Any Other Name

Chapter 17

Today she got to try out the wheelchair. The nurses helped her into the chair and then wheeled her around the floor. It was the first time in a week she was out of her room and it felt good to finally move even if they didn't let her wheel herself around.

Marshall came around at lunch to argue with the nurses about discharging Eliza. She sat in the wheelchair at his side, not ready to get back into bed yet. He kept a steady hand on her shoulder when the nurse asked her what she thought, and all she said was that they had to be mindful of the cost.

She was back in bed by the end of Marshall's visit. He kissed her on the forehead before he left, three minutes late.

She had finally gone to the bathroom today——she had been on a catheter up until then——and got a look of herself in the mirror. Her hair had that distinct bedhead look and was frizzy. The bruises along her throat that dipped down below the hospital gown had turned a motley yellow and green. It hurt to swallow now that the doctors were pulling back her access to the morphine and she almost bit straight through her lip when she pressed her fingers into the bump of her collarbone. Her wrists still ached and her right wrist popped when she made a light fight and twisted her arm around. She had refused to look at the rest of her, just as she had when the morning shift nurses gave her a bed bath.

It put her in a sour mood, seeing all those spots. She could see why the nurses had kept asking, why that detective hadn't believed her. It looked like she had been manhandled, treated like cheap luggage on a bad day.

It was a wonder that anyone was willing to look her in the eye since she got there. She felt incredibly self-conscious of her face and just wanted to hide. She brought her knees and laid her good arm across them with her forehead pressed onto her wrist.

Tessy knocked on the door frame quietly but it still startled Eliza. She unwrapped herself upon seeing him and tried to smile as genuine one as she could muster.

Tessy wasn't taking it. He came into the room and leaned over the edge of the bed. "What's wrong?" he asked gently, looking her up and down.

"Nothing." She tried to force her smile to widen, but he just looked at her skeptically. "Really," she said.

He hummed and looked around to find the chair. It had been moved when the nurse had helped her back in the bed from the wheelchair. He spotted it at the same time he saw the wheelchair and looked back at her with a charming, crooked smile. "I missed it?"

She nodded, the anxiety smoothing out the bow of her shoulders. "I might be able to show you tomorrow. But Marshall wants to take me home soon."

Tesey tsked and worked the fabric of his jacket sleeve between his fingers. He wasn't looking at her. "You shouldn't."

"I have to."

"You don't." He slowly met his gaze and she was almost taken aback by it. His eyes were on fire, burning with something that showed nowhere else but in the set of his jaw. "You don't have to do anything that he says."

"He's my——"

"Your abuser, Anna."

Now it was her turn to look away. She still hadn't come to terms with that idea. She had tried the night before but it just gave her a headache. The night nurse had seen her up and put something in her IV to make her sleep.

He grabbed her hand and ran his thumb over her knuckles. "What's keeping you with him? You could do so much better than him."

"He cares for me." She felt like she was pleading but she didn't know what for. "He takes care of me. No one else would want to deal with me." She looked away from him; tugged her hand but not hard enough to pull it away. "I don't want to be alone."