I rearranged plans and swallowed disappointment because surrender ended arguments faster.

And something in me finally refused to bend one more time.

I didn’t scream at him. I didn’t hit him. I didn’t unleash eleven years of swallowed words. I wrapped both hands around the rail and said, “No.”

One word. It was also the first real boundary I had set between us in years. For a second Vincent looked genuinely stunned, as if the possibility that I might refuse him had never occurred to him.

Chapter 8 — A Patient

Then his face hardened, and he struck me. I won’t describe it more than to say the monitor erupted into alarms, and the pain of it went far beyond where his hands had landed, and for a moment I couldn’t find any air. He stood over me, breathing hard.

Outside that room, the hospital had documented everything.