Heller's Regret by J.D. Nixon

bathroom
to splash my face, an action that did nothing to clean me, merely
smearing the dirt into mud streaks. I went to the kitchen to drink
another two glasses of water, my stomach rebelling again, before
returning to bed and back to sleep.
    I didn’t surface again until the very early
hours of the morning. I lay in bed for a while stretching out my
cramped muscles and luxuriating in the feel of laying on something
soft. Much refreshed from sleeping, I took a shower, needing to
wash my hair three times before all the detritus flushed away.
    Dressed in wonderfully clean pyjamas, I
buried the tracksuit at the bottom of my kitchen bin, never wanting
to set eyes on it again. Feeling guilty about yelling at Heller and
not giving him a chance to explain, I made my way up to his place
and let myself in.
    He’d been asleep in bed, but the noise of me
entering his flat, no matter how quiet I’d been, had woken him. He
was alert and waiting for me when I came to his bedroom.
    I stayed at the doorway and we stared at each
other for a while, neither of us moving. He held out his arms and I
gratefully fell into them, letting myself be enveloped in his
warmth. We didn’t speak for a long time, holding each other.
    “I didn’t instruct Clive to do that,” he
nuzzled into my hair. “In fact, after I left your flat, I went to
see him.” He was quiet for a moment. “We had words.”
    On the one hand, I felt bad about that,
because the two men were very tight and rare harsh words from
Heller would have upset Clive. On the other hand, I couldn’t care
less. He’d overstepped the mark and he deserved it. I was so angry
with him at the moment I would have liked the opportunity to have
‘words’ with him myself.
    Heller felt my waist, frowning in the
darkness. “Have you eaten yet?”
    “Not for a long time.”
    “I’ll make you something.”
    I dozed again, comforted by the domestic
sounds of him in the kitchen, not something I heard very often,
though he was more than capable of feeding himself.
    He came into the bedroom to fetch me to eat.
I sat up groggily, sleep-tousled, letting him lead me to his dining
room where a simple plate of scrambled eggs, toast, and a glass of
orange juice waited for me.
    Sure I would be sick trying to eat, to my
surprise I rediscovered my hunger and devoured the food, not
sparing a breath to talk.
    “I’m still hungry,” I said when I’d
finished.
    “You can have more food later. I don’t think
it’s a good idea to eat too much quickly.”
    While he cleared up, I sprawled on his
lounge. I flicked on his TV and watched one of the twenty-four hour
news stations, though mostly apathetic about what had been
happening during my absence.
    He sat next to me and turned my head towards
him, frowning again. “Your face is so gaunt.” He leaned down to
touch his lips on mine. I snuggled up to him as we watched the
news. “What happened there?”
    I sighed. “It was barbaric. They exercised us
hard all day, and some of the ladies there were my mother’s age.
And they severely rationed our food. By the end, my rations had
been cut in half as a punishment.”
    “For doing what?”
    “For not allowing myself to be broken by
them.”
    “I’m very proud of you.” He kissed the top of
my head.
    That meant a lot to me. “They belittled us
and bullied us. Soon, we were all too tired and hungry to even
argue with them. The Assistant took a particular dislike to me. She
made my life hell.”
    “Really?” he said mildly. “I might pay them a
visit.” And though that sounded innocuous enough, I wouldn’t want
to be in their shoes if he did.
    “I planned an escape.”
    He laughed. “Of course you did. I wouldn’t
expect anything less of you.”
    “I thought I’d worked out all the details. We
were going to scale the fence and walk until we found the nearest
phone. Then I was going to ring here and ask someone to come and
pick us all up.”
    “How many of you were there?”
    “There were eight