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By seventy-three, I lose track because the need to pee is so pressing that my thighs press together on instinct.

I lose track, start over at twenty-two, then give up at forty-eight.

“Adrien?” I call out, louder this time. The word hits the door and falls flat, absorbed by the stillness.

There’s still no response.

A little knot of unease forms beneath my ribs.

Maybe he’s outside.

The thought should be reassuring, but it brings me no comfort, because outside means he can’t hear me. I shift again, and the chain attaching my wrist to the headboard scrapes against the wood with a faint metallic whisper. I test it with a gentle tug, and it doesn’t give.

Adrien said it might be sooner than he thought before I could go without it, and I know I should be grateful for that, but I can’t help but wish “sooner” had already happened.

My bladder gives another dull, deep throb, a fist of pressure low in my belly.

“Adrien?” I squeeze my eyes shut.

He’ll come. He always comes.

That is a ridiculous thing to think after knowing someone for less than three days, and I know it, but it doesn’t stop the words from forming inside me.

He always comes back into the room. He does. He comes back with food, water bottles with colorful straws, medicine, a laptop full of pictures of my dad and faraway cities, a brand-new sketchbook, clean clothes, and new, soft socks without any holes.

He said he’d take care of me.

Dad trusted him to; Dad asked him to.

I clutch Rabbit closer.

Maybe Adrien is sleeping. Maybe I slept through half the day, and he decided to nap too. Maybe—

A sudden, sharp twist of urgency cuts through me. I hiss through my teeth and curl onto my side, knees drawn up.

Okay. This is bad now.

I could call louder, but the idea sends a cold ripple through me, because yelling feels dangerous in a way I can’t explain, as though too much noise will somehow turn Adrien from the patient man who bought me art supplies into someone else entirely.

That makes no sense. He told me to call if I need him. He has repeatedly told me to tell him what I need. Still, my throat goes tight when I try.

“Adrien!” His name is louder this time, edged with something like panic.

I wait. My heartbeat kicks up, thumping hard against my ribs.

Nothing.

Maybe he left.

The thought slips in so quietly through my discomfort that I almost miss it, but the second I really think about it, it digs in deep.

Maybe he left the house. That’s fine. He probably has a life somewhere outside this place that didn’t stop just because he took me. He probably has work to do and people to see, and I know he has a real home because he said I might get to see it one day if I’m good enough.

He never promised to sit outside my door every second of every day. But surely he would have told me if he was going to leave, right?

Wouldn’t he…?

My fingers twist into Rabbit’s fur.