Chapter 31
When you slept in the street for long enough, you forever lost the ability to sink into a deep slumber that allowed you to snooze through anything. Subsequently running the shelter hadn’t helped because the emergencies were frequent, and often happened after dark.
So Justine woke with a start, but was barely rattled by the banging on her door. She didn’t share her home address, but kids were savvy these days, and it wasn’t very hard to find out where Justine lived. She jumped out of bed and pulled her worn old robe around her, thinking it might be Ashleigh as she hurried down the stairs. She’d been admitted to a psychiatric unit but maybe she’d escaped. Anything was possible.
“All right. All right,” Justine shouted at the door. “Hold your horses.” She unlocked the door and threw it open, only to come face-to-face with Sienna.
Sienna didn’t wait for an invitation to come in. She barged past Justine into the cramped hallway of her small house. She looked a little unhinged. Her eyes red-rimmed with blue-black half-moons underneath them. Her blouse was done up all wrong, with gaping holes between the buttons and she was wearing slippers that weren’t meant for the outdoors.
“This isn’t forgiveness,” Sienna said. “It’s nothing of the sort.”
“Okay.” Justine examined her face to ascertain Sienna wasn’t sleepwalking—that she was actually fully awake. “Hey.” She tried to lock her gaze on Sienna’s, but Sienna wouldn’t—or couldn’t—look her in the eye. “Are you all right? Physically, I mean?” Justine gathered Sienna must be in quite some mental distress to turn up at her house in the middle of the night looking totally unkempt.
“Am I all right?” Sienna’s eyes grew wide for a moment. “Of course, I’m not all right. I can’t sleep. For the life of me, Justine, I cannot go to sleep.” She narrowed her eyes to slits. “And you owe me a night of sleep. I just—” Her shoulders slumped. “I need someone to hold me so I can go the fuck to sleep.” Tears started streaming down her cheeks as though a rain cloud had burst over her head.
Justine bridged the distance between them. “Is it okay if I touch you?”
Sienna nodded.
“Come here.” Justine folded her arms around Sienna as gently as she could. “I’m here. It’s okay,” she said. “I’ll hold you.”
Instantly, as soon as they touched, Sienna’s body went limp against Justine’s. In a matter of minutes, Justine’s robe was soaked with tears.
“It’s okay. Let it all out.” She held Sienna a little tighter, more of their bodies touching.
They stood entangled like that, Sienna sobbing and heaving, for what felt like hours, until Sienna calmed down. But she didn’t let go of Justine’s body. If anything, she squeezed her arms around Justine’s waist with a tighter grip.
“Can I sleep here tonight?” Sienna whispered. “I’m just so tired.”
“Of course, you can.” Justine cupped the back of Sienna’s head in her palm.
“In bed with you. I need you to hold me. I need to sleep.”
“Yes.” Justine didn’t have to think about this for even a split second. Sienna needed her, and this time, she was going to be there all the way, no matter what it took. “Shall we go upstairs? Or do you want to talk more? Have some water first?”
Sienna’s chin moved from left to right against Justine’s chest.
“Come on.” Justine untangled their limbs. She took Sienna’s hand and led her up the stairs.
In her bedroom, she sat Sienna on the edge of the bed and crouched before her so she could slide off Sienna’s inadequate footwear. Then she took a respectful step back, because it didn’t feel appropriate to help Sienna undress. This wasn’t forgiveness, after all.
Sienna tugged her wrongly buttoned blouse over her head and tossed it to the floor. She wriggled out of her jeans and then, without saying anything else, unhooked her bra. In just a pair of briefs, she slipped under the covers of Justine’s bed.
Justine let the robe slide off her shoulders and hurried into bed with Sienna.
“Do you want me to spoon you?” Justine asked.
“Yes,” Sienna whispered. “And take off your top, please. I need to feel your skin.”
She hadn’t come to mess around either, but Justine did as Sienna asked of her. It was the least she could do.
Justine pressed her naked body against Sienna’s back and curled an arm around her waist.
“Is that okay?” she asked.
“Yes,” was all Sienna said.
Justine didn’t say anything else either. It was pretty obvious that Sienna hadn’t come here, in the dead of night, to talk. She looked as haggard and drained as anyone would in the midst of such unexpected grief. It was no wonder Sienna couldn’t sleep. If what she needed was Justine’s arms around her, it was Justine’s privilege to provide just that.
Five minutes in Justine’s arms was all it took. Like fucking magic. Like swallowing the most amazing sleeping pill alongside something that stopped the endless churning in her brain. Sienna’s eyelids grew heavy because, somehow, she felt safe. She was being held. Despite what she had done—or had failed to do—Sienna knew, all the way in her bones, that Justine cared deeply about her. It didn’t matter that they could no longer be together. As Sienna had made clear as soon as she’d crossed the threshold, this wasn’t absolution. There was no hidden motive behind any of this. She just wanted this. She just wanted to sleep. And sleep she did.
Sienna blinked her eyes open. She felt like she had returned from a trip to outer space, that’s how deeply she had slept. She blinked again. Oh, fuck. Justine looked back at her, her blue eyes all kindness and understanding. Last night came back to Sienna. Leaving her mother’s house in a state of utter madness. Turning up at Justine’s in the middle of the night and demanding—there was no other word for it—she let Sienna sleep in her arms.
Oh damn. What time was it? Sienna shot up and threw the covers off her.
“Relax.” Justine gently put her hand on Sienna’s shoulder. “You have time. I made sure of that.”
“What do you mean?” Sienna checked her watch. It was well past nine o’clock and her call time was in about fifteen minutes. Her mother was probably also going mad with worry, wondering where she was.
“I texted Maxine that you’re safe and I called Mimi to tell her you’re going to be late,” Justine said matter-of-factly. As though her taking care of these things for Sienna was the most normal thing in the world.
“You did?” Relief washed over Sienna. Then she realized her upper body was naked. She folded her arms in front of her chest, as if that made any difference now.
Justine nodded.
“Thank you.” Sienna fell back onto the mattress. It wasn’t just relief washing over her; a tension she’d been carrying around since the news about her dad seeped from her muscles. She closed her eyes.
Six hours of unbroken sleep was like a dream, but the effect that weeks of insomnia had on her body couldn’t be undone by just one night.
“I’m so embarrassed,” Sienna whispered while opening her eyes to slits. “I’m sorry for turning up out of the blue like that.” Embarrassing though it was, it had helped. Sienna had actually slept—and Justine had been the missing ingredient to make it happen.
“My arms are always here if you need them again,” Justine simply said. “I’m serious.”
Sienna turned on her side to face Justine. She was wearing a T-shirt but she didn’t look as though she had showered or gotten ready yet for what was probably another busy day in her life.
“Really?” Sienna drew up her eyebrows.
“My arms are yours.” Justine stretched out her arms for effect. “You might as well write on them: property of Sienna Bright, until further notice.”
Sienna chuckled. She’d been so angry at Justine, she’d almost forgotten how kind she was—how giving.
“You have no idea how much I appreciate that.” Tears pricked behind Sienna’s eyes again, but she didn’t care. “Not being able to sleep is such a bitch.”
“I know.” Justine smiled at her. “It makes you feel like you’re losing your mind.”
A part of Sienna wanted to crawl toward Justine and nestle in her arms a while longer, not to sleep, but just to lie there, feeling safely ensconced in her embrace before heading out into the world again.
“I should get ready. I need to go home before I go to the studio.”
“You can come back tonight if you want to. I’ll be here,” Justine said. “It’s up to you, but I’m here if you need to sleep.”
She looked so gorgeous in the morning light, her tangled blonde locks shimmering softly and her gaze tender but sparkling. But Justine could, in Sienna’s eyes, be the most beautiful woman in the world, and have the best, safest, warmest arms to doze off in, she would always be who—and how—she was. Rochelle had confirmed that much in their conversation the other day.
“I might have to take you up on that,” Sienna said, despite the warning signs flashing in her brain. “For the purpose of the movie, of course. I can’t keep fucking up this movie about your life now, can I?”
“The purpose doesn’t matter to me,” Justine said. “Just come over if and when you feel like it. I’ll be here. I promise.”
Sienna wanted to do much more than bridge the distance and disappear into Justine’s arms. She wanted to kiss her and rip that T-shirt off. But she didn’t.
“You’re too kind,” Sienna whispered instead of giving in to her baser urges. “Thank you. Really.” Words couldn’t express Sienna’s gratitude for Justine helping her, but she had other ways of thanking Justine—a bank account full of them. “Maybe I’ll see you tonight, then.”
“I would like that.” Justine moved her hand towards Sienna’s face, but then retracted it, as if thinking better of what her instinct was telling her to do.
Sienna didn’t want her to get the wrong idea—although she didn’t really know what that was at that point—and slipped out of the bed she had slept so deliciously in.