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Sweeping me up off my feet, he walks through the doors I had been trying to get out of and onto the street. "Please, put me down."  
    "Not a chance, sweetheart. Not a chance." He shakes his head. "Not until we're in the car."
    "Car? What car? No. Mikah, stop. I have to go to work." My protest falls upon deaf ears. I hear a car door open, and Mikah gracefully slides in. It's not until I'm inside that I realize that we're in a limousine. I want to protest more, but I know full well I'm going to lose the argument.  
    Then panic sets in. I don’t like being locked into such a tight space. My body starts to shake again, harder than before, as my panic level rises.  
    "Hey." He pulls back to look at me. "Vivienne, what's the matter?"  
    I slip out of his grasp and crawl down onto the floor of the car. My teeth chatter, I'm shaking so bad. "T-t-tight...s-space. Claustro...ph-ph-phobic. Too...dark," I finally manage to say as images of the hot dark closet I’d spent several days in swirl inside my mind.
    "Red, hit the lights and windows."  
    "Yes, sir."  
    Suddenly light floods into the limo and I can feel a cool breeze flowing in from outside. The shakes reduce to a slight tremor.  
    Mikah leans forward on the bench seat, almost as if he is going to join me on the floor. He reaches out for my arm and I flinch away at the contact. He hesitates momentarily then tries again. This time I don't flinch, and he begins to gently rub my arm. I find myself soothed by the caress.  
    "Why are we in a car? Where are we going?" I finally manage to ask.  
    "We're in the car because I want some privacy with you. We'll stay here until you're ready to go. Then I'm taking you to H.C.M.C."  
    I stiffen and pull away from his hand. I slide back against the bench opposite him and pull my knees to my chin, steeling myself.  
    "No. I told you, no hospital."  
    He reaches out toward me, but I shy away and he stops. "I just need to know that you're alright. Okay?" He looks down at me. His eyes are comforting, warm. "Please, Vivienne?" His voice is pleading, but not insistent. A hint of desperation.
    My heart starts to pound and my skin tingles. I look away from his face, not wanting to see his reaction to what I’m about to tell him. I know what I will see and I can't stand the sight of pity in someone’s eyes when they look at me. But he has to know why taking me to the hospital wouldn’t help me.  
    "If I go to the hospital, I will lose my job because Bartie is an ass-hat and he won’t care where I am. I'm malnourished. My blood sugar is low, and I have high levels of anxiety. There, sir, is your diagnosis. And you know what they will do? They will run a battery of tests on me that I can't afford just to tell me everything I've just told you. Then they’ll tell me that I’m not taking proper care of myself. That I should eat regularly and get plenty of rest, which are completely unreasonable expectations given my circumstances. They will make me feel shitty and useless. Then they will send me home to a closet-sized apartment with no food, a half-ass thing the landlord calls a mattress, and no way to pay my rent or buy what little food I have been able to afford because I will be without a job. So what’s the point?"
    I don't need to look at him to be able to gage his reaction. "Mikah, I work shit hours at a shit job for shit pay. I live in an overly shitty apartment and have no means of changing that fact anytime soon. So this is me, who I am. You're just going to have to deal with the fact that you can’t save me." I start crying again, completely out of control.  
    "Jesus, Vivienne, why won’t you let me help you?" His voice is soft, sincere and - more than anything - sad.  
    "Because! You have more important things to do than worry about some poor, pathetic, pregnant chick who works at a diner you stumbled into the other night. I've already told you — I've made it on my own, I will continue to make it on my own. Just like I