7. Chapter 7 #2
“No. Go on.” Noah gestures again to the bathroom, and I peel myself away from the bed, one foot after the other. Walking feels weird. I haven’t walked properly in days, and my muscles seem to have weakened since then.
My wrist is free, yet I still feel very much like a prisoner as Noah herds me toward the bathroom. Inside, there’s a toilet, a sink, and a square tub built into the wall. The green tiles and the trickle of the evening’s last golden rays give the room an eerie glow.
“Noah?” I turn around.
He’s right behind my back, knife in hand. “Yes, Goldilocks?”
“Are you going to force me to get naked in front of you at knifepoint?”
He gulps. “Um, n-no.”
I can’t help it. His stuttering does something to me, and I have to admit, I fucking love it when he gets shy around the mere suggestion of sex. I don’t have much for entertainment around here except him, and right now, he’s more than enough.
He looks at me strangely, as if he doesn’t quite know what I’m up to—as if he’s the one who’s wary of me this time. I like the change; even though I’m still in the hands of my captor, it feels like I’m in control.
A crease forms between his brows as he glances down at my clothes. “I’ll ready the bath. I won’t look.”
“Okay.”
We switch positions. I end up by the doorframe to the bathroom while Noah bends to turn on the tap.
He’s still holding the knife, so I start undressing—lifting my grimy shirt over my head and unbuckling my jeans.
He’s already seen me naked once, I suppose: when he was heating me up in front of the fireplace. When he was saving my life.
As the bath fills up, his gaze drifts toward me now and again before he quickly looks away. His long hair hides his face as he leans forward, but the bob of his Adam’s apple is clearly visible on the long line of his throat.
“It’s okay,” I say, amused. “You can look.”
This is fucking weird, but it’s kind of funny too. He’s so awkward and shy, my little kidnapper, even with a knife in his hand.
“I’m not going to look.” He sits on the closed toilet seat, motioning to the steaming bath. “Just get inside.”
“Fine.” I do want to get clean, after all. Messing with Noah can come later. I swing a leg over the tub and step inside, hissing as the water licks my calves.
“Too hot?” Noah asks behind me.
When I turn around, he’s staring at me with a startled expression, as if he surprised himself by looking—not because he wanted to see me naked, but because he was simply concerned for my well-being.
“Sorry,” he says quickly, shutting his eyes.
I smirk back at him, my naked body contorted and turned halfway as I sink into the tub, but I bet he got a glimpse of my ass.
“No.” I chuckle at the absurdity of the situation. “It’s perfect.”
“Can I look now?”
“Yeah, you can look.” The bubbles are covering my private parts, and besides that, he wouldn’t be able to see anything from his angle.
We lapse into silence for a while. I lean my head back, surrendering to the heat. Whenever I send a glance over at Noah, he’s just watching me with that impassive, leveled look on his face. Seems like he’s already used to me being naked in front of him. That was quick.
“Like what you see?” I ask with a sly smile.
Yeah, Ash—you feel so sick you could throw up right in this bath, but you can still muster up the energy to flirt? Got your priorities straight.
“L-Like?” Noah stutters, cheeks tinting red, giving me the exact reaction I wanted.
“Yeah,” I say casually, glancing down at myself, at my bare chest sticking up above the water. “You like guys, right? Do you like me?”
Noah shrugs stiffly. “I don’t know.”
“Oh, come on—you have to know.”
“I don’t know what I?…?like.”
I roll my eyes. “Of course you do. When your dick gets hard, that’s how you know what you like.” I cast him a sly glance. “Is it hard right now?”
Noah’s cheeks go an even deeper red at first, but then his eyes darken. “No,” he says roughly. “Hurry up and get clean.”
I pout at him. “But I can’t. Don’t have any conditioner.”
“Just use soap.”
I grimace. “But what will become of my luscious curls?” Not that they’re all that luscious right now with how greasy they are.
“They’ll be fine,” Noah mutters.
“Can you help me?” The question is genuine for once; it’s easier to let someone else clean your hair, and as sick as I’m feeling, I’d rather avoid as many exertions as possible.
“Help you?” Noah asks, a crease between his brows.
God, why is he so suspicious as soon as I indicate any sort of intimacy between us? He acts as if I’m the one keeping him prisoner, not the other way around.
I sigh. “Can you please come and help me, Noah? I’m sick, and I’m tired, and I know it’s all my fault, being a junkie and all, but could you just?…?make this a little easier for me?”
As always, when I address him by name, he gets this weird look on his face: a puzzled, pleased sort of look. The change is subtle, but it’s there, and I like it. I prefer it to his creepy, blank stare, anyway. I prefer it to that soft look he got when he was wiping my face with the towel too.
He rises from the toilet seat and kneels behind me on the floor. Grabbing the shower nozzle, he turns it on and directs the water to the back of my neck.
“Ow, that’s cold!” I hiss.
“Sorry,” he mumbles as he changes the setting.
The water goes lukewarm, then hotter, until?…?“Ow, now it’s too hot!”
Noah hisses a curse under his breath and tweaks the setting again. “How about now?”
“That’s better.”
He wets my hair thoroughly, and I tip my head backward to avoid getting water in my eyes. He grabs the square soap by the edge of the tub, lathers his hands, and starts massaging my scalp.
“That feels nice,” I mumble.
Noah says nothing, but I can hear his breathing deepen as he works the soap into my hair with his fingers—mechanically at first, detached from what he’s doing. Then he slows down, the touch deepening, as I suppose he’s getting lost in the feel of my curls.
“Nice, isn’t it?” I ask.
“What?” Noah says, voice thick.
“My hair. Got it from my mom. My brother’s is the same, only a bit darker. I’m the only one who got her golden curls.”
“I know,” Noah says in that same thick voice.
I frown and glance backward. “Are you?…”
Fuck, his face has gone pale, and his eyes are glazed over, as if he’s about to cry.
I stiffen. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know. I just?…?It’s been a while since I touched someone like this.”
“Have you washed someone’s hair before?”
“Auntie’s. She needed my help with everything.”
A sudden understanding dawns on me. Noah’s aunt needed him for everything, and when she died, he had no one to take care of anymore. No purpose in life. Is that why he’s keeping me here? God, that’s?…?kind of sad, but it still doesn’t justify what he’s done to me. What he’s doing to me.
He digs his fingers into my scalp, massaging me the way no one’s done since my mom used to bathe me when I was a child. My mother’s touch didn’t feel like this though?…?It didn’t feel this good.
I should be horrified to have Noah’s hands on me, and I shouldn’t feel bad about him almost crying. So why do I feel like crying too?
“When did she die?” I ask.
“Four weeks ago,” Noah croaks. “I buried her in the garden.”
“In the garden? Are you really supposed to do that?”
“Supposed to?”
“Isn’t she supposed to be, like, buried in a graveyard or something?”
“Why?” Noah says plainly. “This is where she lived all her life. Why not bury her in a place she’s familiar with?”
“I guess, but?…?wouldn’t the authorities think it’s strange that you buried her in the backyard? Kind of suspicious, don’t you think?”
“They don’t know. And I didn’t plan on staying long enough for it to matter.”
“Staying?” I have a hunch about what he’s getting at, and I don’t like it.
“The night I found you, I was supposed to go into the woods and never come back.” He still has his hands in my hair, soaping me up as if we’re just talking about the weather.
“Oh.” What do I say to that? Nothing. I can’t say anything. My throat is too choked up with tears. “Noah?…”
“Close your eyes. I’m going to rinse your hair out now.”
“Okay.”
It strikes me that he might as well be lying, but he doesn’t seem like a very good liar.
It’s just?…?The way he said it?…?as if it’s not a fucked-up thing to say, as if it wouldn’t upset me.
Maybe he wanted to upset me though. Or maybe he just wanted to make me understand him so I could start liking him by pitying him, but?…
Fuck, I can’t really make sense of it yet.
I’m too tired, and I’m too fucking sad. I just want to sink into the water and disappear, and for all I care, Noah can sink with me.
Seems like we’ve got a lot more in common than I thought. Seems like we’re fucked up in much the same way, he and I. It’s comforting, somehow. Makes me feel less alone. If not for the drugs, I would’ve done the same thing Noah was about to do, long ago?…
Admitting it to myself makes my heart kick up a beat, and my chest twists uncomfortably as I try to hold back the tears. A few trickle out while Noah rinses my hair, and they mingle with the water.
“Did you get soap in your eyes?” he asks.
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I turn around, and Noah freezes, eyes widening. He stiffens even more when I lift my wet hand and put it to his cheek. I don’t know what to say exactly, but it seems as though, in this moment, words are unnecessary between us.
Noah’s lips part, and his cheek heats up under my palm. I cradle him like that for a while, and we just gaze into each other’s eyes, silent in mutual understanding.
It’s okay. I try to push the words into his mind. It’s okay.
This moment feels devoid of all the external factors between us—the fact that he’s my captor, that I should hate him and want to destroy him. Right now, for these precious few seconds, I feel like he’s my friend instead—a friend who’s got pain inside, a pain I’m well acquainted with myself.
We’re united in that pain, even though we should maybe be united in something else. Common interests, common humor. But we have none of that, so the pain is better than nothing, I guess. It’s better to have someone, to stand united in that darkness, than to stand there alone.
I close my eyes, and when I open them again, Noah is smiling at me. The smallest, shyest smile. A smile like he doesn’t quite dare to believe what is happening.
And I smile back.
Don’t get me wrong; I still hate him. I still want to hurt him for what he’s done to me. I just think he deserves this moment, small as it is, and I think I do too.