But I’d pinned him.
I was in control now.
With two of my fingers, I tugged his turtleneck down to reveal the enormous bandage underneath. Part of it was stained red as if the wound was bleeding so much, the cotton could barely contain it.
I tugged the turtleneck back up, horrified, and sat back on the couch.
There were so many emotions swirling within me that I didn’t know what to say.
“Luke…”
“No.”
“Luke, please…” Adam said, leaning towards me like he was approaching a wild animal.
I hugged my knees to my chest and put my head between my legs. That thrumming within me was gone. Everything was quiet, and I was worried that my anxiety was only hiding in the shadows, waiting for the opportune moment to strike.
Adam was pleading with me, trying to explain that he was out doing a routine investigation.
“You didn’t tell me,” I said, finally feeling something inside begin to crack. Tears poured out of my eyes and fell down my face. “I was so worried!”
“Luke, I’m sorry!” Adam said, putting his hand on my leg. “I didn’t want you to worry—”
I stood up suddenly and glared at Adam. “I worry anyway! There is no escape from it! Those sirens today were for you!”
Adam was looking at me with fear like I had turned into a monster.
Hell, I felt like a monster.
“There are sirens all over the city,” Adam reasoned. “All the time.”
“DO YOU KNOW HOW MUCH STRESS THAT CAUSES ME?” I yelled, whipping myself into a panic.
In one smooth motion, Adam got to his feet and wrapped me in a tight hug.
I tried to push him away, but he held me close.
Then I melted into his arms and began sobbing into his shirt. Ugly tears poured down my face and out my nose, like the ones that only come out when you cry on the shoulder of your mother.
Adam tightened his grip. I felt more secure in it.
“I’m sorry, Luke,” he uttered gently. “I’m so, so sorry.”
I looked up into his eyes, deep green irises filled with regret. Then my gaze went to the bandage on his neck, drawing me in like it was a magnet.
Burying my head into Adam’s chest, I cried until I didn’t have any tears left.
I felt his gentle hand on the back of my head and then felt something hot on my ear. Something liquid.
Adam was crying too.
I bunched up my fists in the back of his shirt. “I’m so afraid that you’re going to die out there. There’s always a chance you won’t come home.”
Instead of refuting me, of declaring that he wouldn’t die, of leaving me alone in my worry, he said, “I know.”
Even though the truth was scathing, that small validation felt good. It felt like a plaster patch, smoothing over one of the gaping fissures between us.
We sat back down on the couch, our knees touching. The heat from Adam’s body felt like an anchor.
“I want you to tell me everything that happened today. Everything that led up to you getting that,” I gestured to his neck.
Adam looked at the coffee table instead of my eyes, and I could tell he was fighting the urge to avoid telling me about it.
“I wanted to keep you… everything we’ve built here — separate from all of that.”
I pursed my lips and crossed my arms. “Well, it’s not working.”
“I know,” he said sadly.
Then in a steady, almost monotone voice like he was giving some kind of emotionless book report, he told me the story of his day. He told me about how he and Claire went to get donuts, how they followed the skinheads to a house, and how they got into a fight.
I had to take a deep breath, and my eyes fluttered closed when he got to the part about the woman holding the knife.
“That must have been terrifying,” I said, squeezing his hand.
It took a concentrated effort to not react to what he was telling me; to take whatever fear he must have felt and amplify it with the insane Dr. Seuss machine in my head. No, that part would come later.
That part would be private.
“It was,” he admitted stoically. “But we got the situation under control.”
“It’s okay to be afraid, you know,” I said. “I’m afraid all the time. It doesn’t make you any less brave to be afraid.”
“Fear and bravery are different things,” he said, looking down at my hand. Then his eyes flickered up to meet mine. “You are the bravest person I know.”
I furrowed my brow. “Me? I’m scared of my own shadow.”
“You face fear more often than normal people,” he declared, his gaze unwavering. The way he was looking into my eyes was raw and intense as if he wished he could inscribe his words on the insides of my eyelids. It was like his words were lasers, carving the compliment onto my soul. “You face it all the time, more intense and more powerful than most. It’s something that’s always there. And you know how to conquer it. You fight this battle every single day, Luke. And I’m sorry I’ve never told you how proud of you I am for it. I admire you.”
I felt like I was going to melt right here on this couch; become one with the cushions forever.
Then I pulled him into another hug, and I felt, strangely, relief flood through me.
We stayed like that for a while, just holding each other.
“Solid,” Adam whispered.
“Solid.”
After that night, things got better. Adam began texting me what he was doing more often at the precinct, and I thanked him for every detail. Though much to my dismay, it did little to whittle the fears that splintered through my soul. Whenever I heard an ambulance roar down the street, I still felt the fear take control of my body.
I threw myself into my work, cutting and sewing and reworking the fabric endlessly under the watchful eye of Professor King. It was the one thing I had control over.
Everything seemed okay — not great, but okay — until Friday. It was the Friday before Adam and I were supposed to go to the munch and meet other members of the BDSM community. New York’s soundscape decided to morph into an auditory monster, shaking the building with the sounds.
I thought I would be okay — I had my phone on the table, open to a meditation app.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I watched the rotating cube shrink and expand with my lungs.
Breathe in, breathe out.
I was in control. I had this. I could handle anything the world threw at me—
The whirring of an ambulance, followed by police sirens, followed by the honking of firetrucks sounded right outside the classroom window.
My paper-thin cocoon of control ruptured, and the sensation was something I could only describe as leaking out of myself. It was like my insides were so twisted up with fear that they’d turned to mush. I had to fight to keep it inside instead of letting it leak from every single one of my pores.
I snatched my phone off my desk and bolted out of the classroom, longing for a quiet room or something nearby.
Somewhere I could hide. Somewhere I could convince my brain that I was safe.
That Adam was safe.
I peered at my phone, and thankfully there was a text from Adam there, checking in.
I’m still at the office, doing paperwork about some deadbeat. What are you up to?
Bless his heart. He knew the city was noisier today, so he made sure to check in with me every fifteen minutes or so.
Hell, he was so generous and caring that he had probably convinced his boss to let him stay in the precinct today, doing paperwork.
I frowned. Adam hated doing paperwork.
The memory flashed before my eyes of Adam looking so happy and fulfilled when we were in his cop car, peeling down the country roads in our hometown.
He was happiest when he was on the hunt. And because of me, he was stuck in a boring office all day.
Was I limiting him? Was he sacrificing his career
for me?
I looked down at my shining silver engagement ring and wondered if Adam looked down at his and saw a tiny handcuff.
Like always, I felt the worry swell within me, threatening to swash over the edges of its container.
Luckily, I found an empty classroom and shut the door.
This space was more insulated than the other classrooms — as soon as the door closed, there was a comforting silence.
I focused on my breathing for a bit, and then my phone vibrated.
With excitement, I thought it might be another text from Adam. Instead, it was a call from an unknown number.
Nothing was worse than calls from unknown numbers to people with anxiety. Who could it be? Someone calling to tell me everyone in my family was dead? The American Red Cross telling me I was sick, that they found out from my last blood donation? That Parsons had decided to withdraw my acceptance?
Even though I reasoned all of these ridiculous thoughts away, they still simmered on the back burner. It was like my brain was waiting for when I was weakest before it would jump out and attack.
My phone vibrated again.
Gritting my teeth, I closed my eyes and pictured Adam’s face last night.
“Solid.”
And that was enough to instill the bravery I needed to answer the phone.
“Hello?”
A motherly female voice answered, “Luke DuPont?”
“This is him,” I said, my heart in my throat.
“This is Cathy at Dr. Brinkman’s office,” she said, her voice sounding a little excited like she had a goodie waiting for me. “Do you have time to meet today? An appointment slot just opened up.”
I felt my fears cage me like a canary as the thoughts stuck their needles into my skin:
Today? I wasn’t planning on having to talk to someone new today. I thought that I wouldn’t have to meet Dr. Brinkman for a few weeks. Now he’ll get to see what a mess I am, and he’ll hate me right off the bat, and reject me as a patient—
“Luke?” Cathy asked in that motherly tone. “Dr. Brinkman can’t wait to meet you! Can you stop by today?”
She was so gentle. So nice.
I felt acceptance rush through me.
“Yes. Today is perfect,” I said, looking out the window to see a pair of ambulances chase each other down the street. “What time?”
Adam
“You alright, Big Guy?” Claire asked as she walked into the station, the sudden warm air flushing her cheeks.
“Enjoying the warmth in here,” I lied, highlighting something on the annoying form on my table. The sound of fluttering papers and hurried rustling chattered around us.
“I was worried Sarge would keep you on paperwork all day. And I can’t just babble at Chua all day— all he does is stare out the window.”
“That’s exactly what I do,” I pointed out.
“Ugh! It’s different!” She said, running her hands through her brown locks. “I want you back in the car with me; I don’t want to ride around with Chua no more. He reminds me of my dad.”
“Chua’s a good guy,” I said ambiguously, but I couldn’t deny that I knew where she was coming from: He never smiled, crossed his arms, and grunted in affirmation. And if you came up with ideas, he poked holes in them and shot them down. He was a wet blanket wrapped around a stick in the mud.
“How long are you gonna do paperwork?”
“Unclear.”
“Did that boyfriend of yours ground you or something?” She asked, her eyes sparkling with suspicion.
“No,” I said a little too quickly.
“I thought so,” she said with a sly smile. “My boo got on my case about that a little while ago… but we’re good now.”
I put my highlighter down, and it rolled to the edge of my desk. “…how did you resolve it?”
“Well, we just reached the agreement that if he couldn’t chill out about my job, we were donezo.”
I steepled my fingers and watched her face carefully. She was trying to act smug about it, but I could tell there was more there. There were layers of discussions and fights and compromises that she wasn’t telling me.
There had to be.
“I see what you’re doing, Big Guy. You’re doing that shrink stuff on me. It ain’t gonna work.”
I pulled my gaze off of her, forcing it to return to the paperwork on my desk. “Sorry, I was just trying to figure out if that’s all there was to it.”
“Yep. That’s all it was.”
“No discussions? No fights? No compromises?”
She bit her lip, and her eyes went to the ceiling. It was as if she was studying a memory projected onto one of the tiles up there. “Nope.”
“So you just told him that if he didn’t, and I quote, chill out about your dangerous job, that—”
“That he could find someone else, yeah.”
I was stunned. Maybe that worked for Claire’s relationship, but it certainly wouldn’t work for mine.
“And things between you are just… good now?”
“Yep.”
I stared at her silently, then decided that there must be something she wasn’t telling me. The guy had to resent her now, or—
“It’s about the choice,” she said.
“It sounds like an ultimatum.”
“No, it’s giving them a choice. When you and your partner are fightin’ every day about something, it’s hard on both of you. You do everything you can to fix it, but when it comes to things like a career… in the end it’ll come down to the choice. My boo chose to stay with me. Ever since then, we haven’t fought.”
I pondered this for a second, poking the tip of the highlighter cap to the corner of my mouth. “Doesn’t your boyfriend worry?”
“Of course he gets worried, but it used to be so much worse. He’d see something on the news, and I’d find ten missed calls when I got back to my personal phone. But now I guess he’s used to it, or he pretends I’m not a cop or somethin’.”
A part of me wondered if that would ever work for Luke. If he could just… get over the fact that I had this job.
Then I was picturing how his face looked when he yelled at me the other night… when he said I should find a new job.
My tooth began to ache. I realized that I’d been chewing on the tip of the highlighter too hard, gnawing little dents into it.
Claire locked onto it with her brown eyes, then leaned over my desk.
“Look. People like us… we need this. There’s nowhere else we feel more alive than in the field busting bad guys. I need you out on the streets, in the car with me. Hell, this whole city needs you. And you’re going to stay in here doing this bean counter shit because you’re afraid your partner might be a little uncomfortable?”
A man at the desk shot Claire a dirty look.
“Sorry, Greenman, but we both know you’re just pushing paper.”
Greenman scowled, then turned his chair away.
I sighed long and heavy. Claire had a point. I couldn’t put my life — my passion — on hold just to keep Luke’s worries at bay.
His anxiety already controlled his life to a degree — I wouldn’t let it control mine as well.
As if rising to the challenge, I stood up.
Claire smiled, her eyes dancing with delight.
“Alright. Let me just text Luke, and then we can go,” I said.
“Yay! I’m so happy you’re joining me! No more Chua! And, we need to go back to that factory again. Sarge wants us to do another sweep.”
“Alright, alright,” I said. The thrill of adventure shot up my spine as everything in my nervous system lit up with excitement. I was going back to where I belonged — patrolling the streets, investigating, making sure people were safe. I didn’t realize how much I’d dreaded sitting down to do paperwork until I didn’t have to do it anymore.
I tapped out a quick message to Luke and hit send, then put my personal phone in the drawer.
On the way to the factory, Claire
was babbling about what she made for dinner with her boyfriend last night, and my thoughts were drifting away to Luke, as usual. What if something happened when I was out here again?
I put my hand to the bandage on the side of my neck and frowned.
It was a reminder that I could get hurt. It was a reminder that I wasn’t invincible.
I knew how Luke saw it; he saw it as a threat from this vast, scary city that I could be taken away from him at any moment.
Up until I’d gotten this cut, I would have batted those fears out of his mind, and we’d end the night with some kinky playtime. Sometimes he just needed to feel like he was in control.
But now that I had this wound, I was more inclined to agree with Luke’s line of thinking. The question now wasn’t if the city could chew me up and spit me out, but would it.
Though I tried to shake it off, the feeling clung to me like cigarette smoke as Claire pulled the squad car into the deserted factory parking lot.
We got out of the car and into the chill of the air, letting the New York winter grayness envelop us.
Even under the bandage, I could feel the wound prickle in the brisk air.
“It’s cold down by the water!” Claire said with a smile, her brown hair whipping over her face in thin tendrils.
We were in an industrial area down by the water, surrounded by factories and shipping containers.
Murder Central, Luke had called it once when we drove by.
I narrowed my eyes, thinking of the serial killer’s most recent targets. He — or she, I had to keep reminding myself — was after guys that looked just like Luke.
As much as I tried to bat it away, I couldn’t stop the thought from strangling me; the thought that he might be next.
I was the first to enter the factory. The feeling of profound loneliness settled on my shoulders as I took in the long, empty cement floor and the ancient-looking machinery dormant in the center.
Just when my mind began to wander to dark places, Claire spoke.
“You know, places like these would make for incredible event spaces. I could see this remodeled into a nightclub, with all the lights and glitter, and a DJ booth right up there!” she gestured to the machinery.
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