Total pages in book: 106
Estimated words: 101399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 101399 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 507(@200wpm)___ 406(@250wpm)___ 338(@300wpm)
He turned to me, regret in his eyes. “You know that wasn’t my idea, don’t you?”
“I realize that, but I will use whatever I can to get you to talk, up to and including guilt for getting me into this situation with your telephone trickery.”
He shrugged. “I was quite proud that I was able to talk science with you enough for you to fall for it.”
I rolled my eyes. “No wonder you and Sebastian are friends.”
“Friends?”
“Yeah. I mean, I realize you’re his butler or manservant or whatever, but I can tell the two of you have a bond like old friends.”
He smiled. “I like to think so.”
“It’s true.” I patted the back of his hand. “Now spill the history or I’ll tell Sebastian you made a pass at me.”
He snorted. “I don’t think he’ll find that believable, but you’ve done enough strong-arming already. I’ll tell you. But, please.” He squeezed my hand again. “Don’t judge me too harshly.” Pausing, he closed his eyes, as if collecting his thoughts before handing them to me. “When he found me, I was in an institution. I was only twenty, and I’d been in the system for four years.” His voice didn’t stop as much as it faltered away into silence. He cleared his throat. “I was there because when I was sixteen, I killed my boyfriend.”
I froze, unsure if I wanted him to continue. He seemed just as unsure, but eventually found his voice. “But I loved him, so I didn’t see how I could have done it. I still don’t remember it. Not all of it.” He opened his eyes, though he seemed to be looking far beyond the walls of the library. “I’m bipolar. I’d just been diagnosed a few months before…” He swallowed hard. “Before it happened, but my parents didn’t believe in medication or anything like that. When I was eight, we’d moved to the States to join a church with a dirt floor, daily baptisms, and a pastor who had five wives. They thought that my diagnosis was the result of me consorting with the devil. Even though I would fall into these senseless violent rages, they said that prayer was the answer, not pills. They thought that church would cure me.” He smiled, though the sadness in his expression made tears well in my eyes. “They thought church would cure a lot of things about me. But they were wrong. Sam died because they were wrong. And I was thrown into the darkest hole at St. Andrews after the judge found me incompetent to stand trial for his murder.”
The pain in his voice tore at my heart, but there were no words I could say to change it, or make it better. I could only listen.
“I won’t tell you the details of how St. Andrews treated what they deemed as criminally insane inmates. Those four years are like a blank space in my mind now. I had to cover them over or they would have eventually killed me.” He blinked hard and swiped at his eyes. “During my fourth year, the ownership of the hospital changed hands, and Sebastian joined the board. He toured the facility and found me cuffed to my bed, covered in filth, and with open wounds along my face and body. The guards liked to use me for a punching bag.”
“God, Timothy.” I couldn’t imagine how hellish it must have been.
“Sebastian took one look at me, skimmed through my chart, and ordered the new doctors to treat me with the proper medications. He fired the guards and turned the entire place around. After six more months of treatment, he arranged for my release into his care, and I’ve been with him ever since. He still visits St. Andrews once every six months, though it’s a completely different place now.” He laughed, the sound half sad and half amused. “He even donated money so the psychotic ward would be named after him.”
“Fitting.”
“Very.” He nodded.
“Timothy?”
“Yeah?”
I pulled him into a hug. “I’m sorry about Sam. It wasn’t your fault.”
He returned my embrace. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” I squeezed him once more before letting him go.
He met my eyes. “So that’s what I meant when I said he saved me. He did. And he’s saved plenty more at St. Andrews since then.”
I arched a brow. “You said he wasn’t a good man.”
“He isn’t, not in the classic sense. Look at my story in the abstract, the way he would. He saw a young man with a treatable mental illness who’d been locked away and mistreated for years. I don’t pretend to know his thought process, but I would assume it went something like ‘if I can rehabilitate him, he’ll be loyal to me for the rest of his life.’”
“Harsh.”
“True.” He tapped his temple. “If you want to understand him, you need to look at things without the lens of emotion.”