24 Liney To Bathe #2
She doesn’t pop back up. I wait a few seconds, then another few.
Too long. Does she realize I saw her struggling in the surf last night?
I scrunch my sleeves up above my elbows and dip my arms into the water.
I slip my hands around her shoulders, careful to lift her without craning her neck back.
When her face breaks through the surface, she’s already smiling.
“Don’t you do that!” I chastise. I pull my arms back, but she reaches up and grasps my elbows. It doesn’t hurt. No squeezing pressure, no heat other than the steam of the bath.
I’m leaned too far over the tub. Bridget’s dark brows turn up, mischievous, and her arms pull me closer.
“Bridget. Now wait a—”
I crash into the tub, into her. Hot water sprays out in a tidal wave around us, splattering on the floor. I straddle her middle in my sopping wet wool dress. Her hands still hold my arms. Her grin is large enough to hold the sea.
“You are cleaning this up!” I shriek, stifling a laugh.
“Then let’s make sure it’s a proper mess.” She leans up to capture my lips with hers.
Everything is lavender. She’s never been so warm. We’ve never had so little between us. I’ve never been so charmed.
It’s midday by the time we finish her bath. I’ve scrubbed, rinsed, massaged, and kissed her from head to toe, and she emerges from the bath anew. She ties the robe closed, the bottom dragging on the floor.
“Careful over there,” I point to the still-wet wood boards.
“Elle isn’t tall enough for this either,” Bridget muses, running a hand over the dark fabric. “Whose is this?”
Is this how it feels to be with someone who thinks like you do?
“The last keeper’s.” I look around the tub. I have nothing dry to change into within arm’s reach. “Um, Bridget…”
This bubble of bliss we created is fragile. I want only to smell lavender off her skin, feel poetry from her lips, and watch her face alight with rapturous joy.
But it must no longer be in my nature to allow the cruelties of the world to wash into the background. Violence is a weapon, but so is ignorance.
“Pass me that cloth, please. Let’s warm up, then talk.”
We dry off before the fire and rearrange the cushions of the chesterfield to sit on the floor, our backs against the front edge.
She in the robe, me in a loose nightgown.
Neither of us has hair long enough to need braiding.
Bridget’s hangs down to her chin, already fluffing back up into a thundercloud.
Mine’s short enough not to appear much different between wet and dry.
“Are you comfortable?” I ask.
“Do you have any wine? A port would be divine.”
Elle forbade me from the bottles in the storage room. But when I run upstairs for a bottle, there’s one missing. When did Elle take some for herself? I uncork the wine in the kitchen, barefoot and heady with lavender hope.
“A fine vintage,” I promise when I return to her side with two glasses.
“Truly?” she asks, brows raised in surprise.
I shrug, and she laughs. It’s like dreaming but so much better.
She drinks deep, a hearty gulp. I sip at mine as I was always taught, then realize how ridiculous that is and tip the rest into my mouth. It’s sweetly bitter. The lingering taste on my tongue reminds me of cherries.
“So.” I must focus before we are lost to the drink. “How do you feel?”
“She said she’d find someone to help me with the consequences of the shipwreck,” she says, looking away from me and into the fire. “But I don’t know what I’d be guilty of. Surviving? At least she’s proven I’m no demon. Small mercies.”
There was a time I would’ve believed this version of my sister. Savior, sacrifice reaper, sufferer for my sake. When I first saw those flaming eyes in the lightroom, didn’t I hope it was a sign of a miracle? A burning bush. But a miracle doesn’t hurt like this.
“Do you think she was telling you the truth?” I ask.
“I think she was desperate to keep me on the island. She thought we’d steal the boat, didn’t she? Bit of a conundrum for her. I don’t know what to make of it past that.”
Neither do I. I lean over, nudge her, let her wrap her arms around me. Because I can.
“I’m so sorry,” I murmur, leaning my cheek into her shoulder. “You did nothing to deserve this monstrous treatment, whatever my sister believes she’s doing. She’s unwell.”
“Unwell,” Bridget repeats, testing the word on her tongue. “It’s hard to see it that way, you know? When she had hands around my throat.”
It stings. I can’t dispute what I saw. She didn’t stop when Bridget struggled or screamed. Only when I told her to.
“It’s been just the two of us for so long,” I explain, though the words fall flat even to my own ears. “Before that, she was in the presence of monsters. Any opening for suspicion becomes a chasm of fear.”
“I won’t make you choose between us,” Bridget whispers. Unspoken words surround us. Not like she would.
A silence falls between us. My world is wool blankets, crackling wood, and pale skin.
The rest of the day passes in wine-drunk waves. We kiss, we dance, we wash the clothes that are intact enough to salvage. We stumble into each other, on purpose and by accident, and I’ve never felt as happy in this lighthouse as right now.
“You know I like to kiss you, right?” Bridget asks. She wraps her arms around me from behind. We’re both gazing out the kitchen window to the fiery setting sun.
A knot forms in my throat. “Of course.” Why is she asking that? Have I been doing it wrong? My cheeks echo the sun’s scarlet.
“You’re always apologizing for yourself. Hesitating. But I can’t think of a person I’d rather keep my constant, Liney.”
How could I not hesitate when this could turn sour or deadly at any moment?
What if I say the wrong thing and the freezing sting of rejection comes flowing through my veins?
These lavender dreams are too precious to waste.
My chances at happiness have always been cut short. Why would this be different?
“I…” I catch myself from apologizing for my apologies. “This is new. I’ve never…known someone. Not like this. I wish I had your confidence.”
Bridget gives my waist a squeeze. Can she feel my racing heart?
“Confidence is easy. It’s turning belief into action, even if it’s false to start,” she says. I can feel the smile on her lips as she kisses the back of my neck. “The real trick is letting in the fear enough to be honest without it taking over.”
This is too much. Bridget will have me saying foolish, ruinous things if she keeps up.
“It scared me at first,” she continues, settling her jaw against my shoulder.
“How intensely I wanted to stay close to you. But it’s only grown as I’ve known you.
Your laugh and your blush and your dreams. How you talk about crabs and jellyfish and fish I can’t pronounce.
How kindly you listen. Do you know how few people listen well? ”
I shake my head, then rest my cheek against hers. There’s so much I want to tell her. But it’s a terrifying prospect, one I was never raised to admit.
Instead of words, I make a weak soup for Bridget with the supplies I can scrounge. She sips at the soup to be polite, but it might as well be seawater: thin, briny, with chunks of dried fish floating on the surface.
The night drops fast in the November skies.
“That means good weather, right?” Bridget asks, pointing at the streaks of scarlet clouds.
“Yes,” I say, but all they herald to me is blood.
Bridget performs a valiant effort pretending to be content with sleeping on the chesterfield. But I’m not wasting the few days we have uninterrupted on separate sleeping arrangements.
When she slides into the covers behind me, presses her body against my back, it’s home. One arm wraps around my middle while the other rests above us, playing with my short curls. I watch a sliver of moonlight dance in and out of view with each passing cloud out the window.
It dawns on me, lying beneath silver light interrupted by red with each passing rotation of the light above, that I’ve never been loved before. Love isn’t ownership or fear. Not even the fear of losing someone. While this love is new, it’s stronger than the brittle surface of Elle’s.
My sister’s care has stretched too thin. Every new act of protection reveals cracks that show something rotting underneath.
I dream of pacing around the chesterfield. Of scratching underneath it, where the basement’s trapdoor remains untouched. Despite my not cranking the mechanism tonight, the red light continued to flash across the island until sleep overtook me. The mechanism does nothing.
My tongue is thick as honey when I try to speak.