Where there’s a will there’s a way. Where there’s a pill there’s a way. I laugh out loud at my own joke and Zeus closes his notebook. Then he reaches over and swipes his hand down over my eyes. “You can’t just do that,” I tell him. “I’m not dead. Or a bird.”
“I didn’t cover your cage.” A light kiss on my forehead, and then he’s gone, or I’m asleep, and it doesn’t matter anymore.
The next two weeks are divided into four-hour blocks that begin and end with Zeus. Zeus shaking me awake with a glass of water in his hand. Zeus lifting me off bed and back in. Every four hours exactly, even in the night. I never hear an alarm. Does he stay awake the whole time and sleep only when I do? I don’t know. Do I say anything embarrassing? I’m sure of it. Over and over. But by the time he wakes me up again I’ve already forgotten.
After the first week I find a new ability to stay semiconscious between pills and Zeus carries me out to the sofa and puts on movies. We only watch mildly dramatic movies for the first three days because laughing hurts and so does crying, but by day six, the pain is starting to fade.
On day seven, I’m high as a kite during a movie about a dog that gets lost in San Francisco, but at least I’m awake. It’s progress. “I have to ask you something.” My tone comes out grave and determined. Serious as hell. Zeus shifts next to me. The only way I can sit for the length of a movie is if he props a pillow behind me a certain way and then puts his arm behind the pillow. It sounds stupid and it is stupid but it’s also true.
“Ask me.” His eyes search my face.
“Is this...” I trail off, looking at him. It’s not fair that he looks the way he does. A man who does bad, evil things should not look like an actual angel descended from heaven.
“Brigit,” he prompts. “Do you need to go to bed?”
“No. This is important.” I take a deep breath. “Is this the worst movie you have ever seen?”
He shakes his head, letting out a breath, and works his arm free. “No,” he says dryly. “It’s my favorite movie.”
Zeus lifts me off the sofa and I let him, because what other choice do I have? “Are you putting me to bed? I said I wasn’t tired.”
He ignores me. The worst part is that when he tucks me in, I fall immediately asleep and don’t wake up again for another two hours and forty-two minutes.
On day nine, he stops bringing me child-size snacks and we start taking dinner on the sofa like civilized people.
On day thirteen, I’m in the middle of a bowl of stir fry when the most urgent question of my life springs into being. It’s been a long time, what with the painkillers, and the less my back hurts the more I stay awake. This does not make them any less potent. “Are there other people here?”
Zeus answers this with a level look. “Do you see other people here?”
“No, obviously not.” I take stock of the room again. “But you have people here.”
“Like who?”
“Like, people. Like staff.”
“Occasionally.” He sticks his fork into his own bowl. “Not since you’ve been here.”
My mouth drops open. “Then who’s cooking all this?”
There’s a long silence. “Brigit.”
“Yeah?”
“You can’t be serious.” He flicks his eyes toward the ceiling like a praying man might. “You’re not cooking anything. Does that answer your question?”
“You? It’s you?”
“For Christ’s sake. You’re lucky you won’t remember this later.”
“I will. I vow to remember it.”
I don’t remember it. I only remember that he spends the rest of this time applying patches to the wound, proprietary treatments developed by some army somewhere that make it heal faster. I only remember the way he curses softly under his breath every time he removes the bandage and how gently he touches me when he replaces it.
“I believe you,” Zeus says, clearly lying. “Watch the movie.”
That night he helps me walk back to the bedroom and when we reach the door I find that he’s long since let go, and there was no pain. The last of the painkillers is starting to wear off. I test it a little more by walking into the bedroom by myself and sitting down. Zeus folds his arms over his chest and watches me from the threshold.
“I’m