Between the Lives - By Jessica Shirvington Page 0,30

something … It wasn’t like with Mom and Dad. He was angry at me, which he had little right to be since he didn’t even know me, but there was an urgency to it. To fix me. Not my head, but my body.

I sighed. ‘I’ll tell you if you promise me one thing.’

That earned me another headshake. ‘Whatever you’re going to ask for, I can’t do it. Can’t get you out, can’t get you drugs, can’t smuggle you food, can’t get you a phone, can’t take you for a joyride, can’t even bring you a toothbrush.’

‘You can do this much, I know you can.’ I’d heard Mitch tell him.

He clenched his jaw. ‘What?’

I took a deep breath. ‘Promise me that before midnight … Swear that you’ll release me from the restraints. I need to know that at midnight I won’t be tied down.’

His confusion showed. ‘Why?’

‘Does it matter? I’m here and can’t go anywhere. It’s just … It’s important to me. Please.’

He paused, watching me curiously. ‘What’s going on with you, Sabine?’

‘That’s … It’s complicated, Ethan, and we don’t have time.’ And then our eyes locked, and without thinking the mouth that had already landed me in so much trouble today opened again. ‘But if you truly want to know, I’ll tell you. Another time.’

He kept watching me. ‘And why would you do that?’

I shrugged. ‘Well, I’m already tied up. Things can’t get much worse.’

Ethan gave a small nod. ‘Famous last words,’ he muttered. ‘Where are they, Sabine?’

‘Promise me.’

For a moment I thought he was going to say no, but then he sighed. ‘You won’t be restrained at midnight. You have my word.’

‘And I can trust your word?’ I asked, watching him carefully.

He half smiled. ‘With your life.’

It was a dig, but somehow I knew it was also the truth.

‘My right thigh and stomach. And I didn’t break my own arm.’

His look softened momentarily before he got back to work, moving the blanket up from the bottom of the bed to reveal one leg, folding back my hospital gown until he found the bandages.

As he peeled back the plasters, I tried not to cringe.

‘That one isn’t as bad,’ I said.

There was a sharp intake of breath when he got the last of the bandages off. ‘Jesus. What did you do this with, a butter knife?’

‘Scissors and a razor. The scissors were a bad idea.’

‘You think?’ he deadpanned, then went back to shaking his head. ‘Does your life mean so little to you?’

‘No. Having a life is exactly why I’m doing this. And you can stop shaking your head like it matters to you. You don’t even know me, or care.’

After he’d finished re-dressing my thigh, he lifted my gown without looking to just below my chest and then replaced the blanket at my waist. It was gentlemanly. Even if his other actions weren’t. The rest of him radiated anger.

‘I don’t know you. What I care about is being made an accessory to suicide.’

‘What?’

Ignoring me, he pulled the plaster off the cut beneath my ribs and studied it. ‘So you started on your thigh, moved to this and then your arm?’

I blinked. ‘How …? How do you …?’

He shook his head again and it made me want to scream. ‘They get progressively neater and deeper. I saw your bag yesterday at the store. You were planning, weren’t you?’

I looked away.

‘Knew it. And that book? All planning, wasn’t it?’

‘Yes, but not for what you think. I mean, take a look, Ethan. Do you think I’m really that stupid? Do you think I would cut myself on my thigh, my stomach and my upper arm if I wanted to die? My parents own a drugstore. Do you think I don’t know the long list of how and how not to kill oneself?’

He crossed his arms as I went on the attack. Somehow it made me even more annoyed.

‘Do you think I want this? To have everyone call me crazy? Think I would put myself in this position willingly for a failed attempt at death-by-small-cut-to-the-thigh? Yes, okay, I did it, but I have my reasons. And if you saw that stuff in my bag and thought I might be doing something with it, why didn’t you just say something?’

Ethan stared at me. Time stretched. I was out of words and simply exhausted. Just when I thought he wasn’t going to respond, he began to speak. ‘You were …’ He clenched his jaw. This time he seemed unhappy with himself rather than me. ‘I saw