Bitterly Sweetly (Completed)

Chapter Twenty-five : A Confusing Sanctuary

And so they went, huffing and puffing, limping and cursing towards the bed.

Right when Sofia thought that Max couldn't surprise her more than he already had since her fainting spell, she found herself yet again thrown off the cliff. It was one thing having the man despising the mere shadow of her giving her pills, helping her drink water, or carrying her to the bathroom, but it was completely a new level of weird when that very man, after putting pillows beneath her bloody rotten foot and snugly beside her battered midriff, carefully tucked the sheet underneath her chin, brushing her bird nest hair with gentle fingers away from her shoulders.

Sofia's breath hitched when he came too close, and she feared he would drop a kiss on her forehead just to prove how much of a loony he had truly come to be. She dared not look up at him when the scary warmth of his body once again soaked inside her skin.

Thankfully though, he moved back, and she could hear him gulp.

Enough is enough! She thought.

This trap he was laying, she was sure, headed straight to her damnation.

He settled back down on his guard chair, looking all comfortable at her bedside as if it was his rightful position.

Sofia was hell tired from her return trip from the bathroom. Otherwise, she would have sprung up from her current lying position just to get the advantage of a few inches over Max's sitting form. The conversation on the tip of her tongue required just that, for she knew it might poke awake the nasty Max she was all too familiar with. And the nasty Max she would welcome, the war of dignity she had inwardly declared required that greatly.

"Why are you doing this?" Sofia asked finally. Gathering herself, she looked at Max, only to find he was already looking at her. His eyes lacked the irritation and hatred she was so used to witnessing all the time. The change was scary.

"What?"

"This." She waved a hand between them. Getting silence in reply, she sighed and motioned towards the bathroom and herself. "Why are you suddenly so nice to me? What is the plan?"

"There is no plan," his voice was diligent.

With an intake of breath, Sofia threw up her hands lightly in the air. Her eyes went back to him from the ceiling. "You are basically carrying around the person you hate and trying to nurse them back to life. How can there not be a plan? Or is it because—" she halted abruptly as something suddenly clicked in her mind. She bit her tongue for not figuring it out already.

"Oh," she exhaled a long breath. "Of course. I should have figured it out already. You're doing all this so that people don't call you a woman beater—so that you don't get marked as an abusive husband. Am I right? You've got a respectable reputation to uphold. You've said so yourself that night. How could I forget!"

"You're getting it all—" Max's urgent words were cut in sharply by Sofia's amused chuckle.

To her own ears, the sound of that laughter sounded hollow, and by the expression, Max had on his face, he seemed quite taken aback, at a loss of words for once.

"There's no need to keep up the facade all the time, Max," she said slowly. "Especially not when we're alone. I mean, I understand why you would behave so nice and husbandly before the nurses, doctors, and others, but please, no one can see when you're alone with me. In fact, you don't even need to be alone here with me. I guess by now everyone has got the fact how proper of a husband you are." Sofia drew in a slow breath and shifted her body a little so that she could turn away from Max. Her sore back needed some relief, and it was hellish that she couldn't properly turn on her side, not yet. "So, I say, go home or back to work. No need to waste time here."