Dorian. That's me. Still in my study at one in the morning, on my third read of a contract I already knew by heart.
I don't sleep much since the will. Since the wedding. There's too much of my father's handwriting in my head.
Then I heard it. Low and wet, coming from down the hall.
Somebody crying with a hand clapped over their mouth.
I put the contract down and went out.
The bathroom door was open a hand's width. Light spilled out.
I pushed it the rest of the way.
She was on the floor with her back against the tub, sleeves shoved up past her elbows.
Her arms were red and wet. Her whole body was shaking.
Not water. Scratches. Long ones, cut by her own nails.
She had torn herself open from wrist to elbow.
Dorian: What the fuck did you do to yourself.
She jumped like I'd raised a fist. Both arms went behind her back.
Dorian: Show me. Now.
I took her wrist. Gently, and she still flinched.
But she didn't pull it back.
The scratches were deep. Some had opened up again.
There was skin under her nails.
She reached for the notebook by her knee with her free hand.
Her fingers shook so hard she dropped the pen.
She wrote one line and turned the page toward me.
The page said: I had to get it off me.
I read it twice. Then I got it.
She wasn't cutting herself. She was scrubbing. Trying to wash off something that wasn't on the outside.
Dorian: Was it him. Did your uncle do this.
She shook her head hard. Then she pointed at her own arms.
She did it to herself. That was worse, somehow.
A man can be stopped. A thing you do alone in a locked bathroom cannot.
Dorian: Listen to me.
Dorian: Nobody in this house is going to hurt you. Not him. Not anybody. Ever.
She looked at me then. Really looked, for the first time since the courthouse.
Then she picked up the pen.
The page said: You?
That one word sat between us like a slap.
Fair. I'd bought her. I'd told her she was a womb with a ring on it. Then I asked her to believe me.
Dorian: Not me. Not ever.
My voice came out rough. I didn't plan it. It came out anyway.
Her forehead touched my shoulder. Just touched.
I stayed like that until the water in the tub went cold.
She was so thin. Under the wet sleeves her arms were like sticks.
Somebody taught her this long before tonight. Somebody in that house.
Tomorrow I'd find out who. Tomorrow I'd find out all of it.