Chapter 3 – Things That Shouldn’t Be Touched
1065 Words
Sabrina rarely brought work home. She liked her apartment the way she kept her emotions—sterile, neat, untouched. A white couch, gray walls, no photographs. The only personal item was a half-dead bonsai tree on the windowsill, and even that clung to life out of pure defiance.
But tonight, something followed her home.
Not blood. Not the scent of antiseptic.
Him.
The weight of his words clung to her coat like smoke.
“I’m not trying to fix you. I’m trying to understand what broke you.”
She’d been called a lot of things—brilliant, cold, difficult, detached. But never broken.
And she didn’t like that it felt true.
She stood in her bathroom, water running, hands braced on the sink. Her eyes found themselves in the mirror, and the silence filled with a voice she hadn’t heard in years.
“Sabrina, sweet girl, you’re just confused.”
She gripped the sink harder.
“Your father loves you. He didn’t mean to hurt anyone.”
Her jaw clenched, throat tight. And then she did something she hadn’t done in years.
She cried.
Not loud, not dramatic. Just a slow, silent unraveling. Salt down her cheeks, chest heaving with something she couldn’t name. Something too old to be called sadness.
She didn’t wipe the tears away. She let them fall.
And in the silence, for the first time in a long time… she felt human.
Across the city, Isaac Hale poured himself a drink.
His penthouse was dark, cold steel and black leather, untouched by warmth. He stood by the window, eyes tracing the lights of a city he controlled from the shadows.
Luca entered behind him. “We’ve got confirmation. Linarez is consulting with federal investigators. He’s clean on paper, but something’s off. There are sealed records. A lot of them.”
Isaac didn’t turn. “Unseal them.”
Luca hesitated. “Are you sure this is about Linarez? Or is this about her?”
Isaac finally turned his head, eyes like ice. “They’re the same thing.”
He sipped his drink and stared into the night.
“Find out what he did to her. Quietly. I don’t want her knowing yet.”
“Why not?”
“Because when she finds out,” he said darkly, “I want to be the one holding her together.”
Isaac was discharged the next day.
Against medical advice.
Against Sabrina’s orders.
She found out the moment she arrived at the hospital—his bed empty, IVs gone, monitors unplugged with clinical precision. No trace, no goodbye.
Just a note on the pillow.
“You don’t like being seen. But I do. So I’ll find you first.”
— I.H.
Sabrina stared at it for a long time.
Her chest felt like it had been cracked open—not by a scalpel, but by something far worse. She hated that she felt abandoned. Hated that she felt anything.
He was a patient. A stranger. A criminal.
But somehow, in the space between their silences, he had crawled under her skin.
And now he was gone.
[Three days later.]
She saw him again.
Not at the hospital. Not by chance.
At her apartment.
It was 10:47 p.m. when she unlocked her door and stepped inside, soaked from the rain, exhausted from a triple shift. She flicked on the light—and froze.
He was sitting on her couch.
In the dark.
Like he belonged there.
“Jesus Christ!” she shouted, dropping her keys. “What the hell are you doing here?”
He stood slowly, not flinching. “You didn’t answer your phone.”
“I didn’t give you my number.”
He held up her business card. “You dropped it.”
She crossed her arms, pulse hammering. “That doesn’t give you the right to break into my home.”
“You didn’t lock the window.”
“You climbed through my window?!”
“I needed to see you.”
His voice was calm, almost gentle.
And that made it worse.
“You’re insane.”
“I’m consistent.”
Sabrina exhaled sharply. “Isaac, you can’t just show up here. This isn’t your world.”
“I’m not trying to make it mine,” he said. “I’m trying to make sure you survive in yours.”
She blinked. “Excuse me?”
“I looked into Linarez. The things he did to you—to other children—”
“Don’t.”
“Sabrina—”
“I said don’t.”
Her voice cracked, sharp as a blade.
He fell silent.
She looked away, trying to breathe, trying to stay composed. But she couldn’t. Not when he was here. Not when that name was in the air like poison.
“Why are you doing this?” she asked, quieter now.
Isaac stepped closer. “Because when I was bleeding out in that ER, I saw someone who should’ve broken years ago—but didn’t. And it made me wonder what kept her standing.”
She swallowed hard. “It wasn’t you.”
“No. But maybe it can be now.”
She laughed bitterly. “You think you're some savior?”
“No,” he said softly. “I think I’m just as messed up as you. But the difference is—I made peace with it. You haven’t.”
They stood inches apart, soaked in silence.
“I don’t need saving,” she whispered.
“I never said you did,” he replied. “But everyone needs someone who doesn’t flinch at the damage.”
Her eyes met his.
And for a heartbeat, everything stopped.
No past. No blood. No ghosts.
Just the two of them—wounded, wicked, real.
He left five minutes later.
Didn’t try to kiss her. Didn’t push.
Just touched her hand as he passed.
Warm. Gentle.
And gone.
That night, Sabrina opened the locked drawer in her bedroom for the first time in years.
She pulled out the file.
And read it.
Every lie. Every contradiction. Every piece of her history rewritten by someone who had smiled at her while destroying her.
Her hands shook.
But this time, she didn’t cry.
She picked up her phone instead.
"Come back."
—S.C.
She didn’t expect a reply.
But she didn’t need one.
Because twenty minutes later, she opened the door…
…and he was already there.
- Writer
