28. Esperr #2
I consider lying; it would be easy enough to tell him that it’s nothing and hope that he might let it go.
But I’m still half under, and I don’t have the energy to construct anything believable, and something about being tucked against him, feeling protected in a way I’ve never been before, makes me want to be truthful.
“Bad enough,” I finally admit.
I feel him shift underneath me before I can process what’s happening, and then his arms are sliding beneath me and he’s lifting me like it’s nothing, like I don’t weigh anything at all.
“What are you doing?” I mumble into his chest.
Zyran doesn’t answer me.
He carries me through the apartment, pushing a door open, and then sets me down on what feels like the cool countertop in the bathroom.
One hand steadies me until I’m steady enough, and then his touch disappears.
It takes a few seconds until I hear the water start, the low rush of it filling the tub.
I lean against the back mirror and squint into the dark.
The lights are off, and I don’t know why that's the thing that gets me, but it is.
The room is dim and soft, with just the grey light bleeding from the small window above the tub and a little bit of steam already starting to rise off the water.
He moves past me, and I hear him moving into the bedroom, drawers opening and closing.
“What are you doing?” I ask again, louder this time, though my voice is still a little shaky.
“Getting you clothes,” he says, reappearing in the doorway, something folded in his hands.
“And a warm bath; it’ll help relax the muscles in your neck and shoulders.
” He drops the clothes next to me on the counter and reaches under my arm, lifting me to the ground.
“It can relieve some of the pressure in your head.”
I look at the clothes on the counter, then at the tub that’s about halfway full, and then back at him, and then I think about the very logical sequence of events that has to happen between standing here and actually getting into that water.
He’s still in here.
“I have to—” I stop, the words feeling stupider out loud than they did in my head. I try again. “You’re still in here.”
Something shifts in his expression, barely, but just enough that I know he’s put the pieces together. He looks at me the way he always does, steady and like he’s got all the time in the world and my hesitation isn’t inconvenient to him.
“You’re safe with me.”
I look at him for a long moment, trying to read between the lines, but there’s nothing there.
“Okay.”
Why do I trust this man? I barely know him. One year of taking his order, one year of missing the stranger, one night of helping me get rid of a body, and now three days stuck inside my apartment.
Maybe it’s the body thing, but there’s something about a man who helps you drag a corpse into a trunk at two a.m. without a single question—no judgment and no panic, just helps me. It does that to a person.
Or maybe it's that he doesn’t flinch, not once, not at me, not at the things I do.
Maybe that’s what I need to do… I need to show him who I am and see if it drives him away. Everyone always flinches. He’s the closest thing to safety I’ve ever felt.
He stays close, but he doesn’t reach for me; his hands stay at his side, standing there while I reach for the hem of my shirt myself.
My head throbs with the movement, that deep insistent pulse behind my eye that spikes every time I shift too fast. Enough that I have to pause for a second with my arms half raised before I keep going.
Zyran notices; I can feel it, but he doesn’t say anything. I’m grateful for that, not because I doubt that it was too much that he wouldn’t help me. But because he’s being patient with me.
I take a deep breath and push my shirt up over my head and drop it on the floor.
One by one the rest follow, every movement measured against what my head will allow.
By the time I’m done, I’ve drifted closer to the wall, an inch from leaning against it.
It’s not until then that Zyran’s hands find my elbow and help me to the tub and then over the edge.
Sinking into the hot water, the heat quickly wraps around me, moving through my legs and into my lower back, causing tight muscles at the base of my skull to scream.
I let out a breath that feels like it’s been sitting in my chest for hours.
Tipping my head back against the porcelain, I close my eyes, and for a moment I smile.
And then I hear him gathering my clothes at the door.
I had no idea he had let go of me, and I suddenly realized that I didn’t want him to leave.
“You’re leaving?” I ask. My voice comes out smaller than I intend it to while being rough around the edges.
“Just putting them up,” he says, glancing over his shoulder. “I’ll be right back.”
I open my mouth to say something, but he’s already out of the doorway and in my bedroom.
My eyes close, allowing me to relax, the warm water doing exactly what Zyran said it would do.
It’s enough that any noise becomes muffled after a moment, and I begin to drift off, but not completely.
It’s like I’m not fully here either, hovering in that soft grey space between thinking and not thinking, where the pain is still present but distant enough that I can almost pretend it belongs to someone else.
Suddenly it dawns on me I don’t know how long he’s been gone, and while it doesn’t feel long, I also feel like it’s been hours.
I crack one eye open, finding him leaning against the frame, arms crossed over his chest while he stares into the bathroom at the wall.
“You going to join me or just stand there?” I ask, raising a brow as much as I can.
He peers down at the tub—at me—and something moves through his expression that I can’t quite pinpoint.
“Don’t think I’d fit,” he muttered, lowering himself to the floor beside the tub, back against the wall with one knee bent. “But I’ll gladly sit out here for you.”
I smile, letting my eyes drift close once again.
The water has cooled slightly, but I don’t move to adjust it.
The warmth has done enough, worked its way into the tight places at the base of my skull and loosened them just enough that the pain has dropped from a roar to something I can breathe around.
I let my arms float at my sides and stare at the ceiling and listen to the soft hum of the heater.
“Can I ask you something?” I whisper.
“Go ahead,” he says, shifting against the wall.
“What were you like before all of it?”
He doesn’t answer me right away. For a second I wonder if he’s even going to answer me at all.
And then he finally says, “Different… louder. I was the one who made the room feel full. My brothers used to say I never met a stranger and that everyone felt comfortable around me. That I could talk to anyone.”
I frown, thankful that he cannot see me, because he said ‘brothers’, as in more than one.
“How many brothers?” I ask.
“Four,” he chuckles, like he’d been expecting me to ask that.
“Slater, he’s the oldest, then Raiden, Rhys… and then Cyran.”
“Cyran,” I repeat.
“My twin.”
I open one eye and look at the ceiling before my gaze snaps to his, who conveniently is looking at me.
“You have a twin…”
“I do.”
“And you’re the quiet one?”
He shrugs, making a face. “Now I am.”
The water moves softly around me as I shift. “What happened?
Zyran lets out a breath, his eyes drifting close for a moment, before he opens them again and glances over at me.
“I got shot,” he says, plain and simple.
“And then I just… didn’t come back the same.
The noise stopped feeling like something I could be a part of.
People stop feeling manageable.” He pauses, and I watch him shift against the wall again, bringing both knees up and resting his elbows on them. “I stopped feeling safe to be around.”
Something tightens in my chest—I know the man he’s describing, the one who could walk into any room and make it feel like somewhere worth being, and I think about what it must have cost him to sit inside this quieter version of himself.
“Do your brothers know?” I ask. And when he frowns, I clarify, “how much you changed.”
“They know I’m not who I was…”
The silence that follows feels heavy, and for a moment I just let it brew between us, turning his words over, feeling everything he isn’t saying.
“You know,” I finally say, my voice low and eyes still on the ceiling. “Sometimes we just change when shit goes south. That doesn’t mean who you are now is any less than who you were. It just means you survived something that rewrote you.”
Zyran gives me a sad smile, but doesn’t say anything.
“You’re still in every room you walk into.” I sit up slowly, the water splashing around me, and I reach for him over the edge of the tub.
He leans in without question, close enough that I can see his face in the dim light, and I hold onto the side of his face, not caring that I’m dripping water all over the floor.
“You’re just different now, and that’s not a loss, my love. That’s just what surviving looks like sometimes.” I hold his gaze, not letting myself look away once. “You matter, the version of you sitting on my bathroom floor right now, this one counts.”
He looks at me for a long moment, something moving through his eyes that he doesn’t put words to. And I don’t let him, I close the distance and press my mouth to his. It’s soft and brief, barely anything, but it’s just enough to mean something.