*Content Warning: Physical Violence*

Over that entire evening she sat on the edge of her desk and watched the barn. There it stood, unaffected as ever against the overgrown fields. Slowly decaying in Adrian’s absence. Owen and Thomas had avoided that area since.

She’d tried many other things to quiet her mind, all to no avail. After a relatively short time she given up. She’d watched for some signal that he was dead. Owen had not returned overnight, and by the following evening she grew increasingly restless.

But what could she do? It wasn’t like she could just go in there and act like nothing was wrong. If she saw him she’d have to talk to him. What if he didn’t want to talk to her? What if he tried to make her stay?

I did nothing wrong, she thinks, I didn’t lock him in there.

Still. Withdrawing her help was its own kind of cruelty. Hard to argue with that. He was right to say what he did. That he didn’t want to die. That she was scared.

But of course she didn’t want that. It wasn’t like that. She’d just needed this – all this, the barn, all of it, to be over for a while so she could manage it.

How had he fared? She felt her mouth dry out as she thought of him crying as she had left. His anger. Was he still weeping? What does a person even do when they are waiting to die? Had he slept? Was that a waste of time?

This thought is quickly shoved away, swallowed with the last of her tea. Bitter.

Perhaps he needed something? If only to pass the time?

________________________________________________

After confirming everyone was asleep, she sneaks into the kitchen and gathers a small parcel of food, some bread, two apples, the last of the chicken she’d intended to have tomorrow. This was the same thing she’d brought the previous day, plus the extra apple. Maybe that would help him understand. She hadn’t wanted him to die? Hopefully he would be asleep.

The night air was warm, the breeze had subsided and rustled the tall grass opposite the fence. She hesitated for a moment at the door.

It was quiet.

The door gave with the same groan, and she slipped inside. Sure enough she was correct. He was out cold. She held her lantern low, away from his eyes. He had curled up near the wall on atop a small pile of hay gathered from the ground around him. His heavy overshirt tucked under his head.

Her basket sat near the corner, still laid on its side from her last visit, had been reopened. The chicken bones laid in the basket outside their wrapping, picked clean.

A calculation emerged. She had left the previous morning, and that meant that it had been about thirty six hours since he had eaten anything, unless Owen had been by. The basket’s presence confirmed that he hadn’t been, Adrian wouldn’t be this sorry a sight.

Curled up the way he was, clinging to any warmth. The chain hung loose from the wall, his sleeping position accommodating its length. He resembled a wounded animal.

The position he laid in did not lend well to observation, but from a distant enough spot to not wake him with the light she could make out a few details. Some raw skin and the beginning of some decay around the tightest point of his neck. The purple bruise of a few days ago was now an enlarged black lump at the nape. The padlock continued to scrape along the edges of the welt. It would likely open by the morning, probably sooner if he laid on his back.

She couldn’t stop looking. She’d left him there. She wanted to vomit.

Forcing her composure and breathing through her mouth, she swapped the water jar and replaced the waste bucket with an empty one from nearby.

She resented that she could no longer comfort herself with the idea that he would be okay. Coming here felt necessary, but on the other hand it felt like a bad idea. An impulse. Perhaps a compulsion. But he wasn’t there anymore. He was lost to her.

Yesterday’s basket is picked up and replaced with the wrapped food parcel. Settling it gently on the ground where he could reach it without squishing it in his sleep. She hesitates a moment on whether or not to touch him. A hand, something. She gathers herself quickly and slips out of the barn before he could notice the indiscretion.

___________________________________________________

The next day went almost as smoothly. While nearing the barn she darted her eyes around. Owen had been around all evening, repainting a section of the fence. Once dark fell he finally went inside and gave her an opening. She’d been about to leave when he came back out with a bucket and went out to the barn. He was there only a few minutes before strolling back toward the house.

Would he be asleep by that point? No way to be sure. She gave it another two hours. Once dark had completely enveloped the farm and the candles next door had been put out, she made her way over. As she walked she felt the heavier basket tug at her neck tendons, the soup she’d packed in a jar heavier than the usual bread and meat. She fought to keep the image of Adrian’s neck from her head. What state was it in? How had he been managing alone? Now that Owen had come by. What was happening to him?

She finally reached the door and had to set down her things in order to push it open. Thankfully Adrian could sleep through anything. She probably could’ve slaughtered a cow last night and he would be none the wiser. Perhaps the time here changed that for him. She hoped not.

Tiptoeing across the barn, she set her lantern down several feet away before she approached. Looking him over today confirmed her fear. He had removed his shirt entirely. The barn was so stiflingly hot and muggy, she was surprised he had not done it sooner.

Unfortunately his lack of clothing made his suffering more visible. There, on his shoulder, was a horrible looking welt. As though he’d been struck with something. His stronger arm cradled the weak one, slumped against the wall. He had fallen asleep sitting up and had since slid down the wall slightly.

How much did this pain him? She recalled a day several months earlier, when he’d slept over at her house. He laid on that shoulder to sleep normally, his weight rested on his side. Not anymore.

She hated that such a small piece of normalcy could be taken from him. Had he not been through enough? Didn’t he deserve to die in peace?

It was all too upsetting. How desperately she wanted to stay. Get the chain off him. Take him away from here.

He did not look particularly rested. Even in sleep the ridges of his face were not softened as they usually would be. Even here peace evaded him.

She set the food down, paying special attention to set the soup somewhere it would not spill. She wrapped a small towel around it to try and keep the heat in. She had also saved her portion of their dinner for him. Roast beef.

He would need the protein, she thought, was dying hard work?

She decided that she would rather not know the answer. Instead she stared at him. How far he had come from the Adrian she had known. Where was he? Surely he was still in there.

She swapped the water jar even though Owen had filled the bucket. The waste had been emptied.

The thought had occurred that she ought not touch him today, but looking at that welt she couldn’t resist. She yanks the cloths from her basket, she wiped one of them in the ointment. Her breath holds as she gingerly laid it out over the sore. He didn’t react.

A sigh of relief escapes her lips. Hopefully this would help some. It was okay, it was small enough that he could hide it.

She reached out and touched his forehead gently. He was burning.

The basket now sat lighter on her arm. She picks up the lantern and walks quickly toward the door.

“Grace?” A hoarse voice calls from the darkness behind her.

She didn’t dare respond. Another audible and shaky breath escapes her.

“Grace?” he calls again, the tone more pleading, “Is that you?”

Something inside pulls at her. Go to him.

She steadies herself and pushes out the door.

_______________________________________________

The following night she vowed to be more careful. No waking him. No going at a time when there was even a chance he could be awake. Very late, after Owen had turned in and all was very quiet and very dark, Grace again crossed to the barn. This time, she came with a fuller meal and the last of some fever medication that the doctor had given her when she was last ill. It seemed like it wasn’t nearly enough, but at this point what could she even do? He seemed doomed to suffer forever in this barn.

All seemed the same at the door. She could feel his life force from over here. He was still in there. Even now. She could sense him. It was possible he wasn’t asleep. Fuck.

For a moment she ponders the idea of coming back later, but something from outside herself compels her to grow up and do it. So what if he was awake. It was not as though she were hiding from him. If he spoke to her she would simply ignore him. Like Mom did with Ethan. Drop the medicine, leave the food. Leave. She was the one in control here. Not him.

The barn was dark as ever. The smell of body odour and wood pulp settled into her nose.

She sets down the food parcel, swaps the water, checks the waste. He had put his shirt back on and laid slumped against the wall, as he had yesterday. Tiptoeing closer to him, she reaches out and slips the pills into his chest pocket with a written note telling him to take the pills with some of the food. She feels the inviting warmth of his body through the pocket and lingers for a second longer than she should.

A cold hand clamps down on her wrist.

“Grace.” His voice is small but firm. “What are you doing here?”

She tries to pull away but he grips, the intensity enough for her to comply.

They lock eyes. In his she sees a fire at the bottom of a deep hole. Dark circles under them sink his face into his bones. The flicker of the lantern highlighted how gaunt he had grown.
Far paler than the chain. Still there. Clung mercilessly around him, present as it always was.
“You said you wouldn’t be back.” His voice shakes, “why are you here?”

Grace curls her lips inward and holds her breath.

“Were you wondering if I was dead yet?”

She looks down.

“Well I’m not.” He bites, “I didn’t leave. I’m still here.”

“I never said I wanted you to die.” She forces the tone she had practiced. “I said we couldn’t see each other.”

He scoffs. “You said you were not coming back. So why are you here?”

He was right. She hated that he got to be right. Regardless. She didn’t have to engage him. He was bored and lonely and looking to take it out on here.

She forces her hand from his but again he clings, his fingernails digging into her forearm and scratching her elbow to wrist. She grips it close to herself.

“I told you I didn’t want you to die! Don’t make me regret it.”

She stands quickly and walks toward the door.

His teeth grind audibly. “Get over yourself. Don’t pretend the last few nights have been anything other than satisfying your guilt. We both know this isn’t about me.”

Her jaw tenses and she stops walking. How dare he? It was so vile. No wonder Owen did not visit him much.

The basket sits taut in her hand, her grip tightens and releases a few times.

“Good night, Adrian.”

The chain drags along the wall as he settles his back against it.

“Whatever.”

Why wasn’t this satisfy her the way she’d believed it would? Why wasn’t he happy? Perhaps she ought to say something else.

Her feelings get the better of her and she turns on her heel.

“I see. Should I take all that food back then?”

He glowers at her.

She makes her steps intentional and clears her throat.

“You want to hand that back over? Or is there something else you’d like to say?”

Adrian picks up the food parcel and tucks it behind him, close to the wall. He looks into the dirt.

“I’m sorry.” He tone is hollow. “I want to keep the food.”

He stares intensely into the ground and drags a finger in the dirt in a half circle, crescent moon shape.

She can’t stand it. She takes a step toward him and he instinctively protects the food. He looks up to her, his eyes dripping with the depth of betrayal and righteous anger she knew he felt. But under all of it, for just a moment, fear.

She stopped in her tracks. Something had happened. The energy had shifted. Whatever had been there was gone now.

Instead she stood there, feeling empty. This shell of a person in front of her, backed into a corner. His broken but defiant eyes daring her to challenge him.

Grace knew she would not win, but it didn’t matter.

He no longer trusted her. He thought she might actually do it. But she would never. Could never. Yet she had caused this. His sadness, the pain, all of it.

Shame gathers in her throat and she tries to swallow it but cannot. Instead her eyes are forced shut, her hands frantically rubbing at them as she walks away.

He still stared, anticipatory.

Her face gave her away, she knew it. Here it was again. Her stupid feelings that she couldn’t manage on her own. He knew it too, she could tell. In his absence she had yet to figure this out. She had taken him for granted.

When she looked to him again she saw something instinctual. He reads her as he had done countless times before, then he leaned forward.

But then something else.

He takes her in another moment, sits back down, and drives his back into the wall.
She sinks, some hope from within her now deflating. The chain drags against the wall and rings her ears. Loud and dry.

He tilts his head to the side.

“What?” he says, a dare .

She stammers. “What? Are you-”

His breath deepens.

“Am I what?”

He was visibly forcing himself to be controlled. This was a voice she had never heard him use. Cold and biting but riddled with some deep knowledge she did not possess.

Why happened to dropping the food and leaving? She had agreed. Ignore him. Where was her will now? What had happened to the plan?

“What do you want from me Grace? You still haven’t told me. You don’t want to be together. You say you are not coming but here you are. I’m not going to comfort you. You left me here to rot. You don’t deserve my help.”

“I didn’t stay away though!” She protests, “I brought you food and…and medicine even. In your pocket. For the fever.”

Adrian takes it out and palms it.

Grace watches intently. “I thought it would help.”

“You said you were leaving me here to die.”

“That’s not true. Your father-”

“Right. Sure. You didn’t say it. Just agreed.”

She is unable to meet his eyes any longer.

“I’m pretty sure I am the only reason you’re still alive.”

The chain clangs. Adrian laughs.

“Do you think I even want that? Do you think I want to live like this? Like I’m some animal? No!”

He smacks his head against the wall and lets out an agonized cry. His throat catches, scratchy and quiet.

“I don’t want to be here anymore! I can’t! I’m going to die here! I’m going to die soon. And. At the point I…I want to.”

She turns around covers her mouth in a futile attempt to stifle whatever this feeling was.
Adrian hits the ground with his fist. His earlier control is gone.

“Do you even care?! Do you see what’s happening?! Look at me Grace! Look at me! Tell me why you think I should die, huh? Tell me what I did! I had your feelings for you! I helped you with all of it. I did it for you and you still left me here!”

His head tilts back and pushes the chain out of the way. He grabs it and squeezes angrily, swinging it angrily.

“Do you understand?! I’m going to die Grace! Look at my fucking neck! You swore you’d get me out. But you stopped trying! You left me here and you don’t get to come back!”

He throws the pills at her.

“Stay way from me! Get out!”

He gathers what is left of himself into a heap in the corner and sobs uncontrollably into his knees.

Without thinking too much she backs away. He cries harder. She longed to ease his pain. Keeping her composure proved a greater challenge. Was she really meant to feel nothing? Why was he able to shatter her in this way?

She stands helplessly before him, twisting her hands around the basket. Each guttural sob from him seizing her stomach and yanking her tongue down her throat.
The pills sit at her feet and she picks them up.

“I’m so sorry, Adrian.” She says, “I’m so sorry. You shouldn’t be going through this.”

He peeks out from his knees and looks at her, bloodshot. He hides again.

“Leave.”

She swallows. “I don’t think you want that. Why don’t you take these? They’ll probably help your head.”

She approaches slowly and offers him the pills again. Adrian stares them down for a long time before taking them from her and swallowing them both dry.

He coughs.

Grace moves closer. “I brought water, too. And some tea. If you want it.”

Adrian eyes it suspiciously. “Later.”

He pauses. “Will you take it away if I don’t have it now?”

She shakes her head. “No. It’s for you.”

He nods. “What about the food?”

She pauses. “I don’t know what I was thinking when I said that. Of course I wouldn’t. I would never. It’s yours.”

He lifts his head. “But you did.”

Hard to argue with that, she thought.

“I didn’t take it though.”

“Threatening me was enough then?”

“Adrian.”

“Why bother?”

Another long silence. The discomfort of her own emotion make parsing them difficult.
“You were right that I didn’t want you to think badly of me.”

“You mean about your guilt?”

She nods. “I guess so. Yes.”

He sits back and lowers his legs down, using his feet as anchors to press against the wall.

“You didn’t want to think about how I might be angry with you?”

“It isn’t like that.”

“It’s exactly like that.”

Grace crosses her legs and twists her hands again. “Adrian.”

“Yes or no.”

Her heart begins to race. “Yes.”

He absorbs this for a long time. “What do you want to happen?”

Grace had not considered this. “What do you mean?”

He lifts slightly off the ground, his weight going through his legs. “I can tell that you are waiting for me to make a decision. What is it?”

Saliva swishes around her mouth and slides through her teeth.

“I suppose I want you to tell me that its all okay. That all that…the other day, I mean, was a mistake and that we can just move on like it didn’t happen or something.”

Adrian doesn’t seem surprised. They lock eyes again. Even though his eyes were bloodshot and puffy she could tell that he understood what she meant. How much he sees her.

“I didn’t realize how much I have counted on you. You were right about it all.”

She paws at her stomach and realizes that her corset is at home.

“I miss you.”

He softens for a moment before biting his lip again.

“I can’t help you with this Grace. I am not going to comfort you while you leave me to die. You don’t get to be reassured about that.”

He looks up to her. His eyes clear. “Not from me.”

“I am not going to help with your feelings either. Not if you are leaving me here. If you want me you have to get me out.”

Grave gets closer to him, kneeling near his side.

“I want to. I want to help again. I’m sorry, Adrian. I love you.”

She places a hand on his knee, bent in front of him. He closes his eyes. Finally he nods slowly. “Okay.”

He rests his own hand on top of hers. “You cannot abandon me again.”

“I won’t. I’m so sorry. You won’t regret this. I love you.”

He nods and squishes his eyes shut again.

“I missed you too.”

Grace gets closer still. He wraps a hand around her waist and pulls her into a tense kiss. She isn’t certain when to pull away.

They stay there for a while. Eventually Grace gets up and retrieves her basket. Time to move on.

“Why don’t I clean off your neck?”

He nods and scoots forward, assuming a position they had taken many times before. He inserts his fingers between the links and lifts them ever so slightly away from the skin. The metal is sticky, tacked against the open sore. He winces.

Trying to be quick, Grace slides the cloth strips in. Adrian closes his eyes and exhales in relief. It had been wise to pre dip them in the ointment. She had thought he’d be asleep. That she would set them onto him as he slept. She was glad it hadn’t been for nothing.

“These are new.” She gestures to the sore on his shoulder. “How did that happen? They’re worse.”

He glances over at it. “That was a while ago.”

“How long?”

He looks around. “A week?”

“It looked new when you had your shirt off yesterday.”

“Maybe. Yeah.” He pulls his fingers from his neck. “Time is different here.”

Jesus, she thinks, did he know how long it had been? For all his questions did he understand how long he’d been in here?

Obviously he knew it had been long enough, that was what mattered.

She uses her last cloth strip to wipe off the dirt from around the chain.

He changes the subject. “When are you going back to the blacksmith?”

She stops. “I thought we agreed I wasn’t.”

“I think you should.”

“Okay.” She thinks, “I could go tomorrow.”

He seems pleased with this. “Like when you leave here? You’ll go then?”

“Yes.”

They sit in silence again. She finishes cleaning and packs everything away.

“Okay. There’s soup here. I think it should still be warm. If you want to I can stay longer.”

He shakes his head and looks outside. “I’m alright here. This is hide-able enough.”

“If I head to town when the sun is up I could be back by late tomorrow night. You’ll be alright until then?”

“I will manage.”

She kisses his forehead. He doesn’t react.

“I’ll see you then.”

He watches her walk toward the door.

It opens before she reaches it.

“What’s all this?” Owen’s sharp voice pierces through the dark. He bumps into Grace. “Is there a reason you’re trespassing in my barn?”

Grace backs up. The chain drags along the wall as Adrian tries to get a better look.

“I thought something was up.” He walks toward Grace, “when I got back from town and he wasn’t in rougher shape.”

He looks over her shoulder to Adrian. “You promised you’d tell me if anyone came in here.”

Adrian says nothing.

Owen walks past Grace. “If I remember it was a condition for my letting you out.”

He squats down in front of Adrian and looks him up and down. He snatches the cloth from his neck. Adrian grimaces.

Owen turns back to Grace and holds it up.

“Is this meant to help? Won’t do much. He needs to feel it.”

Adrian slides his fingers back into the chain and eases it gingerly away from the open sores. Owen shakes the chain and Adrian whimpers, his hands move away from it, hovering in the air around it.

“Enough of that. You’ll make it worse.”

“It hurts.”

“If you would stop fighting with it this wouldn’t have happened.”

Owen releases the chain and looks back to Grace. “I know it looks like a lot. This is what we discussed, Grace. If he listens, sits still and doesn’t try to get loose… If he accepts his place, he doesn’t get hurt, its better for everyone.”

“He needs to move though.” Grace protests, “No one can sit still this long. You’re not going to help him? Encourage him to change his behavior, anything?”

“If he had used this as an opportunity to learn his damn lesson, this’d’ve been over a lot sooner. But he’s stubborn. Like his mother.”

She tries to protest further but is dumbfounded.

“Haven’t you made your point?” her voice is meek, “You could probably let him out of there now. I think he understands.”

Adrian watches her intently. Somehow his gaze is harder to bear than Owen’s.

“Right?” She looks at him.

His head snaps up to Owen, “Right.”

Owen laughs. “Do you think I was born yesterday? He’ll say whatever if he thinks it will get him something. You can’t ever trust him.”

“You can,” She says, “I think he is being honest about the pain. You can see it on him.”

She pauses. “You could ease it…You should. That’s what I was doing before you came in.”

His hands fall to his sides and he looks over Adrian seated at his feet.

“Yeah? How far did that get you.”

Grace averts her eyes. “Not as far as it could get you? You have keys I assume. Without them there’s only so much I can do.”

Owen straightens his spine and stands, rolling back his shoulders. “I don’t think I need guidance on handling my family. I think it is time for you to leave. Grace.”

She glances over at Adrian. His eyes widen and his lips purse, resigned. He didn’t want her to go. She couldn’t leave him again.

“What are you going to do to him after I leave?”

He walks to the opposite wall and takes a crowbar off a hook. Adrian presses himself into the wall toward the gate.

“I’m going to remind him of whose in charge.”

“And if I stay?”

He palms the crowbar. “Perhaps I’ll remind you as well.”

She exhales slightly. “You’re going to beat him?”

“I’m going to discipline him.”

A thought pierced her. Her own words, not an hour ago.

I never said I was leaving you to die, I said we couldn’t see each other.

She locks eyes with Adrian. She really was no better. She’d done this to him.

“Let him go.” She pleads.

Owen raises the crowbar at her and takes a step.

“Leave her alone,” Adrian calls from behind them. “She just got here. It’s not what you think it is.”

Owen turns to him and walks back, gripping the chain. Adrian chokes.

“You don’t tell me anything.” He pulls it hard, forcing Adrian’s head to tilt upward. “I decide. Adrian. Not you.”

He tosses the chain and Adrian collapses into a heap.

Grace gasps. “Stop it!”

“On your way. Get!” He raises the crowbar to her again, waving it with intention.

Adrian gets up, the chain clanging around with him. “Dad, leave her-“

“Sit down!”

Owen turns on his heel and swings the crowbar at Adrian. It lands hard against his knee. He screams and falls onto his side. Owen sings again, into the thigh above it.

Adrian’s face rolls in the dirt. Owen steps on his side.

“What will make you listen?!” He strikes him several more times in the hip and the leg.
Grace charges at Owen and tries to grab the crowbar. He swings back his arm and clocks her with it. She hits the floor. Her vision darkens and blurs. The pain radiates through her head and her eyes water.

When she comes to, the weight of her own powerlessness prevents her from rising again. She watches as Adrian tries to kick him off with his other leg but is struck several more times. Owen could do whatever he wanted. There was no one to stop him. He curls into a protective position with his hands over his head. The crowbar makes contact three more times with exposed leg, thumping hard as it bounced against the dirt floor. Soon after the screaming stopped.

Finally the noise ceases as well. She dared not move.

Owen fiddles with the chain the lock clicks. He readjusts it and locks it again. The chain, now sat loose on Adrian’s neck. He slides it to the side and rolls him onto his back.

He circles a couple of times before sitting on a crate near the tool hook. He stares at Adrian, expressionless. Motionless.

What was he waiting for?

She finds her courage and crawls across the floor to where he laid. He wasn’t awake. That was probably for the best.

She looked frantically for her basket, which had been kicked to the side in the chaos, its contents scattered. A few feet away from her sat the tub of ointment and her larger cleaning cloth. The silence around her made the process feel strange. Why wasn’t anyone saying anything? It made her exasperated breathing feel wrong.

She gathered it all up, along with the water jar he drank from, and knelt down on the ground at his side.

The two lanterns, hers and the one Owen had, brightened the area considerably. He looked so much worse than she had thought previously. Though his pants were dark she could see that they’d been soaked through with something. She touches it and her fingers come away tinged red. His forehead and face are burning. She didn’t want to take his pants off in front of Owen. Or run the risk of having a bloody wound gush everywhere if the pants were the only thing keeping it in. After.

Unsure of where to otherwise begin, she takes a couple jagged breaths and dips her larger cloth into the water jar. Her hands shake violently. She gently wipes the cloth over his face, around his ears, and around the base of his neck near the collarbones and shoulders. A re-enactment of their usual ritual.

Once this was finished she moves on to the neck. Like usual. She pats out some of the pus and blood from where the chain had dug in before reapplying the ointment. She uses three of her four cloths and rests them on top of the open sores and tucking them around the back. The rest would have to wait until he could sit up.

She looks down to his legs. The right was bloody all over the thigh and the knee. His pants had torn open. That would need a patch. Her hands won’t steady themselves. What was her problem? Her vision blurred again and she anxiously wipes away the liquid.

His left ankle was swollen twice its usual size. The tops of his feet were badly bruised, alongside the irritation from staying here without shoes or socks. She didn’t want to know about the rest of it. Not until they had other help.

She rolls the hem of his pant lets up slightly and wipes the blood off the area she could access. Once that was done she sat back and took the scene in again.

Owen still stared, having watched her work without comment, now held his brass ring with two fingers and twirled it around. He looked at Adrian as though seeing him for the first time. She looked back down. The cloths on his neck disguising his pain and making him look far more at rest. The chain sat on top of it, the padlock rested on the ground near his ear.

“Do you think you could take this off him?” she lists the chain slightly, “please.”

Owen snaps out of wherever he had been. “What?”

“Haven’t you made your point? He isn’t going to be able to walk for a long time. Its not like he can run away.”

She stares blankly ahead. “I’ll…take him. I’ll take him back to my house and he can rest and heal and then we can…we can figure it out. I’ll do everything else just let him go.”

Owen stands up and approaches them. He squats down, pushes the hair out of Adrian’s eyes, rumples it and squeezes his earlobe between his thumb and his knuckle. He huffs, resigned.

“Serious?”

“Yes.”

They sit there longer. Owen appears to consider it. He touches Adrian’s neck a moment before recoiling.

Had he not thought this would be bad? She thought, What else was the point?

Owen blinks. “Do you think he’ll wake up?”

Grace lays her head on his chest. “Hopefully. He has a heartbeat.”

She sticks her finger under his nose. “…and he is breathing.”

Owen closes his eyes.

“Owen. He could love but he needs help. Like right now. Please. Let him out.”

He stands. Looking up to him she felt smaller than she ever had. She wanted to crawl inside herself.

“Isn’t it enough? Hasn’t he had enough? Haven’t you both?”

Adrian’s eyes open. He groans.

Something rises from Grace’s stomach and she is overcome. She lays her head on him.

“Oh god okay. Hi. Adrian. Hi. You’re okay. Its me, you’re okay.”

He squeezes her hand and raises the other to his neck. His fingers find the chain, now loose. He sighs in relief, his eyes water and he takes a deep beath in through his mouth.

“It’s loose.” He pants out, his relief immediate, “thank you.”

“Your dad, he loosened it some.”

Adrian nods, patting at the ointment cloths and orienting himself. Grace looks up to Owen, who watches this unfold from nearby. Adrian stares at him.

Without much warning Owen walks back over and drops a ring of three keys onto Grace’s lap.

“I’ll be by once things settle to sort it out. Keep it quiet. Fuck this up and I take him back.”
He drops the keys in Grace’s lap. “Get him out of here.”

Owen takes one last, unreadable look at Adrian and walks out.
“Thank you, yes, thank you” the words fall out of her mouth.
Adrian watches the door close. When it does he releases a hidden tension. His eyes rest on the crowbar near him. He pushes to sit up but is floored by the pain. He cries out unbearably.
Grace shushes him. “Okay. It’s us now. He’s gone.”
Adrian weakly grips the lock. “Get it off. Please.”

It takes two tries to get the lock open, but when it pops the sound is like a symphony. A smile she had not seen in weeks plasters itself across his face. Adrian pulls the chain away him his neck and tosses it to the ground. He laughs.

But how to get home, she thinks. “You can’t stand up, can you lift at all?”
He tries and is able to get to about a forty five degree angle, held up by his arms folded behind him.

“Some,” he moans and collapses again, “Not for long.”

“That will work.”

She runs out of the barn and grabs the wheelbarrow from outside. She lays it down and Adrian lifts himself as much as he can. They try this several ways before Grace maanges to scoop from underneath him to get him in the damn thing. He facing her, the injured leg cradled by the inside of the wheelbarrow and the less injured one hanging out the side. She hangs her lantern and her basket over the handles. She hands him the crowbar.

“We’re out of here!” she exclaims as they wheel out the door. “Hang on. We’ll go back to my house and I’ll send for the surgeon.”

Adrian nods and lays his head back while they leave. His eyes widen underneath the night sky, the stars hidden by the rain. The droplets pepper his face and make the field ahead mucky. He closes his eyes.

Grace pushes it with all of her might. He wasn’t as heavy as he used to be. When they reach the fence she stops and changes direction. Near the newer pasture fence were several old boards. She finds them and uses the crowbar to swing at it. After several hits it collapses into the mud. She pushes the wheelbarrow through it, hops over the top, and carries onward. Adrian doesn’t say much, he just feels the rain.

“Almost there!” she looks down and tries to reassure him, but he doesn’t reply.