Chapter 22 #2
The cap of the body wash snicked as I opened it and paused. “What’s wrong? I was going to wash you, but I don’t have to if you’re not comfortable with it.”
“I am very comfortable with it, but you can’t use that to wash me with.”
“The loofah?”
He nodded. “Loofahs are the fucking devil. They catch on shit, and if you pull, they’ll tear shit out. Like these things.” He pointed to the barbells in his nipples, shivering as he said it.
I cringed, trying to imagine what that would feel like. “Yeah, okay, you’re right. Let me get a washcloth, then.”
Aside from literally everything about him, Moon’s nipple rings were one of my favorite things on his body. I’d only gotten to see them without his shirt on twice, both times far too sensitive ones to bring them up.
Grabbing a washcloth instead, I soaked it with the bath water and poured some of my body wash on it. “Care if I wash you, baby? You can just lie back and relax.”
He beamed up at me, resting his head against the wall behind him. “Please do, Daddy.”
There was nothing else I wanted more in the entire world than to take care of him at that moment.
In all moments. I’d been so wrong in the beginning of our friendship, thinking I just wanted to be there for him.
There was no way in hell I could ever just be there for him.
I wanted to be there and take care of him in every way possible.
I needed to lift the weight off his shoulders so he wouldn’t feel so heavy that he thought he had to bleed to alleviate it.
I scrubbed his arms gently, taking care to go over every inch of skin on them before running the washcloth up to his shoulders and down his collarbones, meeting at his chest. I was gentle around his chest, making sure I didn’t do more than squeeze soapy water across his nipples.
His eyes were closed, his head still planted against the wall as I lifted each of his arms and scrubbed under his armpits.
Cleaning him—removing the layer of hurt and anguish from the day before off his skin—was calming with an added sense of pride. This was my job. My responsibility. My way of making sure he was cared for, and his heart wasn’t too heavy for him to carry.
“Lift your leg, baby.” He kicked one out of the water, suspending it just above the surface. I cleaned each one like that, cleaning in between each of his toes. By the time the water had gone cold, Moon was squeaky clean and close to falling back asleep.
I pulled the plug from the drain and nudged him a little. “Come on. Let’s get you dried off, okay?”
He whined and frowned, but eventually let me help him stand up and into a towel. Instead of letting me help him dry off, he took the towel from my hands and did it himself, although slowly. “I guess I need to tend to these, huh?” He threw the towel over his shoulders, peering down at his thigh.
I was looking with him, one step away from grabbing the supplies. “Can I do it?”
“I mean, I can do it myself. You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Sharing the weight, remember?”
Nodding, he sat on the toilet lid. “Right. Thank you, Daddy.”
I not-so-secretly liked that he was calling me that more.
Sure, it was hot to hear during sex, but it was so much sweeter when he was trusting me with something so simple, yet monumental, as taking care of him.
I knew the vulnerability had to feel terrifying.
I knew he must’ve fought so hard to allow himself to let me see this side of him.
I knew the effort it took, and the title was my reward. The trust he had in me was my reward.
Grabbing the ointment, I got back onto my knees in front of him, opening the cap. “Should I put gauze over it after?”
“Yeah, probably. I have some large squares of it in there and some medical tape.”
I used a Q-Tip to apply the ointment to each wound, making sure I wasn’t putting too much pressure on them in case it hurt him. Hurting him was the last thing I ever wanted to do, since he’d hurt himself enough for a thousand lifetimes.
Each one hurt me, though, more than the last. I thought about all the scars hidden between them, and how many times he’d done this to himself in the name of feeling better about the secrets he’d kept.
Knowing that, at some point, he’d felt like this was what he deserved was probably the most painful part.
I didn’t think I’d ever truly understand it, seeing as I’d never felt the need to hurt myself in this way, but I could understand the logic behind it.
Some days, the grief I held felt like it was going to rip me apart. Like my body wasn’t big enough to handle the sheer quantity of it. I usually started my mornings off with a run or workout to clear my head, hoping the exertion would be enough to make me feel something other than hysterically sad.
Time could do a lot. Time couldn’t heal pain this deep.
It probably never would. Therapy was always an option I’d put on the backburner, ignoring Olivia’s advice like the plague about it.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like the idea, it was just scary—new.
It was yet another unknown in my life, and I hated the unknown, despite my career, which was always unpredictable at best.
I grabbed a package of gauze and the roll of blue medical tape, looking up to Moon as I tore it open. “Do you think you’ll take me up on that offer? With therapy.”
I could see the gears shifting in his mind. “I don’t know. It’s still scary.”
“It’s unknown.”
“Yeah, that.”
I placed the gauze over his cuts, letting it stick to the ointment I’d applied. “The unknown is scary. But you know what’s scarier?”
His leg shifted beneath my hands as he wiggled the slightest bit on the toilet lid. “What?”
“Staying in the same place and not finding out what life would look like without what we don’t know.”
He didn’t say anything for a second, staying silent as he helped me tear off some of the medical tape. “Therapy would be wildly outside of my comfort zone. Crescent has actually been trying to get me to go, but…”
I smoothed out the tape against his skin, making sure everything was covered. “But you’re afraid, right?”
“Yeah. I am.”
“Then let’s be afraid together. How does that sound?”
He seemed to think about it for a moment. “Together.”
Nodding, I slid the trash into the trash can beside the toilet, staring at the pieces for a moment. “If we do it together, everything has to be okay. It’s the rules. We’ll have each other while we try to get healthier. I don’t know what healthier looks like, though. Do you?”
“No. I really don’t.”
“Then let’s find out. I’ll be there every step of the way, so it won’t feel as big or scary as it does right now.”
“Can you promise that, Daddy?”
I grabbed one of his hands, bringing his knuckles to my lips and kissing them gently. “I promise. Being scared with somebody feels a whole lot better than being scared alone.”
He closed his eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. “Okay. Yeah, let’s do it. Let’s be scared together.”
Standing, I stepped between his legs to let him rest his forehead against my stomach. I held the back of his head, feeling how warm he was, reminding myself that he was alive. He was here. And there was an entire future out there waiting for us—we just didn’t know what it looked like yet.
We’d just have to find out together.