Page 40

Lena stood up in bed, pushing the covers away. She gasped when her back broke, and her vision started to swirl out of control. She promptly closed her eyes and waited for the dizziness to go away, which had been a normal thing for her since the operation. Any quick movement was too much for her brain, and she had to physically hold her breath to keep from falling face-first to the floor.
Slowly, she walked to the bathroom and locked the door. Then she turned to gaze in the mirror. And she looked…  at the person she had turned into.
There was a woman in front of her who had no hair on her head. Her cheeks were sunken, her jaw stuck out sharply, and her eyes looked horrible because they were so deep in their sockets. She looked like a bald joke that didn’t make sense.
She shuddered and thought about how Damien could even look at her without laughing.
The loud sound of a fist hitting the bathroom door woke her up from her bad thoughts. As she sprang, the toothbrush in her still hand dropped to the tiled floor.
“Stop staring at the mirror, Lena. Breakfast is waiting for you at the table.”
Her eyes became bigger. How did he find out? How did he always know? She was positive that there was no hole in the door and that there were no cameras or anything like that in her bathroom. Also, Damien wasn’t the kind to be a peeping Tom. So how could he have known that for the last two mornings, she had secretly stared at herself in the bathroom mirror and hated what she saw?
Damien was already at the tiny kitchen table when she stepped out of the bathroom after completing her morning routine. There was already a chair moved back in front of him. She walked and sat down on it, happy to see food. Tea, oats, and toast. As she got stronger every day, owing to Damien’s never-ending patience and drive, she also started to taste things again. She could eat more now without him having to push her.
“You don’t have to wear that bandana when you’re home, Lena. Let your skin breathe a little. It’s not even that cold today,” he said, looking up at her head while he stuffed his lips with bread.
Lena’s hand went up to touch the bandana without her meaning to. She did her best to disguise how uncomfortable she was. But of course, Damien was a mind reader these days, so he saw it and sighed, then dropped the half-eaten bread on his plate.
He added angrily, “If you’re worried about what I would think if I saw you bald, you should know that it doesn’t matter to me.”  “You still look as beautiful as you did before.”
Lena sat up straight in her chair and shook her head. “You call this…,” she said, pointing to her body. “Beautiful? Right now, I’m a hairless skeleton, Damien.”
“Remember,” he added, leaning in. “I’ve seen you at your worst, and I’ve memorized your beauty through every scar. A bald head or less flesh on your body won’t make me forget it.”
She had a lot of scars in her heart, and he knew about all of them. As she learned more and more, she could clearly remember how he had been the buddy who had saved her life over and over again in more ways than she could count.
Before she could even think about what he said, he leaned forward and untied the knot on her bandana with his long, skinny arms. When he pulled, the bandana slid off, and she couldn’t breathe.
She watched his black eyes go a little brighter as she glanced up at him. It was brown now, and her reflection shone in the strong beams of sun coming in through the kitchen window.
She had a fresh thought. It might be that the change in the hue of his eyes had nothing to do with being tired or drowsy. Instead, it could have been the feelings he was having. Strong feelings that made his eyes light up while he worked to make her life better all the time.
Both of them jumped a little when her phone rang.
Damien cleared his throat, rose up, and started to pick up the cups and plates from the table. She snatched up the phone with one hand and grasped his wrist with the other. The number was not known.
“Let me wash,” she said with her mouth. In response, he looked at her in disbelief. She softly huffed as he carried the dishes to the sink.
She grimaced when she didn’t hear anything on the other end of the phone.
She had been getting calls like this for two days, and she was starting to feel uncomfortable. At this point, call blocking wouldn’t work because the numbers would change every time.
She didn’t bother to say hello since she knew what was about to happen. And, as predicted, a sigh came. It was loud enough for her to know it was genuine, yet quiet enough that she couldn’t tell if it was a man or a woman.
She hung up the phone with a grimace still on her face.
Damien was humming a melody that caught her interest. She gazed at the back of his head. Part of her wanted to tell him about the phone calls, but the other part didn’t. Because she knew he would just grow more upset. The guy was already worried about her health.
It’s not a big deal. She murmured while taking big breaths. Just a foolish person making scary hoax calls. That’s all.
*****
The next day, she decided she was done with doing nothing but eating and sleeping all day. That, too, while Damien performed all the housework for her.
She was strong enough to act like a normal person and do some job now.
She got down at her workstation with papers and sketch pencils and started coming up with clothing designs and ideas that she thought would work well for their new business. It was hard to convince Damien that she was really okay, though. In the end, he persisted in hanging over her with determination. She knew that he was checking to see if she was throwing up blood and fainting on the papers, no matter how much he appeared to be just staring at her drawing patterns.
Yes, it was frustrating that he was making such a big deal out of it. But she was also thankful for it since she loved that someone cared about her so much.
“I’m really okay, Damien, really,” she responded. “It’s therapeutic to draw new designs.”  “It feels good to finally use my fashion design degree in a useful way.”
“But you will stop when you’re tired, okay?”
“Uh-huh,” she said, agreeing. After that, she moved away from her desk and looked at him with a serious face. “Damien, you need to start going to the boutiques. If you keep avoiding it for too long, our new business will not go well. The video calls and emails are just not enough; you need to be there in person to make sure everything goes well. And don’t try to deny it,” she scolded when he tried to deny it. “I don’t need someone to watch me all the time; I’m fine.”
“Okay,” he said with a sigh of defeat. “I’ll start going to work, but not until tomorrow. We still have to see your doctors today.”
She grinned because she had won.
Kellen was well hidden behind the huge pile of flowers in the florist store.
In front of his face, there was a space between two big Dahlias that gave him a good view of the hospital across the street.
There was a bee buzzing about him. He smacked the object away when it got too near, but he was too scared to look anywhere else.
There, with Damien’s aid, Lena got out of the automobile.
Kellen’s hands turned into tight fists next to him. She smiled at Damien and appeared joyful, even though she still looked weak. Damien moved in to adjust the bandana that had slipped down to her eyebrows before they could go. They said no to the wheelchair that the staff provided, and then they went away. Damien had his arm protectively over her shoulder, and she leaned into him, appearing as comfortable as she could.
He let all the bad sentiments out of his chest with a deep sigh that rocked the dahlias in front of him.
Was he going to lose Lena? Not that he had her anymore.
And could he blame her? No. He had already done enough of it.
He had driven her toward it, no matter where she was now. The outside world could have worked together to make it happen, but he was too humiliated to say that he had taken the chance with both hands and so eagerly.
It is the worst thing that can happen to possessive individuals. In their haze of claiming their domain, they frequently smother and destroy the most priceless object they had always wanted to guard.
When Lena was totally out of sight, and his heart stopped racing, the ringing in his pocket started again. He left the flower store without paying attention to the florist, who was giving him a dirty look. The florist was sure to get angry after the man stood in that small space for hours, asking random questions about flowers, getting in the way of other customers as they picked flowers, and then leaving without buying a single petal.
He walked to his car, which was parked on the curb. He picked up the phone with one hand while putting the other in his pocket. “Got an invite to Gwen’s Home brunch, but I had to promise to give something in return,” his boss said from the other side.
He murmured, “That’s good,” and his lips twitched into a smile.
“How can it be good, sir?” The manager’s voice was full of fear. “Some of the investors want their money back, and most of our worried employees are quitting. At this point, charity sounds like a saw-blade that will kill you…”