Chapter 15 #2
So I stayed folded into myself like something broken the tide had dragged in. Blood dripping down my hand. Letting the guilt burn. Letting the need ache. Letting his presence sit behind me like gravity.
Because I didn’t trust myself to survive wanting him and seeing him at the same time. I wanted him the way drowning people want to breathe. Not beautifully. Not tenderly. Desperately.
Without thought.
Without choice.
That terrified me most of all.
The cold crept in slowly. It slipped into me like a decision my body made without asking my mind. My fingers went numb first. Then my toes. Then the place behind my knees that always ached when I was tired.
The ocean kept breathing. I didn’t. Not properly. My breaths came shallow, too small for my lungs. The sand pressed cold and damp into my clothes. My muscles stopped holding me together.
I sagged sideways. My cheek touched the ground. I remember thinking distantly that I should have cared. That I should have moved. That I should’ve gotten up before it got worse. But my body had already chosen stillness. Chosen quiet. Chosen to stop.
Darkness crept in at the edges of my vision, thick and soft like fog. I let it take me…
My body swayed like I was adrift the ocean as consciousness slowly kept in. It took my mind a while to register the arm under my knees and the arm around my shoulders. The absence of the cold against my back as warmth slowly replaced it.
Smoke, cedar and sea salt surrounded me as my head lolled against the warm skin of his neck.
My eyes fluttered, and I saw him in pieces.
His bearded jaw. His throat swallowing so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed.
The curve of his shoulder as he shifted me in his hold. My body reacted before my thoughts did.
An involuntary sound—small and broken—worked its way up my throat. Something between a sob and a breath lingered between us.
“Hey, sweetheart,” he whispered immediately. “I’ve got you.”
How many times had I heard him say that before? The world tilted as my vision fractured. I cried silently. Tears leaked out of me like my body didn’t know how else to respond to him holding me. Like it was unable to trust him even though everything in me begged for this time to be different.
“I’m sorry,” I stuttered, barely a sound.
His jaw tightened. I felt his tension as it rose through his chest. “You have nothing to be sorry for.” He sucked in a pained breath. “You were hurting.”
Unable to answer, I nodded against him.
“I’m sorry I pushed you away,” he said. It felt like I cost him everything to say that but it did nothing to dull the ache he’d left behind.
He carried me like I weighed nothing. Like I wasn’t the burden he’d led me to believe I was. Like the anger I’d felt from him had dissipated.
The house was too bright when he walked through the back door. Too loud. Too much after being lost in the darkness for hours. The tremble that had been rolling through my body morphed into something harder. More violent as it ripped through me.
Everything was catching up with me. Not just the cold. But shock and exhaustion. My teeth chattered so hard they hurt. Anthony didn’t hesitate; he took me straight up to the bathroom.
Steam started to fill the room as he ran me a bath. He kept me wrapped in his arms the whole time. A safety that felt like a luxury I didn’t deserve. The sound of running water soothed my aged edges.
He moved slowly as if he was afraid to startle me into breaking again. His quiet focus. Gentle and controlled thawed something inside me.
He set me down on the toilet seat. “Okay,” he murmured. “I’m going to help you out of these wet clothes, alright?”
I shrugged. Barely. My voice didn’t work. My hands didn’t want to cooperate. My fingers felt too big. Numb and clumsy.
His hands worked efficiently. Every movement was deliberate, like he was trying not to bruise something fragile.
He avoided eye contact as he worked. Not because he was ashamed of what he was doing but because he was concerned.
The depth of the lines around his dark eyes told me all I needed to know.
A gasp was wrenched out of me when he tugged my hoodie off, pulling on the fresh wounds on my arms. Anthony froze as he took in the damage I’d wrecked on myself the past few weeks.
“Oh Elliot.” The pain in his voice trickled across my exposed skin
He sucked in a breath like he was going to say more but didn’t. Instead he bit his bottom lip and shook his head and turned his attention to the nearly full tub. Quietly focused on turning off the faucets and adding some of my lavender bath salts.
“Up,” he said mechanically and stripped off my wet sweats, without looking at my body. Like he was holding himself to a line he refused to cross. “Take my hand.”
My feet wobbled underneath me as I stood and took his hand. His strength was the only thing that made it possible to get into the bath without falling and cracking my head open.
Warm water enveloped me as I stepped in the bath and submerged myself. Relief hit me so hard it hurt. My shoulders dropped. My breath evened out. And my eyes fluttered closed as I sucked in a lung full of warm air. My body finally let go of the fight it had been holding since the beach.
I leaned forward slightly, and he steadied me without comment. His hand was warm on my back. Anchoring. Not claiming. Just there.
He washed my hair with slow, gentle motions. His fingers careful against my scalp. Rinsed it clean. Warm water streamed down my neck. Down my spine. Taking the cold and the sand and the ocean and the night with it.
I closed my eyes as he carefully washed me from head to foot. Not because I was sleepy but because in that moment I trusted him to not let me fall. It was as dangerous as it was intoxicating.
Once I was clean he slowly worked out every knot from my muscles. The deep rhythmic motion of his finger on my skin was hypnotizing. The first wave of exhaustion washed over me as he left me mellow and calm to soak until the water turned cold.
As the bath drained he helped me out of the water, careful to keep his eyes averted from the water dripping down my body, and wrapped me in a fluffy towel. Like I was made of glass and would crack if he handled me wrong.
It made me feel precious. Treasured. But it was a feeling I knew I couldn’t trust because good things were always taken away from me.
He dried my hair with the same tenderness he’d shown me since we got home. Pressed the towel onto my skin, rubbed around my shoulders and down my arms. Until I was dry enough to be helped into a clean set of pjs he must have gotten from my drawers.
He tucked me into bed, and my mattress felt like a cloud. Unreal. Too safe. Too solid. I wasn’t sure I deserved such a place.
He brushed his knuckles down my cheek and whispered something I didn’t catch before he left the room. He returned a few moments later with a steaming cup of chamomile tea.
“Drink,” he said softly as he sat down on the edge of the bed next to me.
My hands shook less as they wrapped around the cup and I brought it to my lips. He watched me like he was afraid I might disappear if he blinked. His face looked… wrecked.
Lines gathered at the corners of his mouth as he studied me. Tension lined his brow. His eyes darkened with something like pain he wasn’t allowed to put down.
“I didn’t mean for you to take care of me again,” I whispered.
He swallowed. “You didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to.”
My eyes locked on his then, searching. He clenched his jaw but didn’t look away. “I don’t want to need you like this,” I said.
He nodded once. Slowly. “I know.”
That was all he said. Not It’s okay. Not you don’t. Just: I know. Which meant he saw it all. And he wasn’t going to take advantage of it. That was the part that hurt. That he could hold me like this. Care for me like this. See me like this. And still keep his distance.
Because he thought it was what was safest. Even when it hurt both of us.
“I’m tired,” I said around a yawn.
He took the cup from me and tucked the blanket around me as I lay back down. “You can sleep now, sweetheart.”
He stayed until my eyes closed. I felt the warmth of him beside me like a tether. The steadiness of his breathing. The way the room felt like everything was where it should be because he was in it.
I drifted off wanting him. Needing him. Hurting because he wouldn’t be mine. Both at once. Like everything else drowned me.