Marcus didn’t leave soon, he’d give them the necessary nudge to do so. They had a busy life and other demands on their time, and they couldn’t put them off indefinitely, no matter what Thomas claimed.
Rory was fine. He couldn’t seem to make anyone believe that, though.
His mother stopped by daily. Sometimes twice. She’d make dinner for him. Good stuff, his favorites. It all tasted like sawdust. He’d come home and pick at it, say the right things, make conversation, watch a little TV with her, then return to the store, work on fuck-all until past bedtime.
She was talking to Dr. Taylor daily, getting updates on Daralyn. Which was pretty much the same thing, every day.
Daralyn was working through an intensive program she and Dr. Taylor were developing and adjusting, day by day. Sometimes it was two steps forward and five steps back. She had good days and bad days. She missed them.
Since he could imagine what those backwards days looked like, Rory stopped asking for the updates, figuring his mother would tell him if the broken record changed.
When he exhausted himself, he went home to bed. Once or twice he went to Daralyn’s place and slept on her bed. He didn’t like being at her place without her, though. This was her space, that she’d filled with the things she’d allowed herself to enjoy, to express herself. When he was there alone, it felt too much like the house of a deceased relative, someone he wasn’t expecting to come back.
She’d had one of Elaine’s cookbooks sitting on the counter, and when he opened it up at a bookmarked page, he’d found a recipe for chicken-fried steak. The bookmark was a post-it note in Daralyn’s handwriting.
Make this for Rory’s birthday. Elaine says it’s his favorite.
He didn’t return to the cottage after that.
He reminded himself to shower, do his skin checks, do his workouts, his PT and training with Red. He did those things mainly to keep his family and friends from worrying about him.
They tried to get him to talk about it. He found himself realizing—and perversely admiring—how often Daralyn managed a conversation, avoiding unwelcome attention on things she didn’t want to discuss. He wasn’t as good at that, sometimes so abruptly forcing the subject toward more casual topics he earned a startled look from whichever friend or family member was trying to open him up.
They didn’t have a can opener big enough. No one did, not even himself. The only person who might wasn’t here.
He didn’t want to think about what he was thinking about. He just wanted to keep moving so he didn’t have to think at all. They didn’t need to worry. He could take care of himself, be an adult. He’d had his wallowing period after his accident. He wouldn’t become that person again. He wouldn’t do that to his family.
But he had nothing to give to anyone right now, because it was taking everything he had to take care of himself. Be that adult, trying not to burn his world down because the woman he loved had put herself out of his reach, beyond where he could help her.
She was trying to figure things out. But she’d shut him out, and it was hard not to take that personally. Also impossible not to keep replaying that moment in the cafeteria, when he was sure he’d failed her somehow. Dr. Taylor had said he hadn’t, but she couldn’t replace his gut.
Daralyn had been an animal in a cage. That was how Dr. Taylor had described her. Born there, no memory of anything but confinement. She’d lived at the whim of two men who never considered her care a priority, except for how it served their purposes. She’d lived and survived without hope. When she’d finally been taken from them, a light had started to burn in her previously lifeless gaze, proof that miracles existed. Hope had found a way in, and life’s possibilities had fueled it, made that light burn brighter.
In the cafeteria, that light had sputtered. In the driveway, before she left in the cab, he hadn’t seen even a flicker of it in her. Something had taken hope away from her.
He was her Dom. Her person. The man who loved her. He should have been able to prevent that. Kept the light burning.
Dr. Taylor said the solution had to come from her. He knew that. Told himself, over and over, this might be the best thing for her. He needed to be supportive. He