Chapter 14
Aurora
I’m just scooting off of my stool to retrieve the food from the oven and turn off the beeping timer when Curse stalks back into the room.
“Don’t bother,” he says, doing it himself. The beeping ceases. The kitchen smells divine as Curse uses a big spoon to scoop food onto two plates. When he brings it over, I finally see what it is – big pasta shells stuffed with some kind of cheesy spinach goodness and smothered in creamy sauce.
I take a bite and have to suppress a gasp of delight. Magdelena must be some kind of saint. It tastes even better than it looks.
Curse doesn’t seem to think so. Not that he looks displeased with the food, exactly.
But he shovels it mechanically into his mouth like it’s nothing but a means to an end.
A way to sustain his strength, his energy, the hulking marvel of his body.
But not something to linger over. Not something to savour.
I appreciate it for the both of us, going so far as to scrape all the last bits of sauce off the plate with my fork, licking the salty tines one by one. I feel Curse’s eyes on me and glance at him.
He’s watching my mouth. My tongue.
I put my fork down and clear my throat.
“Want more?”
“No, thanks,” I say. I’d love to eat more of it, but I’m absolutely stuffed. “I’ll wash up.”
But Curse already has both our plates.
“There’s nothing to wash,” he says, tucking the plates and cutlery into the dishwasher. The casserole dish doesn’t need attention, either. It’s one of those disposable tinfoil types, and there’s still food in it. Curse slides it into the fridge.
“Alright, well…” I shift my weight awkwardly from foot to foot. “I’m going to go take a shower.”
“Another one?”
“Yes. Another one.”
I’ve showered at least once a day since I was six years old. More often than not, I do it twice.
I can never quite get clean enough.
Curse doesn’t have any more questions about it, so I head for the big staircase.
I mount the steps one by one, feeling the pleasantly worn fibres of the carpet beneath my toes as I go.
Because of my earlier explorations, I know that there are two bathrooms on the upper level.
One has a big bathtub but no shower. The other is the one attached to the primary bedroom, which I’m certain is the room Curse sleeps in.
That’s the bathroom that actually has some stuff in the shower, and I’ve always preferred showers to baths, so I step into that one.
Like the rest of the house, it’s a gorgeous room, with clean, bright lines, and a blue and white tile design that kind of matches the carpet on the stairs.
The shower is a big glass enclosure with a detachable showerhead.
I take off my sweatpants and sweater, then step into it, turning on the water.
I let the warmth roll over me, breathing slowly, trying to be present. Trying not to let myself go back to my wedding night. Or to this afternoon. When Curse told me to never touch him again.
Both those memories feel like they could shatter me.
But only one of them truly hurts.
I open my eyes beneath the water, letting it blur my vision before blinking it all away and reaching for the bottles on the shelf.
There’s soap and shampoo in here. No sign of conditioner, but if Curse gets everything on the list I gave him, I can expect that to come soon.
My hair is so fine and easily weighed down, anyway.
A few days without conditioner won’t really be a problem.
And really, in the grand scheme of my life, does stuff like that even matter?
Thinking about something as inconsequential as a hair product when I’ve watched someone die and left everything behind?
It makes me feel shallow. I rub shampoo vigorously into my hair, using my nails to do it, until the lather is outrageously thick and my scalp hurts from the scrubbing.
Once that’s all done, I rinse and then I do it again, washing the strands for the third time today.
I only wash my body once, but I do a meticulous job.
The soap in here is nice, with a clean, masculine sort of scent.
It’s a lot better than what was at the motel, so I really take my time and get everything.
I take the showerhead down from its perch, using it to rinse every nook and cranny.
I don’t let the water spray between my legs too long. I don’t like the gentle, tickly feeling of it there. I rinse the suds from my skin and the curling hair there as quickly as possible, then return the showerhead to its place.
I’m done washing, but I can’t face up to leaving the bathroom just yet. It’s getting harder and harder to be around Curse. The thought of spending all evening alone in his house – or maybe worse, spending it with him while knowing he doesn’t want to be with me – makes me want to cry.
I don’t. At least, I tell myself I don’t.
It’s all just hot water, running down my face. Who’s to say if there are tears or not?
At least Curse can’t see me right now. He seemed so frustrated when I cried in the motel.
I don’t know how to fix things, Aurora. I only know how to break them.
I stay in the shower long past the point of the hot water running out.
By the time I turn off the water and I force myself to get out of there, gooseflesh has made my entire body bumpy.
My teeth clatter painfully against one another as I take a towel from a rack near the shower and wrap it tightly around my shoulders, like a fluffy cape.
Despite how cold I am, I’m in no hurry to put the sweatpants and sweater back on. I’ve been wearing them for a couple of days now, without underwear and without deodorant. I know Curse hasn’t gotten any other new clothing for me yet, but surely there’s something in this house that I can wear?
Trembling and keeping the giant towel around myself, I go into the adjoining bedroom and head for the walk-in closet.
The closet is gigantic, but in Curse’s possession, it’s nearly empty.
There are a few shelves and hangers with black clothing on them, and a drawer of black socks and underwear. But that’s about it.
What did I expect? That some warm, woman’s robe was going to be hanging in here waiting for me? If Curse has a girlfriend or anything like that, she certainly doesn’t live here. And wouldn’t that just be so colossally fucked-up? To wear something that belonged to the woman he was seeing?
To the woman he was fucking?
A toxic blend of humiliation and jealousy heats my body enough that I finally stop trembling. It’s a ridiculous feeling, and probably entirely baseless. All I’ve ever heard about Curse Titone over the years is how many men he’s killed. Not how many women he’s bedded.
Now that I know that Magdelena is only his employee, I feel fairly certain that he probably doesn’t have a woman in his life. At least not somebody serious.
Maybe he doesn’t even like women.
Maybe he doesn’t like anyone at all.
But he was hard when he was with you.
I swallow and focus on the task at hand – trying to find something to wear. But I can’t. I couldn’t even make myself grab a small snack from his fridge when he offered. How the hell do I think I can comfortably steal one of his T-shirts to wear as a nightie? Do I think he isn’t going to notice?
“Aurora?”
“I’m in here,” I say at once, feeling strangely caught-out even though I never took any of his clothing. Curse appears a moment later.
“I was just looking for something clean to wear,” I say lamely.
He reaches past me, grabbing something from a shelf and holding it out to me.
“Just wear this for now,” he says. “You’ll have more stuff by tomorrow.”
“Oh. OK.” I rearrange the towel so that I can keep it in place with only one hand. “Are you sure?”
But he’s already walking out of the closet, apparently finished with this conversation already.
“Great,” I mutter. “Thanks.”
I poke my head out of the closet to see if he’s in the bedroom, but he’s left, closing the door that leads to the bathroom.
Ducking back into the closet, I let the damp towel fall and pull on the shirt he’s given me.
It is a T-shirt, and just like I thought, it fits me like a short nightie, the hem falling midway down my thighs.
The fabric is thin and exceptionally soft.
I can see the hard points of my nipples through it when I look down at myself.
It feels so nice. It smells nice, too.
When I exit the closet, Curse is opening the bathroom door.
He steps through the doorway, catches sight of me, and then freezes in place.
His eyes don’t freeze, though. They drag themselves from my face to my chest to my legs.
His gaze, so often flat and empty, goes dark and thick with something I can’t quite name.
His jaw tightens, the muscle like stone.
Maybe he hates seeing me in his clothing as much as he hated me touching his face earlier today.
“I’ll have my own things tomorrow,” I remind him quickly. My whole being stings with rejection.
I have to get better at this. I have to get better at not feeling all sensitive and sad every time Curse doesn’t act the way I want him to.
It’s just like he told me when he was eighteen. He’s not little Accursio Giordano anymore. He couldn’t pretend to be him now. Not even for me.
I have to stop expecting it from him. Or else this will never, ever stop hurting.
The only problem is…
I don’t know how.
Even after all this time, even after everything that’s happened, even with him standing right in front of me…
I still miss him.
“I’m going to go to bed,” I say when Curse doesn’t respond to my earlier statement. He’s still rigid with anger or disgust or whatever it is that’s flowing through him now.
“Fine,” he finally rasps. “You’ll sleep in this bed.”
I glance at the huge bed in the room. “But isn’t this yours?”