I did know what he meant. He was beginning to understand his relationship with me—as I had already begun to understand it. “Because I bit him, he’ll obey me,” I said. “He won’t hurt me if I tell him not to.”
He fingered the place where I’d last bitten him and stared down at me.
I took a deep breath. “I think you can still walk away from me, Wright, if you want to,” I said. I wet my lips. “If you do it now, you can still go.”
“Be free of you?” he asked.
“If you want to be free of me, yes. I’ll even help you.”
“Why? You want to get rid of me?”
“You know I don’t.”
“But you want to help me leave you?” He made it a flat statement, not a question.
“If that’s what you want.”
“Why?”
I took a deep breath, trying to stay alert. “Because I think … I think it would be wrong for me to keep you with me against your will.”
“You think that, do you?” Again, it wasn’t a real question.
So I didn’t bother to answer it.
“How?” he asked.
“What?”
“How can you help me leave you?”
“I can tell you to go. I think I can make it … maybe not comfortable, but at least possible for you to go and have your life back and just … forget about me.”
“I didn’t know what it would be like with you. I didn’t know I would feel … almost as though I can’t make it without you.”
“I know.” I closed my eyes in pain. “I didn’t know what I was starting when I bit you the first couple of times. I didn’t remember. I still don’t remember much, but I know the bites tie you to me. That comforted me—that you were with me. But now, maybe you don’t want to be with me. If that’s what you’ve decided, tell me. Tell me now, and I’ll try to help you go.”
There was nothing from him for a long time. I felt as though I were drifting. My body wanted to go to sleep, demanded sleep, and somehow, I did doze a little. When he put his palm against my face, I jerked awake.
“I’m going to take you to one of the chimneys,” he said. “I’ll make a shelter for you there.”
“If you want to go,” I said, “you should tell me now.” I paused. “I won’t be able to stay awake long. And … Wright, if you don’t take this chance, I don’t think you’ll be able to leave me. Ever. I won’t be able to let you, and you couldn’t stand separation from me. I know that much. Even now, it’s probably hard for you to make the decision, but you should go if you want to go. It’s all right.”
“It’s not all right,” he said.
“Wright, it is. You should—”
“No!” He shook his head. “Don’t tell me that. Do not tell me that!” He grasped my face between his hands, made me look at him.
“What shall I do?” I asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to lose you.”
“Freedom, Wright. Now or never.”
“I don’t want to lose you. I truly don’t. I’ve only known you for a few days, but I know I want you with me.”
I kissed his hand, glad of his decision. It would have been hard to let him go—perhaps the hardest thing I could recall doing. I would have done it, but it would have been terrible. All I could do now was make things as safe as possible for both of us.
“Okay, then. Choose a good spot and build a shelter around me—something that won’t let the sun in.”
He walked around the ruin, stumbling and cursing now and then, but not falling. Eventually he found a reasonably intact little corner with two wall fragments still standing. That was better than a chimney because it was less of a potential trap. There was no part of it that I couldn’t break through if I had to. It might once have been part of a closet. I drifted off to sleep while he was cleaning the debris out of it. I awoke again when he lifted me and put me in the corner.
Once I had found a comfortable position, he walled me in with stones, pieces of charred wood, tree branches, and pipe. After a while the little shelter he was building was perfect for keeping the sun out. When he finished, he reached in through the small opening he’d left and woke me up again.
“Go home,” I told him, and before he could protest, I added, “Come back Sunday morning. I’ll have found something to eat by then. Deer, rabbits, something.”