My eyes opened slowly, and the first thing I felt was a pounding in the left side of my head. It took me a moment to realize I was bouncing around in the backseat of a vehicle.

Oh, no. Was I being abducted? Was that why I heard gunshots?

I had been so stupefied by the thought of being killed, I hadn’t stopped to consider the only fate worse than death: a slow death.

I squinted my eyes against the pain in my head as I pushed myself up to get a better look at my captor. Blinking a few times, I wondered if I was hallucinating. It looked like Isaac was behind the wheel, but he wasn’t wearing a shirt.

“Where are you taking me?” I demanded, though my voice wasn’t strong enough to project.

He glanced back at me with an unreadable expression. Was it fear or relief? “Oh, Jesus Christ. You scared the shit out of me.”

“What are you doing? Why am I in this truck?”

I looked around for a door handle, but it was one of those doors that swung in the opposite direction. The front door had to be open to reveal the handle for the back door.

“Whoa! Hey, don’t do that!” he said as I tried to reach through the gap between the passenger seat and the door. “What are you doing?”

“Let me out of here! I don’t know what you think you’re going to do to me, but you’re wrong. I will fight you tooth and fucking nail. Do you understand me?”

The force of my anger sent a sharp pain slicing through the left side of my head. I pressed my fingers to my scalp and flinched when I found a large, walnut-sized lump.

“Hey, I don’t know what you think just happened, but one minute I was working on my Mustang and it backfired a couple of times. The next thing I know, you’re screaming your ass off inside your house. You passed out in there and I thought you had a damn heart attack. I’m just trying to get you to the hospital.”

My heart thudded against my chest as I remembered the gunshots clearly in my mind. Pop! Pop! “Your car backfired?” I said, my body slumping against the seat, though I didn’t know if I was more relieved or embarrassed.

He glanced back at me. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I mean, I think so. But… so… it wasn’t gunshots?”

He chuckled at this, then his face got serious. “Oh, fuck. I didn’t even consider that you might… Shit. I’m sorry. Now I feel like an idiot for not being more considerate.”

“Considerate of what?” I replied, immediately regretting this question, as it might serve as an opener to a conversation I desperately didn’t want to have.

“Look, I’m sorry. I didn’t know that would set you off. I won’t… I won’t work on the car anymore unless you’re at work.”

“You don’t have to do that for me,” I said, carefully running my fingers over the tender bump on my head. “Can you just take me home? I really don’t want to go to the hospital right now. They’ll make me get a psych eval.”

As soon as I spoke the words aloud, I regretted them. It seemed I couldn’t keep myself from oversharing with Isaac. Must be the head injury.

The silence that followed the words “psych eval” lasted ages. I hated being in the backseat. It made me feel powerless.

“I’m coming up there,” I said, as I climbed over the console between the driver’s seat and the passenger seat. I gasped when I noticed his hand was wrapped in what looked like a gray T-shirt, which probably explained why he was shirtless. “Did you injure your hand?” I asked, trying not to stare at his smooth, tattooed chest.

He glanced at his hand, then turned his attention back to the road. “It’s not too bad. I mean… it will need stitches. We can go home if you know how to stitch up a cut.” He peeked at me to see my wide-eyed response, then he let out a chuckle. “I guess that’s a no. I would do it myself, but I’m right-handed.”

I wanted to ask him to drop me off at the house. I didn’t want to be anywhere near a hospital. But I couldn’t ask him to go back when he was injured, especially when I was the cause.

“I’m so sorry,” I whispered, turning away to look out the window so he wouldn’t see me getting emotional.

“Why?” he asked. “You have nothing to be sorry about. It’s not like you freaked out on purpose. Trust me. I know… I know how out of control stuff like that gets.”

I didn’t want to reply, but I needed to address the elephant in the truck. “Look, I really appreciate what you did for me back there. And I appreciate you sharing with me how much you understand. I… I can’t imagine the horrors you’ve seen. But…” I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as images of the horrors I’d seen flashed in my mind. “I don’t want to talk about what happened that night. It’s just not something I want to dwell on. I’m sorry.”

“No need to apologize. I’m all too pleased to keep the unpleasant stuff to myself,” he said with a chuckle.

The corners of his eyes crinkled as he flashed me a charming grin. It dawned on me that this might be the first real smile I’d seen on his face. And it was beautiful.

I turned away quickly, staring out the window until he pulled into the hospital parking lot and squeezed his truck into a space labeled “COMPACT” near the emergency entrance. There would barely be enough space to open the doors and slither out. As he shifted the truck into PARK, he forgot himself for a moment and used his right hand, flinching at the resulting pain.

“Dammit!” he whispered, shaking his hand. “You’re welcome to stay in here while I get stitched up, if you want.”

I stared at the shimmering blotches of dark-red blood on the gear shift knob, the center console, and the driver’s seat. “I’ll go in with you,” I said, tearing my gaze away as I began to feel queasy. “But you have to promise not to tell anyone what happened back there.”

He glanced at the side of my head. “I saw you touching your head earlier. You sure you don’t want to get that checked out?”

“I’m positive.”

He nodded. “My lips are sealed.”

Even though it was only about 74 degrees outside — according to the digital display on his rearview mirror — Isaac took Boomer out of the truck bed and put him in the cab with the two front windows cracked several inches. As we crossed the parking lot toward the emergency entrance, I couldn’t help but notice that the hair tie holding together the man-bun on the crown of his head was about to slip out.

“Your hair band is about to fall out,” I said.

He automatically reached up with his right hand, but I caught his forearm to stop him.

“Don’t do that,” I said, probably a bit too urgently. “You’ll get blood everywhere. Here, I’ll get it.”

We stopped on the sidewalk in front of the sliding doors and I reached up to pull out the brown hair elastic, but it was tangled around a small cluster of hair. As I stood behind him, attempting to extricate it from his golden hair, which felt a lot softer than I thought it would, his breathing hastened. The rise and fall of his shoulders quickening with each passing moment. I would have to yank it out.

“Sorry,” I said, both of us wincing as I ripped out what looked like at least five or six hairs.

He chuckled as he took the hair tie from me with his left hand and stuffed it into his jeans pocket. “No worries. I’m into the hair pulling,” he said with a wink.

I looked away as my heart raced.

Had I said or done something while I was passed out that Isaac may have misconstrued?

No, I was passed out.

Did I pass out or did I black out?

“Hey, I was just joking. Not trying to hit on you or anything,” Isaac said.

I lowered my hand as I suddenly realized I was clutching my chest. “Okay, let’s get this over with,” I said heading toward the sliding doors.

As Isaac checked himself in, the lady behind the counter glanced at me, then down at my shirt. “Are you hurt, too?”

I looked down and my body tensed as I finally noticed the dark splotches of blood. They had soaked through the right side of my forest-green T-shirt with the yellow Sunny’s Garden Depot logo. There was blood all over my ribs and breast.

I grabbed the counter for support as I looked at the nurse and tried to think of a response that didn’t include me having a nervous breakdown and having my limp body carried into a truck.

“That’s not hers. It’s mine,” Isaac said, answering for me. “I wiped it on her.”

The nurse seemed very obviously perplexed, but she let it go.

In the waiting room, we sat among a quiet group of people who looked like they wanted to be there as much as we did, which was not at all. One woman with a small girl sitting next to her had a bad case of bedhead and dark rings around her eyes. Every time the little girl coughed, a dry, raspy whooping cough, the woman would hug her and rub her chest.

I couldn’t tear my eyes away from them.

“You okay?” Isaac asked.

I nodded. “Yeah, you? Does it still hurt?”

He shrugged. “I’ve had worse.”

I inhaled a long breath and let it out slowly. “You probably already know what happened that night. How… How we found them,” I said.

I tried to distance myself from the emotions, to focus on the facts, the way Jack had been coping for the past two years. It worked. The anguish I’d felt while watching the woman and the sick girl was gone. I needed to say the words more than I needed to feel the pain. I needed Isaac to understand why I had rejected his attempt to open up on the way here.

Isaac looked away. “Well, shit… I did not know that. To tell you the truth… I try to stay away from the news, so I didn’t read any articles about it. Edna’s the one who told me what happened. She probably left the worst parts out.”

I shook my head, trying to force myself to stay focused on the facts and the words. “Have you ever considered that everyone you’ve ever met may be hiding a secret as dark and painful as yours? That thought had never even crossed my mind. My life was so easy. I took my happiness for granted.”

This time, I wanted Isaac to say something. I wanted him to tell me about the horrific things he’d hinted at in the truck. But this time, he was the one who didn’t want to talk.

We sat in silence for a while before he was called back to an exam room. I stayed in the waiting area, pretending to watch the TV mounted in the corner of the ceiling. But that didn’t last. I needed to do something or call someone.

I stepped outside and reached into the back pocket of my skinny jeans to retrieve my phone before I sat down on a concrete bench outside the ER entrance. As soon as I gripped the phone in my hand, I realized something felt off. Pulling it out of my pocket, I was shocked to see it was not my iPhone in my pocket. And whoever’s phone this was, it was covered in blood.

Did Isaac put his phone in my pocket after he cut his hand?

That had to be the strangest thing out of this whole experience. He didn’t even ask for it back after I woke up. What was even weirder was the number of missed calls and voicemail notifications displayed on the lock screen: eleven missed calls and four voicemails. It seemed Isaac was a busy man.

I shook my head, ignoring the nauseous feeling in the pit of my belly as I slid the blood-encrusted phone back into my pocket. If my phone wasn’t on me, that meant it was in my purse, probably still in the house. I couldn’t remember if I had taken it inside with me.

It was probably a good thing, since it was about five a.m. in Tokyo. I didn’t want to wake Jack just to tell him about my panic attack. He’d been through enough of those with me. I would wait for him to call me later. I’d call Drea when I got home.

When Isaac was stitched up and discharged, we headed back toward the truck.

“I think I have your phone in my pocket,” I said, pulling the phone out as we crossed the parking lot. “Do you know how it got there?”

He looked panic stricken as he took the phone. “Oh… Oh, shit.”

“What?”

He shook his head. “Dammit. They blocked me in.”

I turned toward the truck, and sure enough the two cars parked on either side were no more than three inches away from his side mirrors. Definitely not enough space for a man built like Isaac to squeeze through.

I was keenly aware that he had failed to answer my question about the phone. I had a right to know how a bloody phone ended up in my pocket. But something was telling me I shouldn’t push Isaac.

He looked down at me. “Do you think you can squeeze in and pull the truck out?”

I smiled and nodded as I held my hand out for the keys. It seemed my lack of appetite was finally coming in handy.

When we arrived at his house, he turned into his driveway. “I don’t think you should go home right now. I’m gonna have to board up the window I broke to get into your house, and… Well, I imagine there’s a lot of broken glass and blood in there. Between the window and the mess, you probably don’t want to go back there just yet.”

I really didn’t want to see that. I knew it would remind me of all the broken glass and blood from that night. But I couldn’t keep hiding from the pain. Or that monster that followed me around everywhere would never go away.

“Do you think you can board up that window tonight?”

He smiled. “Yes, ma’am. I’ve got some plywood in the garage I can use. And I’ll measure the window, too. I can call around tomorrow and see if any local contractors got a suitable replacement in stock. Might not be dual-pane, but it will work temporarily until we can order an identical replacement.”

“You don’t have to order that. I can do it.”

“Nonsense. I broke it. It’s my responsibility to fix it. You’re welcome to hang out in my living room while I clean up the glass and stuff?”

I stared back at him, amazed at the kindness in his eyes and actions. “No. I’m going to clean it up. I need to be the one to do it.”

“You sure? I don’t mind doing it.”

I nodded. “Positive.”

As we approached the porch steps, I was relieved to see that my purse, which I had evidently dropped just outside the front door, was still there. My cell phone lay next to it. As we got closer, I saw the grapefruit-sized hole in the open window.

Instantly, I felt queasy and lightheaded, on top of the headache I already had. But I would just have to tough it out.

“You’re white as a ghost. Are you about to pass out again?”

I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, the way I did in yoga class. “Nope,” I replied. “I just need a minute.”

“Take as long as you need.”

The late-afternoon sunlight shone bright-red through my eyelids. As I breathed in slowly through my nose, I imagined the beautiful sunsets I’d seen on all those trips Jack and I had taken to the coast. I thought of the waves crashing and lapping at the shore.

I was suddenly filled with hope for the possibility of going to the beach with Jack again. Maybe we couldn’t go back to the people we were before that night. But maybe we could be a newer, wiser version of the couple we used to be.

I held onto this thought as I gathered my things off the porch. I focused on my breathing, and that beautiful beach sunset, as we stepped inside the house. I replayed the sound of those crashing waves in my mind as I swept the glass and dropped the shards into a waste bin.

When the tears came too fast for me to see properly, Isaac insisted I head upstairs and take it easy. He would finish cleaning up the blood and lock up the house before he left to get the plywood.

I took a long, hot shower, then I pulled on some pajamas despite the fact that it was barely five p.m. As I lay in bed with the covers pulled over my head, I considered calling Drea to tell her what happened. But then I wondered what she would think if I told her that Isaac had helped me through this panic attack.

As this thought occurred to me, the sound of hammering reminded me that Isaac was downstairs right now, boarding up my broken window. Should I have insisted that I could do it myself? Or should I have hired someone to do it?

My stomach curdled at the thought of keeping this experience a secret from my best friend and my husband. But I worried that telling them would cause unnecessary drama. Especially with Jack so far away, I didn’t want him to worry.

There was nothing going on between Isaac and me.

As the hammering continued, I smiled as it occurred to me that Isaac was a natural caretaker.

He obviously had difficulties dealing with his past. He hadn’t admitted it to me yet, but I highly suspected Boomer was a PTSD service dog. But despite the fact that Isaac needed Boomer to take care of him, the evidence for Isaac’s nurturing nature was everywhere.

It was in the plants he sowed and reaped. In the way Dylan talked him up every chance he got. In the way Isaac jumped at the chance to help, and sprung into action when I lost myself today.

I would tell Drea about today’s breakdown later, maybe when I moved back home. But for now, I needed to focus on the breakthrough. I wouldn’t have been able to face that mess in the living room alone today. I would have to thank Isaac for being there for me.

I hurried up and pulled on some clothes. As I stepped out onto the porch, Isaac was just gathering his tools to leave.

“Thank you for everything you did today. I don’t think I properly thanked you before I fled upstairs,” I said, stepping around a basket of tomatoes in front of the door. “What’s that?”

“I’ve got tomatoes coming out of every orifice right now. I already took a box to Edna.” He slung the strap of his leather tool satchel over his shoulder and smiled. “Figured I’d pawn some off on you.”

I smiled. “Gee. Thanks.” I bent over and grabbed one of the tomatoes, bringing the firm fruit to my nose and inhaling the intoxicating, verdant fragrance. “That smells mouthwatering. It must have come out of a very clean orifice. Thank you.”

He laughed. “I’ll let you know as soon as I find a replacement window for you.”

We both nodded at each other as he set off back toward his house. I was starting to feel like I was in serious debt to the Bank of Good Neighbors. I would have to make Isaac some casserole or lasagna with those fresh tomatoes.

The difficult truth I had to admit was that I wanted to make something for Isaac. Because today was the first time I remembered what it felt like to be taken care of without sex or money.