The garage is quiet except for the steady drag of a brush against canvas. The air feels heavy, saturated with paint and something sharper underneath. You sit where he told you to, perched on a stool, hands folded tightly in your lap, still trying to make sense of the world after months in a coma that stole your memory.

Leonard moves with precision, shoulders tense, each stroke too deliberate to be careless. He hasn’t raised his voice. He didn’t need to.

The memory of the door, of almost stepping outside, still lingers in your chest like a fading echo. Freedom felt close for a second—close enough to touch. Then it was gone.

He glances at you sometimes, quick, almost involuntary, like checking that something fragile hasn’t broken. There’s relief in it. And something else. Something heavier.

You feel it pressing in from all sides—the walls, the silence, him.

A protector, he said. A guardian.

Yet the lock on the door clicks softly when he moves past it, just to make sure.

The brush keeps moving. You don’t.

“Don’t make me worry like that again.”