“What harbor property?”
“Pier Nineteen.”
My eyes shifted toward her reflection.
“Tell him to come upstairs.”
The lipstick stopped.
Only for a second.
“The guys don't like seeing you this way.”
I stared at her.
There were some humiliations so clean they almost didn't hurt at first.
“What way?”
Arya capped the lipstick.
“You know what I mean.”
“No. Say it.”
“Vincent.”
“Say it.”
Her shoulders dropped.
“Like this.”
Something inside me went very still.
I had been shot.
Operated on.
Catheterized.
Lifted by strangers.
Turned every two hours because I couldn't reliably feel the beginning of a pressure sore.
I had screamed into towels during muscle spasms and once wet myself in front of a nurse young enough to be my niece.
Yet that sentence hurt more than any of it.
“The guys don't like seeing me in a wheelchair?”
“They don't know how to behave.”
“I'm paralyzed, Arya. I'm not dead.”
