Chapter 7 December 7th #3
Turning my face up, I let the water run into them, rinsing them clean.
It's then I hear something in the distance and shut off the shower, listening as I reach for a towel and pat my face. It comes again, this time louder now the water isn’t raining down around me.
Knocking. “Shit.” I make a rushed, half-baked attempt of drying myself, my thoughts going to Mr. Percival and what mess he may have got himself into now.
“Coming,” I call, leaving my hair sopping wet, pulling on my robe and hurrying to the door as I tie the belt.
Wet strands stick to my neck, the cool hallway air hitting my damp legs.
I gather up my coat and shoes and shove them on the table before I swing the door open.
My breath catches at the back of my throat.
“Dec?” I murmur, tugging my robe in. “What are you doing here?”
Standing on the threshold, dishevelled but glorious, his stormy eyes search mine.
“I needed to see you.” His voice is low, tinged with something I can’t quite pin.
Urgency? Concern? His eyes darken more as they settle on my cheek, and he steps closer, his broad frame filling the doorway. “What the hell happened to your face?”
“It’s nothing.” I blink, my fingers unconsciously touching the cut on my cheek. The sharp sting catches me off guard, and I pull my hand away to find a little blood.
“What happened, Camryn?”
“Just an accident. Really, it’s fine.”
“Camryn.” His voice softens, but the intensity in his gaze doesn’t waver, and I shift under his scrutiny, acutely aware of the robe wrapped around me and the water trickling down my back from my drenched hair. Dec reaches out, his fingers hovering near my cheek. “Talk to me.”
I move back a pace. Talk. Sounds easy, doesn’t it? “You shouldn’t have come.” I don’t want him to see this place. Judge me. Wonder why the hell I live in such stark solitude.
“You didn’t answer my messages, and I—” He lets out a rough breath, undoing the space I’ve just put between us, his hand resting on my cheek. “I’ve been worried.”
My heart thuds, my resolve cracking under his touch. It isn’t fair how easily he can dismantle my walls, how just his presence filling this small, desolate apartment suddenly makes it bearable.
“I was just in the shower,” I murmur, unsure why I feel the need to explain. It’s quite obvious. “I haven’t checked my phone.”
His thumb brushes near the cut, as gentle as a feather. “You’re hurt.”
“It’s nothing, just a scratch.” My words are sure, though my voice betrays me. Yes, it’s just a scratch, but how it came to be marring my cheek isn’t nothing.
“You’re shaking.”
I hadn’t realised I was. Whether from the chill of the air or his closeness, I couldn’t tell you. Dec closes the door behind him, his presence wrapping around me like a warm, strong—needed—protective blanket. “Let me take a look,” he says softly.
I hesitate for a moment, but the pleading in his unsettled eyes unravels my flimsy resolve. Talk. I’m going to have to talk. The closer I’m getting to him, the closer he’s getting to my life.
Am I ready for that?
I’m not only letting him into my apartment if I don’t ask him to leave. “Okay,” I breathe, stepping back, opening up the way to him.
An odd sense of shame cloaks me as Dec passes me and casts his eyes around the space.
I follow him, fixing my robe that really doesn’t need fixing, my mind emptying.
I don’t know what to say, and for the first time when I’ve been with him, the silence is uncomfortable.
What is he thinking? What is he making of my sparse apartment?
I can’t even offer him a tea or a coffee, unless, of course, he takes them black.
It also occurs to me as I trail behind him that he’s the first person I’ve invited in.
My husband’s never invited—he just helps himself when he wants to put pressure on me.
And on that thought, my eyes fall to the footrest where my divorce papers are, the pen on top.
Unsigned.
Dec stops, reaching up to his neck, scratching it lightly under his ear. It’s a classic sign of someone wondering what the fuck they’re faced with. I start preparing my response to his impending interrogation, my chest tightening with a pressure I’ve never had to deal with before. Or cared to.
“Have you just moved in?” he asks. I can’t see exactly where his eyes are directed, but I know, I just know, they’re taking in the boxes that are stacked everywhere, five high and as many wide.
“Yes,” I say, as simple as that, because what else can I say?
He turns to me, his face not questioning.
It’s not anything, really. It’s just what I’ve come to expect—and like—from Dec.
Impassive. No judgment. No pressing. “But . . .” He takes another peek around.
Then he shrugs off his coat and lays it on the back of the armchair.
“Never mind. Let me look at that cut.” He points to the doorway across the room. “Kitchen?”
I nod, and he wastes no time heading that way, causing the tightening in my chest to squeeze further.
A vision creeps into my mind, one of my pills on the counter by the sink.
Following him on quick, bare feet, I overtake him and slide them off the counter, slipping them into my robe pocket before heading to the fridge.
I know he’s watching me. “Can I get you a water or anything?”
“What are the anything options?”
I still, staring at the fridge. “I’ve not got to the supermarket this week.”
“Then I guess I’ll take the water option.”
I clench my eyes shut briefly and move across to the cupboard where I would keep glasses if I had more than two and they weren’t on rotation—in the dishwasher or on my bedside table. And now, they’re both on my bedside table. I open the cupboard and close it again.
“Out of glasses?”
“Yeah.” I want the ground the swallow me whole. “Just give me a second.” As I’m passing him, he takes my wrist, stopping me.
“Don’t worry about the water.”
A lump builds in my throat, infuriating me, and I look at him, desperate for him to see me. Understand me. But I’m terrified he could never. And then I wonder why now I care.
Again, it’s a stupid question.
He’s so unexpected, a relief from life I never dared wish to have.
A distraction of the kind I could never consider, because the constant, consistent stench of misery lingers around me, day in, day out.
He doesn’t know me. He doesn’t know anything, and if sharing might mean he walks away, I can’t let my walls drop.
On top of that, the thought of being vulnerable, of showing him who I am and why I’m so utterly broken, makes me want to curl into a tighter ball than I usually do.
“Fuck, I hate this look on you,” he breathes, turning into me and completely encasing me in his arms. I melt into him, letting him hold me up, hugging me like I’d never admit I need to be hugged.
It’s beautiful, and the tears that haven’t come for so long pinch at the backs of my eyes.
I don’t know why I do, it seems really fucking pointless, but I will them away with everything I have. I don’t want to be pathetic to him.
A voice in my head screams, too late!
And yet he’s still here. Hugging me.
The strength in his cuddle should crush my weak form, but I never want him to let me go.
He couldn’t get me any closer if he tried, our chest’s compressed, his arms around my shoulders overlapping, squeezing me to him.
His mouth is resting on top of my head, his breath hot against my cold, wet scalp.
And he holds me. And holds me. My fingers claw into the back of his suit jacket, clinging on.
So much warmth. So much strength. I feel so safe.
At least, for now. In this moment. Can it last? Will it last?
It's too soon—never would be too soon—but he eventually gently pulls away, just enough to look down at me buried in his chest. I tilt my head up, catching his eyes. I could drown in them. I’ve thought about many ways to die, and I’d do it happily right now.
“I’m here,” he says gently, bringing one hand to my face and tracing the line of my jaw.
So gentle. And as he showers me in his concern, I realise Dec’s not the man I first pinned him as.
Cold.
He's got so much depth. So many sides.
They all intrigue me. He’s so multifaceted.
“My cheek was my mother,” I say, my mouth developing a mind of its own. “She’s not well.”
His heavy brow becomes heavier with a frown. “Is that why you couldn’t meet me?”
I nod, small and reluctantly. “I got a call from the care home. It’s Alzheimer’s. They said she was getting herself in a pickle, was asking for me.”
There’s definitely a fleeting look of relief that passes across his face, and it makes me wonder what conclusions he was drawing about my injury, or about why I cancelled meeting him.
“Come.” He walks me to one of the two chairs and pulls it out, encouraging me to sit, before he leaves the kitchen and comes back with his coat, his hand in his inside pocket.
He pulls out a pack of tissues and goes to the sink, running some water over one.
He carries a pack of tissues. How charming.
“This will have to do.” Dragging the other chair close, he sits and leans in, dabbing at my cheek.
I watch him, completely fascinated by the concentration on his face, the lines on his forehead deep.
“It’s not so bad.” One more dab before he puts the tissue on the table and exhales, leaning back in his chair.
I reach up and feel. “It was her ring,” I explain. “She was lashing out.”
“How long has she been in the care home?”
“Two years. She’s gotten worse these past few months. Hasn’t recognised me for some time, but they called as I was leaving the office and said she was asking for me. But when I got there . . .”
I don’t know no Camryn.
“I’m sorry,” Dec whispers.
“You don’t have to be sorry.”
“But I am.”