Chapter 45
Forty-Five
“ A lfie!” I shoved him out of the way, throwing my full body weight at him to get him away from the water. I reached for the shower faucet and found myself a new victim of the scalding water. I let out a strangled cry of pain as the water hit my left shoulder and poured over me like lava.
With a visceral growl, Alfie turned, wrapping me in his arms and shielding me from the igneous waterfall, taking the pain for himself once more.
He backed me up to the other side of the shower.
My back pressed up against the wall, the cool tile a delicious balm on my overheated skin, but my heart was hammering too fast to find any pleasure in it.
My stomach was turning, my mind unable to make sense of what had just happened. He had burned himself. On purpose.
His breaths were hot and heavy, his face buried in the crook of my neck, as if seeking solace in my presence.
Solace…or salvation. I needed to see him but I was afraid to look into his eyes and see a hollow man looking back at me.
I felt too small for this task. I was utterly unqualified for this job, yet it was mine and mine alone, as he was mine.
I pushed at his chest until he straightened enough for me to take his precious face in my hands.
I peered up at him, trying to make him out through the steam.
Where is he?
His eyes were dark, hooded and glazed over with pain. So much pain, of all kinds. His hair was a wet, shaggy mess, disturbingly uncharacteristic of the immaculate man I knew. His body hunched protectively over mine.
“Alfie…” I tentatively touched his cheek. He didn’t flinch, didn’t even seem to register that I was there. He was looking straight through me. I traced the fine line of his cheekbone with my fingertips, leaving light trails in the moisture gathered over his skin.
I needed him. I was lost, cast up into the sky once more, and the desperation I felt scared me. I would do anything to bring him back to me. Anything. I wondered if he knew that, if he knew that once more he had me over a barrel and he hadn’t even needed to use sex this time.
“What do you need? Alfie, just tell me what you need.” For long moments he didn’t respond. His face was a smooth, impassive mask, but in his eyes I could see a sign of life, I could see a drowning man struggling to get to the surface. I was about to speak when finally he broke through.
“You,” his voice sounded strangled. “I need you.”
“You have me.” I willed him to hear me, and willed myself to find the words that would jolt him out of this trance.
I wanted to get the hell out of this claustrophobic chamber but I couldn’t seem to move.
“Then say you’ll come with me.” For one sick moment I wondered if this was all some sort of play to get me to do what he wanted, but one more look in his eyes threw that thought right out of my head. This wasn’t a play. He wasn’t manipulating me. He was begging me.
“Say yes. Say you won’t leave me.” His forehead pressed against mine, his body slumped, his muscles trembling to keep himself standing.
How could I say no? How could I even think of leaving him when he needed me so badly?
Visions of my mum were suddenly at the forefront of my mind, playing in front of me as if from an old projector reel, images of her final moments sitting in the car, her hand clutching mine, the terror in her eyes as water rose around us.
The gentle kiss on my cheek before she had pushed me through the car window, open just enough to fit a child through, but not a grown woman.
I had left her. I had swum out of that window and left her behind.
The roar of water was so loud and I could no longer tell whether it was the water of my past or my present.
My mother. My poor, terrified mother. I had been unable to help her.
I was too young, too scared to know what to do, but I was grown now, and now that someone else needed me, how could I leave them?
Alfie looked at me as if his entire well-being hung on my answer. This was his ultimatum to me. Hurt him or fix him.
Yes.
It was such a simple word, yet I couldn’t force it past my lips.
He needed it and denying him what he needed when he stood before me, burnt and broken, made me feel like a heartless bitch, but I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t give up my dream for anyone but myself. I’d worked too hard for it.
I felt like I was clinging to the mast of a tiny boat in the storm stricken sea of Alfie Tell. The pressure in my chest threatened to break me. I straightened my spine and mustered the last vestiges of courage that I had left. It had been a long night.
Instead of the word he was desperate for, I gave him none at all. I pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek and led him out of the shower. He followed obediently, a fact that I hated more than I could say. Controlling, dominating Alfie could infuriate me, but empty Alfie was worse.
I took two fluffy, white towels from the rack, wrapped one quickly around myself and dried him carefully with the other. He watched me with blank eyes as I ran the towel over his arms and chest. I avoided his back, not even daring to look at it yet.
I reached up to dry his hair but he pulled away from me, his gaze suddenly wary and confused. He was suspicious of me and I couldn’t help but wonder if Alfie had ever had anyone tend to him that wasn’t paid to do so. Somehow, I doubted it.
I waited, holding the towel like an unwanted offering, rejected by the gods.
After a moment I reached for him again. Slowly, I rose up on my tip toes and ran the towel over his hair.
His suspicious gaze never left me for a moment.
It was confused, like a lost child. After a moment of my patting him awkwardly, he bowed his head so that I could reach him better.
As I caressed him, his body seemed to relax a little, his breaths came easier, and when I took the towel away, a little of the deadness was gone from his face, washed away by the sweet balm of my affection.
I led him into the bedroom and guided him to the bed, moving him gently until he was laying down on his front.
I winced when I saw his back. Even in the darkened room I could see the skin was a deep, angry red.
I bit my lip and tried hard not to cry. My tears were the last thing that he needed.
I retrieved the discarded duvet from the floor and laid it over him, covering him from the waist down and leaving the raw skin of his back bare.
It was cooler in the bedroom, and without the dense steam clogging my mind I found myself able to think, which was turning out to be a bad thing. Alfie lay on the bed, unseeing, his burnt skin a dark contrast to the rest of his porcelain body.
I hovered by the bed, shivering. I wrapped my arms around myself as my skin broke out in goosebumps.
My mind spun with questions, none of which I knew the answers to.
Did he need to go to the hospital? Should I call a doctor?
What about his mental state? He was in the middle of some kind of breakdown.
Maybe he had a therapist? Should I call a family member?
Maybe I should call down to reception for help?
My gaze flicked to the hotel phone by the bed but I didn’t trust it.
Alfie Tell was a public figure, I didn’t trust information like this in the hands of strangers.
I felt alone. Completely and utterly alone.
This night had turned into a total shit show.
I wanted to start it all over. To stick by his side all night at Keira’s party so he wouldn’t have reason to be angry.
To never have slammed a door in his face and forced him to hurt me the way he did.
To never have antagonised him and pushed him about his past. To take back the words about his brother, my words that for some reason had made him do this to himself.
I’d done this to him.
No…
Wait…
I hadn’t.
This wasn’t my fault.
Going to the bathroom on my own wasn’t a crime. Wanting to talk out our issues instead of fuck them out wasn’t a crime, and wanting to know about his past wasn’t a crime either. I hadn’t known this would happen, and maybe if he had let me in a little more then I would have.
My hand went to my necklace and I clutched it tightly, drawing on strength from the ghost of my mother.
I could almost feel her hand on my shoulder, comforting me.
It made me feel stronger. I opened my eyes.
I had an idea, a tiny glimmer, a lighthouse I could just make out in the storm stricken sea, and I paddled towards it with renewed strength.
After dipping into the bathroom to switch off the shower, I left the room as quietly as I could, closing the door softly.
I pounded down the stairs and looked around for Alfie’s jacket.
I saw my shoes, clumsily discarded, and next to them his jacket, neatly folded and hung over a chair.
Such simple objects that spoke so loudly of our differences.
I dug through his pockets until I found his phone.
Luckily, I’d watched Alfie key in his password often enough to know it by heart.
I brought up his contacts, scrolling until I found the right one.
I pressed call and held it to my ear. It rang twice before being answered in a tone so damned professional I almost laughed.
“Elliot?” My voice came out in a strangled whisper. “I need your help.”
Elliot was silent as I talked, my words falling over themselves in a confused tangle, some of them desperate to escape, some of them trying to hide, all of them needing to be heard but too embarrassed to be seen.
I had no idea how much Alfie would want me to tell him so I just told him the necessary and fluffed the rest. Elliot would see through that immediately but I knew he wouldn’t ask questions.
When I was done, Elliot said nothing except, “I’m on my way,” and hung up.