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“Get away from me.” I was embarrassed and scared, my cheek throbbing with betrayal and the beginnings of a nice shiner as I knelt in the corner of my bedroom. I tried not to lose my cool, but I was barely hanging on. Ezra, Kabayo, Alton and Finn had taken the blissed-out version of Von down to his cell in the basement. They left me with two Duwendes, who I wouldn’t let within three feet of me. Graham tried to rest his hand on my shoulder, but I batted at him like a caged animal. I didn’t want to hurt him, but needed the message to be clear: Don’t touch October.
I clawed at the backs of my hands, my face red as I tried to find a reason why it was a good idea for me to stay sane. I couldn’t come up with anything, so I sought to remove the skin from my arms one layer at a time. Pain made sense. Von hitting me didn’t.
“Come on, love. Let me take a look at your eye. Danny brought you an icepack.”
I tried not to yell, and kept my voice quiet, so I didn’t give in to the screaming I wanted to do. “I don’t want it. Just leave me alone.” I could feel that I was rocking back and forth like a maniac, but I let my body do what it needed to. “I want to go home.”
Graham’s voice was quiet and sad. “You can’t go back there. There’s not even windows put in yet. This is your home, too.”
“My boyfriend would never hit me in my own home. I wouldn’t let that happen. I’m not one of those girls who lets that happen.” With all the pain of a knife slicing off my finger, I slid off Von’s ring and dropped it in Danny’s outstretched hand. “It’s over. It’s done. I won’t put up with an ounce of that.”
“Okay. I get it. Just breathe for now.” Danny tried to maintain some semblance of control as Finn reentered the bedroom.
“I’m fine, so you can go. I want to be alone.”
“You’re hurting yourself!” Danny pointed at my hands that were set on destroying my skin one shred at a time.
“I’m sad, which is normal to feel in a situation like this. I’m normal!” I declared, rocking in the corner, holding myself so I didn’t claw off my skin with so many witnesses.
“Clearly. October, you have to calm down. Ezra’s going to handle Von. Something’s cracked because you’re right, Von would never hit you, especially in your own home. Von would never hit me, either. I don’t know what’s going on, but that wasn’t Von, just then. Kabayo’s here, and together they’ll sort it out.”
“Sort what out? There’s nothing unclear to me. Everything I love breaks. My home is broken. Bev is broken. Allie is broken. My baby is broken! My fiancé is broken. Everywhere I turn, my life is breaking, and you want to tell me to calm down?” The agony of being a homeless orphan with a black eye from her boyfriend shot through me, piling misery on top of grief that I couldn’t reason my way through. Maybe I was being dramatic, but I’d flipped a switch or something. Too many days of being calm so Von could fall apart had stacked up into a wall of crazy. The punch to my face had toppled the wall all over the place, and now I was stumbling hopelessly through the rubble, not caring who I crashed into.
Danny tried a different tact. “You don’t want us in your space? Fine. But Ezra ordered that medicine Ollie used on you when you lost your mind before. If you can’t settle down, I’ll go get that needle. Don’t make me do it, kid.”
I turned to look up at Danny, livid and seething with betrayal. “You touch me with that needle, and I’ll end you. You’re not my doctor.”
“What medicine?” Finn inquired, watching the scene from a few feet back.
“Stuff for when she loses her mind.”
“This has happened before?”
“There’s no ‘this’. All I want is for you to get out of my room. Can’t a girl get some privacy?”
Danny threw out his hands. “Fine! Far be it from me to keep you from hurting yourself. I’m such a monster. I’ve got a black eye too, you know!” Danny stormed out, taking his anger with him.
Graham tried to put his hand on my shoulder again, but I shoved it away. “I said don’t touch me. Go help Danny. Go help Ezra. I want to be alone.”
Graham stood, tapping his heart. “It hurts you when Von clings too hard? Well it hurts me when you push us away like this. I want to be your friend.”
“You want to be my friend?” I sniffled, trying to think a little more rationally, now that there was one less person in the room and on my case. “You are. I just want some space. I freak out less if people leave me to deal. It’s a lot to take right now.”
Graham nodded. “I can get onboard with that. Is there anything I can get you while you take some time for yourself?”
“No, thanks. But could you make sure someone visits Allie? I told her I’d see her today, but I don’t feel up to driving.”
“Of course. If Ollie can’t step away, I’ll go myself.”
I breathed, feeling the difference immediately as oxygen and just a little bit of space helped to clear my head. “Tell Ezra not to give Von any more of the antihistamine if he’s going to have him locked up for more than a day or so. I’ve been giving him a daily dose, but his ear’s not getting any better. Maybe he’s allergic to the medicine or something, because he started getting super nuts right around then. I’m grasping at straws.” I shook my head at myself. “I don’t even think it’s possible to have a psychotic reaction to an antihistamine.”
“His ear?”
I turned back to my corner, so I didn’t have to look at anyone. “It’s swollen. He should have it looked at.”
“I can do that. Anything else?”
“Just a little quiet. That’s all I want.”
“Of course, little sister.” Graham left, and I closed my eyes, letting the tears flow freely, now that I didn’t have an audience. I kept my body cuddled into the corner of the room, my eyes shut as I clawed at my arms slowly. I needed to feel the deep pain that made me focus on the physical and not the emotional. Physical could heal. Physical pain was fixable.
“I really wish you’d stop that,” Finn said from behind me.
I straightened and whirled on him, furious that he’d been watching me and hadn’t vacated the room like I’d asked. “If you don’t like it, then you can leave.”
But he didn’t leave. Finn walked over to my dresser and pulled out one of the books he’d given me. “I can’t remember where we were. Do you?”
“Where we were what?”
“In the story. Had Lissima’s parents killed Ricardo by ripping his heart out of his body yet?”
My mouth dropped open in shock. “I can’t believe you just did that! Of course we haven’t gotten there yet. Are you serious? Did you really just ruin the ending of a series I translated by hand?”
Finn cracked a smile at me. “I’m only kidding. I know where we are.” He took the book, shut the bedroom door and locked it. Then Finn grabbed a blanket from the bed, covered my shoulders with it, and sat down two feet from me, leaning his back against the wall. He didn’t look at my face, and part of me appreciated that he knew me well enough to understand that I didn’t want anyone to see me so broken. He didn’t address the assault, but made a show of breathing deeply in and out, setting the tone for the level of tranquility he willed into the bedroom. He wasn’t going to treat me like a victim, which for some reason reminded me that I was stronger than crying in a corner. “Now, where were we? Are we to the part where we find out Lissima’s really the daughter of the wicked sea king?”
“You make jokes now, but you’ll be the one eating that book if that turns out to be the case.”
“Let me read to you,” he offered, rolling his shoulders back. “I’ve had a long day.”
I chuckled, which I didn’t think myself capable of doing. “You poor guy. All that surfing grow tiresome?”
“Shut up and relax. Let’s deal with life another day.”
I looked over at his face finally and saw sleeplessness etched into the corners. I could tell he needed the break just as much as I did. I shifted my body and held myself on the floor, my knees pushed to my chest, cuddling into the blanket he was kind enough to get for me.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the wall as Finn began reading, drenching us in the details of another world with fictional problems far more complicated than ours. After he flipped the page, he kept reading, but reached his free hand out between us, palm up in invitation. I didn’t know what to make of the offer, and let it rest a few paragraphs before tentatively stretching my arm out to lay my hand in his. It wasn’t flirty or laced with the blush-worthy tawdriness our non-relationship was famous for. It was kindness – pure and simple. Beneath the attraction and the intention that never went anywhere, Finn and I had a friendship that was worth holding onto.
I thought I knew how much I appreciated Finn’s offer to be there for me through a pretty confusing time. I thought I’d reached full velocity on my emotional rollercoaster where he was concerned. Then my palm grew damp, and I realized that Finn was washing my hand for me while he read. He didn’t say a word as he washed away the germs that clawed at my flesh; he simply rinsed away my demons and held my hand until the madness passed. Tears welled in my eyes, and each one that spilled was a tribute to my gratitude for our budding friendship. I don’t know how I got so lucky that after all the shake-ups and fights, I somehow got to keep part of Finn in my heart, and got to hold him tight in my hand.
Finn read an entire chapter before resting the open book facedown over his shin. “How’s your eye?”
“Feels awesome. My whole life feels awesome,” I deadpanned.
Finn chuckled at the bitter note in my voice. “I admit, I never thought Von would lay a hand on you. Maybe you’ll feel better once you’re back in your home.”
I took a steadying breath. “I don’t have a home. That was supposed to be my safe place, and my daughter died right on my bed.”
Finn took a chance and pulled me and the blanket closer, so he could loop my arm through his. “My home is always yours. Nothing romantic. Just while Ezra sorts Von out. I really can’t believe Von would hit you in his right mind. When he came to Dagat to find the mole in my battalion, I saw it.”
“Saw what?”
“I saw how much he loves you. I love you, make no mistake, but Von? That’s a whole other level of devotion.” He shook his head and scratched his chest. “This whole conscience thing is rough.” He cleared his throat. “I promise not to make a move on you until you and Von figure out where you stand. That being said, I want you to come stay with me for a little while. I’ll keep you safe.”
I kept my voice barely above a whisper. “I was molested right outside your house. And if you remember, you blacked my other eye once upon a time in my dark fairy tale. I’m not safe anywhere.”
Finn winced. “I’m different now. We’re different. You broke my curse and gave me the chance at growing a conscience.”
I shook my head, too messed up to think clearly. “You have to stop. I’m barely a person anymore. I can’t process more than this. Thanks for the offer, but I need to stay Topside. You and I are dangerous together, and I’ve had enough danger in my life.”
Finn held me tighter. “Okay. Maybe I shouldn’t have said anything.”
“Sometimes nothing is the perfect thing to say.”
Finn looked down on me with too much love, too much adoration. My heart broke that I was never in the right place at the right time, that I wanted something simple, but the options were messy and crumbled when I got too near. I stilled as Finn brought my fingers to his lips, kissing each one slowly, lacing each blessing with a silent promise that not everything broken would always be thus. His full lips brushed the burgeoning bruise on my cheek. “I love you,” he whispered, “and I want more for you than this.”
“How can you look at me like that?” I marveled, staring up at him in confusion. “My body’s all messed up, I’m gross from crying, and...”
“I see you,” Finn answered simply. “You’re still in there, even if you can’t feel it. I see you.”
I swallowed, wishing I could see the me he did, that I could be the girl worth looking at like... like that. “You shouldn’t be nice to me. I’m a wreck.”
The corner of his mouth tugged up in half a smile. “I know you. You’ve got miles to go before someone like you’s wrecked.”
The sweetness of his declaration pinged in my fragile heart. Of all the things we’d whispered to each other during our alone time, I prayed for that one note to ring true.