What the Body Remembers

Two days after we got home, the apartment still smelled like lemon cleaner and plastic pill bottles. I’d barely unpacked as I was sore everywhere—healing, aching, but steady.

Vince had been hovering. Not in a suffocating way, but in that quiet, protective rhythm of someone trying to do everything right.

That evening, he walked into the bedroom as I was folding clothes. His face was unusually serious.

“Hey,” he said.

I looked up from the bed. “You okay?”

He nodded, stepping inside and shutting the door behind him. “I wanted to ask you something, and I don’t want it to come out wrong.”

My chest tightened. “Alright…”

He sat down beside me, close but cautious. “Are you feeling well enough… to be with me again? I mean, if not, that’s totally okay. I just—” He exhaled. “I miss being close to you. That connection. But I don’t want to hurt you. I won’t push.”

I watched him. The way his eyes stayed soft, the way his hands gripped his own knees like he was bracing for rejection.

“I’ve missed it too,” I said. “And I don’t want to wait anymore.”

He hesitated. “You sure?”

I kissed him. “I’m sure.”

That night, we crossed a threshold that hadn’t just been about physical recovery—it was about reclaiming intimacy from fear.

At first, Vince was gentle - too gentle. His hands were careful, his movements deliberate, reverent almost. He touched my skin like it was made of glass.

I stopped him with a kiss and a firm, whispered reminder. “I’m not fragile.”

His eyes darkened, some thread inside him finally snapping free.

After that, he gave in to it—his need, his hunger, the weight of everything we hadn’t been able to express through words.

He pinned me beneath him, kissed me like he hadn’t had the right in weeks, and fucked me like he wanted to take back everything we almost lost.

He came in me without hesitation every single time.

It wasn’t about lust. It wasn’t even about comfort. It was about being alive. Being here. Being us.

And afterward, when he collapsed beside me, his skin slick and his voice ragged, he whispered, “I didn’t think I’d ever get here with you again.”

I curled into him, bruised and shaking, but whole. “But you did. You have me.”

He held me tighter. “I just keep needing to make sure.”

Nearly a week later, I had my follow-up appointment. Vince insisted on driving me, of course. He even came inside and sat in the waiting room, scrolling his phone but glancing up every time someone called a name.

Dr. Reynolds examined me in a small, quiet room that smelled like rubbing alcohol and old magazines.

“Well,” she said, gently pressing along my ribcage, “the bruising’s going down nicely. Cuts are healing clean. The swelling on your temple’s improving, too.”

She pulled her gloves off. “Some of those cuts were deep, though. I’m going to prescribe a precautionary antibiotic—just in case something tries to sneak in. I’d rather get ahead of it.”

“Fair,” I said. “The pain’s less constant now but still throbbing. Still sore, still a little dizzy.”

She nodded. “No driving until the dizziness stops completely. I mean it. You black out behind the wheel, and all this healing goes straight back to the starting line.”

I sighed. “Vince has been doing all the driving. Calls me his Passenger Princess.”

She smiled. “He sounds like a keeper.”

I didn’t answer out loud, but I couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at my mouth.

For the next week and a half, I let Vince take care of me.

He drove me to every appointment, sat patiently while I picked out groceries with earplugs in, and never once let me lift a single bag.

At home, he cooked dinner every night. He even joked about printing a menu.

“No restaurants for now,” he’d say, sliding a bowl of creamy soup in front of me, “but the chef here is highly trained in feeding wounded goddesses.”

I rolled my eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

“And you love it.”

I did.

We’d eat together at the table, then he’d do the dishes while I sat on the couch, wrapped in a blanket, listening to his voice drift in from the kitchen—half humming, half talking to himself about how much paprika was too much paprika and half singing.

There were still moments when I got dizzy. Still nights when my head ached hard enough that I had to close my eyes and breathe through it…those nights were the worst as that’s when the dizziness came.

But I was getting better.

And Vince never once made me feel like healing was a burden.