Page 158 of These Tears

The pieces click together quietly and a sudden heaviness drops straight through me.

I hazard a step closer. ‘Was she your psychologist growing up?’

He presses his lips together, clearly deliberating whether to humour me or shut me out. ‘Yes.’

I’m close enough now to catch the subtle shifts in his breathing, the faint pull at his mouth whenever he inhales. ‘She stopped treating me years before she ever took the programme job.’

He stretches and squares his shoulders with a wince I pretend not to notice, then looks at me fully.

I worry at my lip as words pile on top of each other behind my teeth.

‘At the risk of sounding absurd, considering…’ My tongue catches on the rest. The cabin. The drugged sleep. The flight. Everything we’ve done. I look out towards the coastline. ‘I don’t know how long you plan on keeping me here.’

‘Long.’

I don’t acknowledge it outwardly, because I have a thing or two to say about that. And this moment is not reserved for argument.

‘While I’m here, I won’t ask you to explain what happened to you.’ The open distance makes it easier to draw air into my lungs. ‘I mean…’ My teeth come together. ‘If you ever want to put any of it into words—’ My voice falters halfway. I clear my throat lightly. ‘—I’ll listen.’

As soon as it’s out, my insides twist and knot.

Marina’s voice rises in the back of my head, ‘Brilliant, Leah. Offer emotional support to your kidnapper, why don’t you?’

I’m not sure whether I’ve just extended a hand towards the bear because I’m foolish enough to believe it won’t bite, or because I want to feel its teeth close around that hand, wondering how hard they’ll press.

I’m stupid.

He studies me. I don’t dare look at him, so I let his gaze burn into my side.

‘What makes you think I’d ever want to talk about that with you?’ His question comes out too quiet. As though he was going to say something else, but his tongue decided otherwise.

My shoulders rise and fall in an attempt at nonchalance, though my pulse thumps hard against my ribs as my eyes sweep over the ice below for the last time. ‘For every truth you give me, I’ll give you one of mine.’

The fair exchange from that day in the prison yard, on his birthday. Something he can measure this against.

‘Truths?’ He cocks his head. ‘Like… why you’re still wearing that ugly ring?’

My fingers curl instinctively over the camera, the metal suddenly too present against my skin.

I look down at my hand and the lie still wrapped around my finger – one I haven’t stopped telling myself.

His eyes remain there – on another man’s broken promise.

Every time Elias looked at it, something on his face pulled tight.

Ron’s betrayal is around two years old, yet the evidence of it still sits on my body. Taking the ring off is a simple act in itself, but some wounds make grief out of habit, and habit out of shame.

I’m not sure if I keep it as a reminder of my own mistakes or something else.

‘Let’s say I know how hard it is,’ I murmur, ‘to shape a feeling into a sentence. But once it’s out, it makes you feel… lighter.’

His eyes meet mine. He breathes in, reaches for my hand without a word.

I tense before the touch happens. I hate that he sees that and hate even more that his movement slows because of it.

For a murderer who has killed with his bare hands, that motion is oddly careful. For a captor who crossed boundaries I’m still trying to understand, it’s too ordinary an act.

Cold air rushes over my bare skin, biting at the metal band just before the heat of his palm envelops it.