ME, CINDERELLA?(67)

“Brynn,” Eliot said. His hand held my neck above the surface, his other arm encircling my waist. My hand reached out as if of its own accord and touched his cheek, traced his scar.

“I love you.” I heard myself say, the words mere whispers floating over the steam of the water. My eyes were closing, the fuzziness in my mind threatening to take over.

“I love you too,” Eliot said. His fingers slid through my hair, but I could barely feel their touch. He loved me.

“Brynn?” He loved me. He loved me.

“I’m sorry,” I said, and let myself fall back into darkness.





I remember the way my mother washed my hair in the tub when I was little, rinsing the soap out with tepid water as I wrapped my arms around my knees and tried not to shiver. She sat behind me, and I remember most of all the large rust crack that ran down the side of the tub from the top, marring the old white porcelain with an ugly streak of red. Sometimes I scraped at the rust with my thumbnail to try to get it off, but it always came back worse. Some cracks can’t be fixed easily, I guess.

Evil things happen, and good things happen, and in neither physics nor religion is there an explanation that makes any kind of sense. When the world decides to hurt, there’s no way around it, no magical words that will save the day or turn back time and bring the dead to life. There’s no such thing as fate, or wickedness, or girls who can be princesses and girls who can’t. There’s only people, and we all do the best we can.





CHAPTER TWENTY



She’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. She has to be okay.

Eliot fielded questions from the policemen while his private doctor examined Brynn in the other room. Her breathing had returned to normal, but she slipped in and out of consciousness, whispering words that he could not understand. Once she cried out for her mother, and then fell into a sleep. He trusted the family doctor with his own life, but he couldn’t help but glance over nervously through the doorway as the police asked him for the hundredth time to explain the order of events. The hunter he had knocked out was not dead but close to it; Eliot frowned upon hearing the news. The policemen were suspicious, but Eliot’s surname and his family’s reputation were enough to grant him some amount of protection from overly enthusiastic officials. Once the police left Eliot hurried back to Brynn’s bedside. Her lips were a pale, pale pink and she was breathing shallowly.

“How is she?”

Dr. Toth took off the warm cloth from her forehead. His old hands still were steadier than Eliot’s, and Eliot waited in rapt attention for his verdict.

“She’ll be fine with proper rest. We’ll pay close attention to her extremities to make sure nothing is permanently damaged. It looks like you got her into a warm bath in time.”

“But she’s unconscious.” Eliot bent down to Brynn, watching her chest rise and fall under the covers.

“Not unconscious, just sleeping. She’s had a hard time and when she wakes up she’ll probably need to speak with another doctor.”

“What doctor?”

“A therapist, Dr. Herceg.” The old physician looked up at him over his spectacles. “The girl’s been through a hard time. She should talk to someone about it.”

“Of course.” Eliot hadn’t even thought about it, so worried was he about her physical health. Brynn would get everything she needed to recover. He would see to it.

“I have a friend who specializes in trauma recovery. I’ll leave you her card.”

“Thank you.”

The old doctor rose and snapped the buckles of his bag shut.

“Wait,” Eliot said. “Are you leaving?”

“She’s stable and sleeping,” Doctor Toth said, a kind smile on his face. “She’ll be fine without me.”

“When will you come back to check on her?”

“It really isn’t necessary,” the doctor said, but he saw the worry in Eliot’s eyes. “I’ll check in tomorrow morning just to be safe.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Make sure she gets plenty of rest. That’s all she needs now. Rest and care.”

“Thank you, doctor, I will.” You’ve no idea how much I care. Eliot walked the doctor to the door, then returned to Brynn’s side. The kitten, Lucky, found them and jumped up on Brynn’s bed, nestling down into the covers between her ankles. No harm in that, Eliot thought, and let the little gray ball of fur remain purring at her feet.

She woke in the middle of the night, twisting in the bed under the sheets as though she was fighting someone off. She woke Eliot with her thrashing. Lucky had already abandoned the warm covers in favor of a bed that didn’t move.