I’d taken the bandaging off, and my fingernail bed was a glaring red with raw, torn skin at the edges. My left hand.

My right hand had a swirl texture to it, where it had been burned to different degrees. The skin was thicker.

Parts of my body ached in a bruised sort of way, but it wasn’t a bad ache. Credit for that. My heart and body core and my lower belly didn’t feel so cold as they might have, earlier. Human contact did nourish. We needed it as a species, and I was a member of the species. I would have been lying if I said I didn’t feel nourished.

Which wasn’t to say I was hunky dory. Ha ha. Fuck.

The thoughts that danced at the edges of my awareness without being fully realized were pressing in to the point that I could imagine I was sharing this shower stall with two other people. Trying to ignore both of them despite the stall’s confines.

Pay too much attention to the Dean that stood in the corner behind me and to my right, and I’d have to confront real thoughts about why I felt like he’d be disappointed, why I felt more than a bit disappointed in myself. I’d have to confront that self-disappointment, at least, process my expectations, think about whether there was a possibility I could have had any relationship or intimacy at all that wouldn’t have come to this conclusion.

Pay too much attention to her, behind me and to my left, and my skin crawled, everything took on a darker, uglier shade, and I was reminded of how I’d made concessions to her, for the sake of everyone and everything. The longer I dwelt on that, the worse it felt.

I focused on the hands that were planted on the wall. The missing fingernail, the burn, the gouge in my forearm, the gouge in my right arm. The still-healing bruise at my ribs.

My injuries. Mine. Untouched by her.

I knew it wasn’t good to go down that road, to dwell on that, but it was something. Every last one of those injuries had been incurred because I’d acted for the sake of others. That too was mine. What ended up being forty-five minutes with Anelace was mine too.

I hated her, I hated her so fucking much. I hated that she inserted herself into my life and I had to carve out this territory in my own brain, my family, my relationships, team, and a fling.

I wanted her to get it, and I wasn’t sure she could. Going down that line of thought was… deeply unpleasant, but thinking about ways that were strictly counter to what she wanted, they at least kept thoughts from encroaching.