Chapter 14 #2
Don’t let me go, I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him I knew. I knew he would keep me safe, despite how ugly the inside of my brain was. Deep down, I think I always knew Crescent would be the one to save me.
He pulled away after a while, his eyes darting over every inch of my battered face. “Do you think we could get you cleaned up?”
“Yeah.” I fought to keep my voice steady. “I think so. Do you have a mop?”
“Why a mop?”
I looked down at the mess we were sitting in. “To clean this up.”
Rubbing his hand up and down my back again, he shook his head. “Don’t worry about that. I can take care of it.”
“But—”
“No, Sunshine. I’ve got it.”
Sunshine? A red, hot blush started up my neck. Sunshine.
Crescent stammered through something close to an explanation, his cheeks going equally as red. “I mean—oh, shit. I’m sorry. I don’t know—”
“It’s okay.” I placed a hand over his cheek, looking at him—really looking at him—my best friend since elementary school, my number one, my ride or die, the crescent moon to my dwindling sun.
Something fluttered in my heart. An odd, itchy sensation I wasn’t accustomed to. “I, uh. I’ll go shower, I guess.” I looked away, starting to get off his lap.
“I’ll run you a bath.” He stood up slowly, reaching a hand out to help me up, too. “You can just soak and relax, and then we can talk a little bit after. Sound good?”
I wanted to refuse, but I wasn’t given the choice. He was already walking toward the bathroom, and I was left standing there, surrounded by Pine-Sol, suds, and stupid heartache. A throbbing set in as I looked around helplessly. A constant, worsening heartbeat in almost every part of my body.
My veins stuttered beneath the bruises on my face, curling over themselves in agony.
When I twisted or flexed my stomach muscles, a sharp stab would make my breath hitch.
Memories Jude left, still living, still breathing, still reminding me of every broken promise and hollow “I love you” he ever said to me.
When Crescent came back to let me know the bath was ready, I didn’t utter a single word. I bit back every wince of pain, trudging past him instead.
The water was hot enough to create a steamy curtain, perfect for me to hide under. It became my camouflage, wrapping around each blemish I carried.
I stood naked in the bathroom, my head dipped low to avoid my eyes in the mirror.
I didn’t want to see them, or the emptiness I knew was there.
My clothes had soaked through hours ago, leaving me with a bone-deep chill in my knees and elbows.
I couldn’t believe I’d been so gone, so out of touch, that I’d forgotten what I was cleaning with. Who does that?
I wanted to get into the bath that Crescent had drawn up.
Truly, I did. My mind screamed at me to move, but my body wouldn’t respond.
Something had a crushing grip around every joint in my body, keeping me from even twitching.
So, I stood there as the water got colder, and the steam gave me cover to hide in.
Time passed, though I had no idea how much. I curled my fingers into a fist, digging the tips of my nails into the skin of my palm.
A knock on the door, barely a two-second rapping against the wood. “You okay, El?”
I cleared the fear from my throat, a thick and heavy substance nearly clogging my airway. “Yeah?”
“Do you need any help?”
Silence. Dark, pitiful silence before I could manage something—anything—close to a response. “Maybe.”
Crescent sighed from the other side. “It’s alright to need help, El. Let me help you. I want to help you.”
What happened to Sunshine? He was calling me El, but I wanted Sunshine. I didn’t know why. It didn’t make any sense. No one had ever called me that, but I craved it. Why the fuck did I crave it so bad?
“Elio?”
I shot my head up, staring at the door through the mist around me. “I—okay.”
“Okay?”
I nodded, despite him not being able to see me. “Okay.”
The doorknob turned slowly, and I watched it with nervous anticipation. “I’m going to come in now.”
Crescent came into the room, his gaze never leaving my face. Red splotches were caressing his upper cheekbones, none of them even or symmetrical. They were beautiful. Pinkish-red blush dotted his natural skin color like it was on a canvas, the curve of his bone structure the outline.
If I had a paint brush…
He stepped closer, barely flicking his eyes downward for a split second. “Are you feeling any pain?”
“Yeah. My arms and side hurt pretty bad.”
He tied his hair up, pulling it out of his face. I kind of missed it the way it was before, free and flowy. “Let me help you take these off, and then I’ll hold you up while you get in.”
The bandages and gauze tugged at my arm hairs and scabbed skin despite how gently Crescent was pulling them off. The previously white gauze was stained red from where I’d done too much and disturbed the wounds beneath.
Growing up together, Cres and I had seen each other naked plenty of times.
We’d changed in the same room, walked into the shared bathroom while one of us was getting dried off from a shower, or attempted the same sports in school, which led to time in the locker rooms. Being bare—or the idea of seeing him bare—didn’t used to bother me in the slightest.
Now, though? I felt almost anxious as I wrapped my arm around him, letting him bear my weight. Was it the evidence on my skin, the vulnerability of it all, or the feeling of his palms and strong arms holding me together?
The water was hardly lukewarm when I stepped into it, a slightly chilled version of the steam from before, wading around my ankles. Crescent held me under my arms as I lowered, dropping to his knees slowly beside the tub. “Want me to add some more warm water?”
“Sure.” I lifted the drain, letting some of it swirl down as he turned the faucet back on, replacing it with more, warm enough to border on too hot.
I didn’t fight him when he picked up a washcloth, dipping it into the water below me and scrubbing it with bar soap.
He started at my neck, gently swirling around it, taking gentle care to not press too hard.
My eyes fell shut as he dipped lower, washing along my collarbones and chest, the suds no doubt sticking to the hair there.
The way he washed me was almost reverent in an odd way.
An act so innocent, yet intimate. When he got to the bruise on my side, he barely swiped over it, keeping his touch featherlight.
He didn’t go any lower than my belly button, instead softly asking me to raise my arms so he could get my armpits.
It tickled, but I didn’t have the energy to squirm.
My exhaustion was bone-deep, scratching and clawing at the calcium there.
“Lie back for me,” he whispered.
My back hit the edge of the tub behind me. I opened my eyes just as he brought the washcloth to my face. He swiped across my bruised nose, where I’d last bled for my wrongdoings. Then each of my cheeks, one after the other, drawing a circular pattern along the bone there.
When he got to my forehead, I looked up.
Our eyes locked, and everything started to make sense.
In the corner of his iris, a sun shone bright, its rays falling onto the forest that was me.
Us. Our pasts had intertwined for so long; how stupid was I to think our futures wouldn’t do the same? It was always meant to be this way.
Crescent and Elio.
Water and soap dripped into my eyes, stinging them for a moment. They tried to fight back, to water on their own and force the burning soap out, but I refused to blink.
Barely a whisper, hardly a few words. “Thank you.”
He paused above me, the washcloth resting on my chin. “Please don’t thank me, El.”
“Sunshine.” It came out before I’d even registered it in my mind. Like a possessed version of myself, something needier than I swore I ever was.
One blink. Then two. Crescent nodded slowly, his eyes never leaving mine as he dipped the washcloth back into the water.
I felt the waves against my hip as he shook it beneath the surface.
“Okay, Sunshine.” He said it with a slight twitch of his lips.
I took the movement to heart, then wondered why I was even doing so.
“I want to thank you, Cres. I have to… I—” the words got stuck in my throat, hiding where the fear had been. “I appreciate you. I know how things were in high school, but you’re still looking out for me. It means a lot.”
He turned, opening the sink cabinet and returning with a plastic cup.
“There may be nine years of life without each other between us.” He dunked the cup into the water.
I closed my eyes when he put his palm over them.
“But there are more years, more memories of us together.” The water fell over my hair, stopping just above his hand.
“I never forgot you. You know that. The distance doesn’t matter to me. You’re still my Elio.”
My little Elio.
I winced, not because of the water falling over my scalp. “Don’t say that.”
He stopped, but the water kept dripping. Down the side of my face, down the back of my neck, flowing into the tub all around me. “Okay, Sunshine. I won’t.”
I believed him. Despite how little I knew about the world, I knew I could trust Crescent Miller. His word was worth its weight in gold, with the same twinkle as his eyes.
He lathered shampoo into my hair, his movements just as gentle as when he was washing me. I relaxed into it, letting him massage my scalp and wash it all out. I’d never been pampered like this before.
I think I liked it.
“Do you want to wash the rest? Or do you want me to?”
That was when I remembered myself and the position I was in. Embarrassment was a fickle thing, lacing itself along my skin in the form of goosebumps.
Thankfully, the warm water had calmed the ache in my muscles just enough. “I can do it.”
“Okay. I’m going to grab a towel and give you some time. I’ll knock in a moment and help you out if you’re ready. Just yell if you need me.” He stood from the floor, turning away.
I watched him leave the bathroom, closing the door behind him, with no idea what he’d just done for me.
Crescent Miller was fucking with my head so much, I’d started to think that maybe I had a chance at flying again.