26.1

“I’m sorry.”She squeezes my hand, groaning, and the sound threatens to break what’s left of my heart. Seeing her like this—the IV in her arm, the bruising and scrapes along the left side of her face, her arm, her leg—is almost worse torture than when I forced myself to stay away from her.

There’s nothing I can do to take the pain away. I’m helpless, and I’ve never been a man who handles helplessness well.

“What are you apologizing for?” When she licks her dry lips, I pick up the Styrofoam cup of water from the wheeled table next to the bed and guide the straw to her mouth.

She takes a sip and tries to smile, but it looks more like a grimace. “For not calling sooner. I was so out of it, and they had my purse. They didn’t give it back to me until I came up from getting all those tests done. I don’t even know what half of them were.”

I could kick myself to death. There I was, cursing her, prepared to tie her to my bed and leave her there until she rotted. While she was alone here at the