “P-permission to go . . . alone. Please.”
The pain from her fist has nothing on the ache in my heart. “You don’t need to ask. Not ever. You’re free.”
She stands and backs through the closet door before turning to make her way to the bathroom. I watch her progress to make sure she isn’t headed back to the balcony or toward the elevator when she’s shoeless and confused.
I can’t think of anything in the bathroom at the moment that she could accidentally hurt herself with. As long as I stay close, I’ll hear something like a broken mirror.
She closes the door. Less than twenty seconds later, my phone vibrates, and I pull it from my pocket. Her contact, “Wifey,” along with a photo of her sticking out her tongue at me, shows on the screen.
“Yes?” I move immediately to go to her.
“I remembered this number. You’re the one I need. My name is Sydney Walsh McRae. Do you know me?” she whispers haltingly.
I close my eyes, torn between hope that she’s coming back to me and devastation at the fear in her voice. “Yes. I know you.”
“I wask-kidnapped, but I found my l-location on my phone.” She rattles off our street address. “Will you help me?”
“Yes,” I say, my voice thick.
I tap on the bathroom door.
“I have to go,” she says.
Ten seconds later, posture wary and no phone in sight, she opens the door.
I hold up my screen. “I’m the number you remembered. I’m here for you. Anything you need.”
Her gaze darts to my phone, shock, then denial, and finally, rage, twisting her features. She slams the door in my face.
I remain where I am, my nose centimeters from the glossy wood, as if her shutting me out was a prank. A mistake. As if it didn’t happen at all. She’ll open the door any second.
The lock clicks into place.
And still, I remain . . . one hand at my side, the other gripping my phone so tightly my knuckles ache.
I shove my phone into my pocket, her beautiful, silly, smiling face nothing but a memory. I press my forehead to the door.
“I’m here, Sydney. I’m right here.” Will she take my words as reassurance or a threat?
Sydney remembers my number. But she doesn’t rememberme.
She’s terrified of abandonment. She always has been, no matter how she tried to hide it. She’s desperate for me, clinging one moment, then looking at me like I’m the enemy and fighting to get away the next.
Giving her space when she’s waiting for me to save her leaves her to suffer alone. But barging in to try to convince her I’m the man she’s waiting for will terrify her. There’s no right answer.
I back away from the door slowly, as though one wrong move will shatter me into broken glass. Granthy may arrive to find both of us rocking on the floor.
