Unbind (Alchemy #6)

by Elodie Hart

Despite the shit I’m giving her, I suspect she is usually in control. She seems like someone who prides herself on having it together, who probably despises the lack of control a condition like type 1 gives her. But this illness isn’t something to be pushed under the carpet. It’s a daily threat, a daily fucking battle. It’s running to stand still your entire life, and she’d be far better off if she made peace with that instead of trying to fight it.

‘I promise you, the only points I want to prove are that I’m not the only one in this room with a red-hot attraction and that I can make you feel better than you’ve ever felt in your life. It would be my privilege to show you what your body is capable of, if you let yourself loosen up enough to allow it. ‘And I’d boss you around all day long if I could get away with it, you sweet little thing, but I swear to you, if you let me take charge for the next hour or so you’ll be coming so hard around whichever of my body parts you like that you won’t give a flying fuck about point-scoring. Now, how does this thing come off?’

He reaches one hand down to the leg I have propped up and gently traces the outline of my insulin pump, secured beneath my hold-up, with his fingertip. He may be obsessed with my blood glucose levels, for reasons I now understand far too clearly, but he gets my illness. There’s no awkwardness, no need for me to apologise for or explain away the funny little contraptions stuck to various sites on my body. As long as he’s confident I can withstand whatever delicious form of cardio he throws at me, he’ll embrace this aspect of me without question.