I Found You

I pulled up the sleeve of the sweatshirt I’d given her.

Her wrists were narrow. They looked so fucking breakable. But they weren’t slashed. The blood had come from a jagged cut across her palm. It didn’t look like it had been done by a knife, and the blood had begun congealing.

I glanced at her fingers. I’d heard people injected heroin beneath their fingernails to hide the marks. There were no marks on her arms, and there seemed to be none under her nails. It was probably safe to guess her problem wasn’t heroin .

“How did you do it?” I’d been avoiding questions, I figured she wouldn’t speak, but I couldn’t help myself now. “What happened?”

She shrugged, letting my question slide away, as she’d been doing on the bridge. Her gaze, which had been looking at her hand too, lifted to me, but she said nothing.

I let her hand go. “Why don’t you run a bath? You can talk when you want.”

The cold had probably stopped her losing too much blood. “Don’t get your hand in the water, though.”

“What are you, a nurse?” There was that mocking pitch in her voice again.

“No, I work for a magazine.”

“And from your voice, you don’t like it?”

“Not at the moment, and I don’t like the city either. I’m new to it.”

“Well, I’m not. Maybe I can help you in return, then, seeing as you’re helping me.”

I didn’t want to give her any expectations, we weren’t friends. “You need to just get warm first.”

She turned away.

Jason Macinlay wasn’t like any man I’d known. He was considerate. I didn’t know what to make of him. I’d met guys on the street before, but when they’d taken me back to their place, it hadn’t been to get me out of the cold.

His place was minimalistic and his bedcovers were crumpled and thrown back. Yet he wasn’t untidy. It just suggested he took life as he found it. Like he didn’t need order.

I looked at the doors.

The first one I opened was a closet. It contained rough heaps of his clothing. The second was the bathroom.

I turned the water on and touched it with my bloody hand. A stinging pain burned in my palm. I must have left blood on the doors. I looked at the gash as blood dripped into the water. The warmth had made it bleed again. I saw the scarlet ribbons of blood spinning in the white porcelain sink back at Declan’s.

I didn’t want to think about how I’d cut it. I shut that out. I’d ended it. I was starting over. I had to find a job, find a life––somewhere to live.

I used the toilet as the water ran, and held the neck of Jason Macinlay’s sweaty top up to my nose. The fresh male musky scent was ridiculously comforting. I breathed it in. There was something about him that made me feel safer than I’d felt in an entire year, or maybe longer. Nothing in his eyes had said he’d brought me back here because he wanted sex. He’d said he was a nice guy. Those words were still swimming around in my muddled head.

Was I going mad again? Had I really injured Declan? My eyes shut for a moment as images whisked through my brain and swept away. I couldn’t grasp hold of them. I didn’t want to. I just wanted to get away.

But I had got away. I’d gotten here. I had nowhere else to go.

I was suddenly very aware of the pace of my breathing. It felt too fast. I remembered seeing people breathing into paper bags when they hyperventilated and focused on breathing in the same way, trying to slow it down. I stripped off Jason Macinlay’s top, then my t-shirt. Then I took off my sneakers and jeans.

I hadn’t put on any underwear in my haste to get out.

I got into the water. It was really warm and the heat absorbed all my pain, physical and mental.

Pictures of the black water I’d seen beneath the bridge, swelling and rocking, played through my mind. I imagined it absorbing me, a great dark, thick, fluid weight.

It would be so much easier to slip beneath the water. I didn’t have the courage or the strength to go on. How could I begin again?

A knock struck the bathroom door. Then it opened. Jason Macinlay walked in.

“Shit, sorry… You should’ve shouted.” His eyes skimmed over my body before he turned his back. He wasn’t so saintly then.

I sat up, the water swilling around me. “It’s just a body. You must’ve seen a hundred naked women.” He was too good-looking to be inhibited, surely. He’d probably had tons of women in his bed.

“I brought your coffee.”

“Yeah, I guessed.”

He held it out, without turning. He felt awkward about me being here, I’d seen that the minute we’d got to his front door. I knew what it was like to sleep on the streets, though, and he was right, it was freezing. But what I’d said to him in the elevator was true. I trusted him. Probably more than I’d trusted any other guy––no one had given me their sweaty top before, when I was cold.

I took the cup from him, and put it on the lip of the tub. Blood dripped into the water. “My hand’s bleeding.” It was shaking too.

He looked across his shoulder, at my hand, nothing else. “I’ll find something. I’ve got a first-aid kit. There should be a bandage in there.” He went again.

The cocaine I’d taken with Declan was still spinning through my nerves and my heartbeat lifted my breasts a little as it thumped, while my damp hair brushed the skin on my back and shoulders. I had a sense of déjà-vu, though I could never have been here before. But it was like I was meant to come to this place.

I picked up the coffee with my left hand, my good hand, and sipped from it. Warmth ran into my blood. The cold had got deep inside me.

“I turned the heating up,” Jason said, as he came back in. “Do you want to pull the shower curtain and just stick your hand out.”

I looked up at him and met his deep brown gaze.

He had large eyes, strong features, and broad lips, and his dark brown hair was cut close to his head but it wasn’t gelled.

He looked good. He’d probably broken a few girls’ hearts back in Oregon.

I didn’t bother with the shower curtain, I held out my hand as his gaze clung to my face, like he was trying desperately not to look down.

He needn’t worry. I was used to being naked with men. My body was just flesh and bone. I knew he wanted to look down, all men wanted to look, it was in their nature. Well, unless it wasn’t women they were into.

With a deep sigh his gaze fell to my hand as he gripped it. “Okay, I mixed boiled water with the antiseptic so it’ll take a moment to cool.”

He put the lid of the toilet down and sat on it, holding my hand and looking at the gash.

I couldn’t imagine Declan ever doing anything like this. He’d have told me to fucking get on with it and stop moaning.

But I hadn’t moaned had I? Jason Macinlay had seen the blood and asked about it. I shouldn’t feel guilty then that he was helping. But I did. This was my own fault. I should be fixing it.

“It could need stitches.”

“I’m not going to a hospital. I can’t stand those places. I’ll be fine.”

I took my hand from his and he looked up, his gaze caught on my breasts then lifted.

See, a man, he couldn’t help but look.

He met my gaze, and I knew he knew I’d seen him look. There was color in his cheeks. It made me want to laugh. He didn’t look like he’d had that many women when he blushed, but he was gorgeous, surely he must have had a few.

His brown gaze held mine. “Okay, no hospital.”

I gave him my hand again.

His touch was really gentle for a man. I bent up my knees in the tub and wrapped my other arm about them, watching him. He had some antiseptic in a cup and dunked cotton-wool pads into it, then wiped the blood from my hand, while he rested the back of it on his knee.

I couldn’t remember anyone ever paying so much attention to one of my hurts. “Did your mom do this for you when you were a boy; is that how you learned to treat wounds?”

His brown eyes looked up and said he didn’t appreciate the comment.

“Have you got a big family then, back in the hills?”

“The hills?” His eyebrows lifted, and then he answered in a dry tone. “Very funny… I didn’t grow up in the middle of nowhere, you know. It’s a small town, not a shack.”

“With a small town society and small town views––”

“And moms who teach you how to clean a wound if you get injured… What’s so bad about that?”

“Nothing…”

His brown eyes looked hard at me for a moment. But those eyes were easy to look at, and he had long dark, almost feminine, eyelashes.

“Right. So just let me get on with it, Rachel…” His gaze fell to my hand again, then after a moment he glanced back up. “Do you have a family somewhere?”

Yes, but not that I cared to speak of. I felt my lips compress.

His eyes hovered on mine for a moment, asking unspoken questions, before they dropped to look at my hand once more.

His touch was caring, as well as gentle.

He looked up and saw me watching, then smiled, suddenly. He had a nice smile too, a really open-hearted smile.

This was a genuine guy. Someone like Declan would eat him alive. “So you don’t like your job?”

“I don’t know. There’s so much frigging office politics, I can’t keep up with it. I think I need to be a bit more cutthroat, but I’m not that type. I can’t be bothered with all the backstabbing, and I have an asshole for a boss. So I spent three years in college, and now I’m the office nobody.”

Yeah, Declan would definitely eat him alive.

“Talk to me about it. I can teach you backstabbing…” I shouldn’t have said that, the image and sound of the mirror splintering pierced my mind, and I felt the shard gripped in my hand as it sank into Declan’s flesh.

I felt sick. I let my forehead drop onto my knees, while my hand still rested in Jason Macinlay’s secure grip, and my arm hung outstretched to him. My other hugged my knees.

“Where do you come from, Rachel…?” he prodded a moment later, as though he was sweeping the previous topic under a rug and moving on.

His hesitation asked my last name, I’d give him that, but nothing more. “Shears. My name is Rachel Shears.” I looked up again, as my lips compressed.

His brown eyes looked hard into mine, but he didn’t push for more.

He looked down at my hand. “It’s clean. I’ll bandage it up.”

When he let it go, I left my hand lying on his knee. His legs were parted and his sweatpants were loose, but his top was tight, it hugged his abs and the pectoral muscles of his chest as he leaned to the side and picked up a bandage from the first-aid box.

He was beautiful, but unlike Declan there seemed to be beauty inside him too, it wasn’t just a surface thing. He was helping me.

I wanted to turn my hand and grip his thigh. But that would be the wrong thing to do. I knew that. But I was really good at doing wrong things.

Voices inside me encouraged me to do it. I didn’t. The cocaine was still clouding my view.

He straightened and his fingers gripped the back of my hand more firmly. It sent tremors running up the nerves in my arm.

His other hand laid the bandage over my palm and his thumb pressed down on the dressing he’d used to cover my cut, securing it, then he began winding the bandage round my hand.

I shut my eyes.

His touch was doing stuff in my belly, making it clasp with need. I wanted sex. I hadn’t wanted it with Declan anymore, but I wanted it with Jason Macinlay. Sex was the best escape from the things going on in my head. It had never even really mattered who I did it with. I just liked it, and I’d always found a guy who’d give me a place to stay in return for it. They just generally weren’t the right guys.

I’d never even liked Declan. And the feeling had been mutual. But we’d connected in bed. He liked things wild, and wild played to my crazy. God, had I really done that stuff with him? I needed something better now.

I opened my eyes and watched Jason Macinlay concentrating. He wound the bandage round and round, pulling it tight to stop the blood; watching what he was doing, not watching me.

I felt hot, and the tingle in my tummy slid to the point between my legs. I was sitting naked in a tub beside this guy. When had I decided to undress? I didn’t know him. Really, my head was stupid.

Yes I did, he was Jason Macinlay, from Oregon, and he’d already given me more respect than Declan had done in the last year.

“How old are you?” I asked.

His brown eyes lifted and met my gaze again.

He was feeling more relaxed, I could tell, his breathing seemed more normal and his muscles less tense.

“Twenty-two. You?”

“Twenty-one.”

“That’s too young to want to end your life, Rachel Shears.”

I shrugged, my lips compressing.

Of course he wanted to know why I’d been there, but I didn’t want to talk and I couldn’t remember half of it anyway. His eyes said, ‘what happened?’ I didn’t answer.

He smiled, not his stunning smile of a few moments ago, but a closed lip smile that said, okay, so you don’t wanna talk, I understand.

No one understood me. I’d learned that the hard way.

Mom would’ve said she did, when I was a kid. She didn’t, and I hadn’t even seen her in years. I didn’t even know why I was thinking of her today. I hadn’t thought of her in months. I hadn’t spoken to her since I was fifteen.

Maybe I was thinking of her because I wished she’d been a proper mom and had taught me how to clean a wound like Jason Macinlay.

“Drink your coffee, and don’t get that in the water.” He stood up, letting my hand go.

I reached for the mug of coffee with my good hand. It was already lukewarm, like the water. I started to feel cold again, and shivered.

“Run some more hot water. I’ll leave you to it.”

He walked out then, and left me, shutting the door behind him.

I used my bandaged hand to turn the water on.

The bandage was neat and tight.

I lay back in the water, and let the heat seep into me. But it wasn’t just the warmth of the water which was penetrating my body. I could fall for this guy, Jason Macinlay. That was another thing I was good at, jumping from one guy to another. It was what I did best.

~

“Hey,”

“Yeah, I know it’s late. I’m sorry, I…”

I woke in bed, hearing Jason Macinlay whispering in the room next door.

He’d changed the covers on the mattress while I’d bathed. The sheet and duvet cover smelt fresh and felt crisp.

I’d rather he’d left the old sheets on, it would have felt more comforting. I’d missed his scent from his sweatshirt. He’d thrown that in the washer, too, like I’d marked it and he needed to wash me off it.

Declan must have washed all the blood off by now, mine and his. I was gone from his life. That poisonous relationship was over.

“Something happened, Lindy. I couldn’t call earlier. But I’m calling now.”

The door was shut between the bedroom and the living space.

“Yeah, I know.”

I rolled over and listened more intently, I could even hear him breathing between the words.

He sounded defensive.

“Look…” The pitch of his voice dropped. “I found a girl on Manhattan Bridge, Lind. She was trying to jump. I couldn’t just leave her.”

There was silence for a moment as he breathed. I imagined this Lindy speaking at the other end.

“I brought her home.”

Silence.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Lindy, leave it, she’s no risk.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“Yeah, honest, I’ll take care. I can look out for myself.”

“I know this is New York.”

“Yeah, right.”

“Look, I’m going to go. I don’t want to wake her.”

“She’s sleeping in my bed. I’m sleeping on the floor.”

“She won’t.”

“I won’t.”

“Look Lindy, I’ll call you tomorrow, normal time. I’m going to go now, and don’t worry.”

“Yeah, I love you, too.”

“Yeah, tomorrow.” He sighed, like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders.

I needed a drink. I threw the covers back and got up, then knocked on the door leading back into the living space.

He didn’t answer; he couldn’t have heard, but I didn’t like to just walk in. I knocked more loudly.

“Yeah?”

“You decent?”

He laughed. It was low and heavy. “Yeah.”

I opened the door.

He was sitting on the floor, gilded by the moonlight streaming through a floor to ceiling window which lit his living room. His arms were about his knees as one hand still gripped his cell and his head was bent a little forward.

He looked defeated.

“Sorry.” I didn’t even know why I apologized, I just felt as if I was intruding.

“It’s alright. Did I wake you? Sorry.”

“I want some water.” I moved to the kitchen counter and watched him as I ran it, waiting for it to run cool. He was wearing a loose t-shirt now, with boxers. His forearms and his shins were dusted with dark hair. I could see it even in the blue-black light in the room.

The clock on the TV flashed eleven-thirty. I didn’t feel as though I’d get back to sleep, and my hand was hurting like hell now; it was throbbing with the beat of my heart.

“Is she your girlfriend?”

“Lindy? Yeah.”

“She’s back in Oregon?”

“Yeah.”

“Bet she feels small town, now you’ve gone all big city.”

“Ha. Ha.” His pitch was dismissive. Life clearly wasn’t all roses between them.

“I suppose you’ve been with her forever. What was she, the head of the cheerleaders while you captained the football team?”

“You think you know me so well, don’t you…”

He had been captain of the football team.

I bet they were best looking girl and best looking boy in their year, and they’d gotten together because it was what everyone expected.

“I was the kid who sat in the corner and never had friends…” I didn’t know why I told him that, I just thought it might make him feel better.

“And now?”

My lips compressed.

Turning away, I opened a cupboard and found a glass. “Do you want a drink?”

“No thanks.”

I filled the glass and drank, as again the images of the mirror breaking disturbed my thoughts.

I pushed the memory away. I was starting over and forgetting that.

I moved about the counter, and leaned back against it, facing him. “So what’s wrong between you?”

“Tonight? You. She thinks you’re going to either jump me in my sleep, or steal all my stuff, like I have anything worth stealing.” His hand lifted and swept forward indicating the virtually empty room.

“She might be right, though?” I did feel like jumping him in his sleep. It would be a great way to escape the blackness which kept threatening to swamp me.

His gaze focused up at me as he scanned my face. “She could be right, yes…”

Well, he didn’t know me, and I’d said nothing about myself, bar my name and my age. “She isn’t. You’re safe.”

“Phew, thank fuck for that.”

I laughed. He was a nice guy. There weren’t many of those in the world. I wasn’t used to them.

My eyes shifted to the white pillow on the hard floor behind him. Then I looked at him again.

“So anyway, seeing as I’ve promised not to jump you in your sleep, why don’t you share the mattress? If you’re safe, it seems silly you trying to sleep out here.” I’d be good. He deserved for me to be good. He’d been kind to me.

He looked at me for a long moment. I didn’t move, holding out against his assessment.

I wasn’t blind. I knew he liked what he saw. I was wearing his t-shirt, my legs were bare, and I’d nothing on underneath. It would be so easy to be bad. His gaze ran up my legs and my body then came to my face. But he wasn’t that sort of guy.

All men looked. It didn’t mean all men let themselves touch.

“Yeah, okay, I won’t get any sleep here anyway.”

He picked up his pillow and stood, then lifted the pillow indicating for me to walk ahead.

I went into the bathroom, while he lay down on the mattress, under the covers.

When I came back in, he was watching me, one arm behind his head.

I said nothing, walked to the other side and got in.

He probably wouldn’t mind if I jumped him, but he’d have a hell of a conscience the next day when he spoke to his Lindy.

I turned my back to him and felt him roll onto his stomach. My body was intensely aware of his, and all I could hear was his breathing as he drifted into sleep, while all I could smell was his shampoo, because he’d showered after I’d bathed.

This had been a weird day, I’d finally left Declan and within hours I’d acquired a stranger. My brain wasn’t on the same page as where my life had gotten to. I’d walked out on the life of rich egotistical playboys, and into an opposite extreme.

An ex had once called me a parasite––maybe I was. But maybe I didn’t want to be anymore.

Chapter Two

When I woke, Jason Macinlay was standing by the door of the bedroom, fully clothed, and looking down at me. He had on pants and a shirt and tie.

I had to think what day it was. Wednesday. It must be Wednesday.

Was he going to work? Did he want me to leave?

“I’m going now. Sorry to wake you, but I didn’t like to just leave…”

My eyes opened wider, and I met that brown gaze. It was even more distracting in daylight.

“Will you be okay if I go to work?”

“Yeah.” No. I didn’t know. I’d just woken up. I didn’t know how I felt. It always took a few minutes to gauge my mood.

He hesitated. He was a sexy guy with a tender heart. Where the hell had he come from? Oregon, I remembered.

“Are you sure? I could––” His voice was deep, and rugged with uncertainty.

“Stay home? Are you afraid I’ll steal your TV or your Xbox, after all?”

His hands slid into his pants' pockets as he smiled.

He’d looked good last night in sweatpants and a tight top, elemental. In his work gear, he looked sophisticated––but like he needed some girl to ruffle his hair and pull his tie loose.

I was tempted to be that girl and urge him back into bed with me. I’d feel better, but I didn’t doubt he’d be drowning in guilt after, if I got him to do it. He was too nice.

“You can go. I’ll be okay, and I won’t take your Xbox.”

“Right.” He laughed but still looked hesitant.

“Just fuck off, and go, if you’re going, I wanna go back to sleep…” My voice was dry, but I’d given him a half-hearted smile as I said it.

He smiled, too, though it showed no more enthusiasm than mine, and said, “Okay.” Then he turned, and went.

A few moments later, the front door shut.

Dammit. I couldn’t go out. There was blood all over my clothes. And I hadn’t any underwear. I couldn’t believe I’d forgotten to wear a bra and knickers. But then last night was now only a clutter of confused images in my mind. I couldn’t even remember getting dressed and getting out of Declan’s anymore, only him having sex with me, and me pushing him off, and then the breaking mirror, and the feel of it in my hand.

I rolled over onto the side of the mattress Jason Macinlay slept in and smelt his shampoo, and him. It was still a little warm with his body heat. It was comforting. I didn’t want to think about Declan, or about any moment of my life before now––before this good guy had come to my rescue on Manhattan Bridge.

I’d never been with a nice guy in my life. I’d always preferred the risks a bad guy brought. Or maybe I was just so down on myself, I needed the bad guys to mess me up. Declan had messed me up. But when I’d got with him it had been exciting, he’d made my heart race with adrenaline. I’d been flattered and thrilled by his domineering, debauched ways. By the end, he’d just made me feel sick. Declan was shallow, cruel and arrogant like the rest. Jason Macinlay had hidden depths, like the shifting water I’d looked down at last night. There was so much I didn’t know.