eyes are burning from staying open.
With his past, nightmares are to be expected.
And all this time, he’s been dealing with it alone.
My heart aches for him, and I register that even if I never get him as I want him, even if I never take him away from this life and bring him out of the dark and into the light, I’ll always try to be his friend because I’ve never met someone more in need than Savio.
He is, I realize, what all my other friends had been leading up to.
They were training wheels for my first go on a big girl bike.
As I scramble onto my feet, I cringe when my head whooshes again. Blood surges into it, making white spots dance in my vision for a second. That means I’ve pushed it, but I already know that. I’m supposed to practice gentle exercises to increase my mobility, and the past few days, I’ve been doing a lot of walking.
But I forge on ahead, rushing out of the room and barging straight into his.
This place is no home. It’s another cell. Plain, unadorned. I mean, I know men like to keep things simple, but this is so bare it’s representative of the man.
There are no pictures on the dresser or nightstand, none even on the bookshelves that line one wall.
It’s just a simple room.
Spartan.
Miserable.
He’s tossing and turning on the one luxury—a double bed.
He has to be in excruciating agony from his back colliding with the sheets, but he doesn’t seem to care.
The anguished sounds escaping him, the noises he makes?
Pain fills me on his behalf.
And I want to help more than ever.
But I can quite easily see that he’s violent, and my body isn’t equipped to handle that.
He doesn’t just whimper or make mewling sounds in his sleep. No, he’s thrashing. Half the sheets are off the bed, torn from the mattress. His feet kick, his arms flail like...
I close my eyes.
Like he’s trying to get loose.
I bite the inside of my lip to take some of the pain away, to release it, and the revelation hits me. Suddenly, I understand far too easily why Savio finds solace in pain.
But while I have no idea how to help him, I know I have to stop him. I can’t let him stay in the prison of his mind.
I move over and press a hand to his arm, but he surges upright, his hand swiping out at me like I’m the aggressor.
Stumbling, I lurch back, and only the fact I fall into the wall stops me from crumbling to the ground. For a second, I find myself a little dazed, but I don’t fear him.
If anything, I fear for him.
My brow puckers as I stare at him, watching him thrash, and suddenly the one comfort in this room makes sense.
His bed.
A double.
Not because he wants the comfort, because God forbid he has anything that makes him less penitent, but because he’ll fall out of it otherwise.
I gnaw on my bottom lip as I stare at him, wanting to help but knowing I’m not strong enough, physically, to do so.
That crucifies me.
Truly.
Deep inside? I feel wrecked because, fuck, this is my entire purpose.
To help him.
I knew that when I went into surgery. I knew I had to survive to help him.
He is my purpose.
My reason.
This goes beyond being soul mates.
This is divine intervention.
He’s on a path, a path of destruction. It will lead him to hell. Whether or not he cares about that now is neither here nor there. He’s in a pit of despair, so deeply entrenched in his depression that he can see no way out.
I know my purpose is to shine a light on him.
But how can I do that if I’m not strong enough?
A broken cry escapes him, and it wrecks me. Truly, it does. It breaks me.
I want to weep, want to slide to my knees at the side of the bed at the sound of him so weak.
Savio is not a man made for weakness.
He’s born of strength.
Forged of iron.
His soul calls to mine, and I don’t give a damn if the doctors said my reasoning would still be affected, I don’t care if they said every step I took over the years was shadowed by my illness. Here, now, I know it was all leading to this point.
Because I don’t know what to do to help him, I move around the bed.
He’s in the center of the mattress, flailing around, but if I stick close