Clean
Lyra
The mirror is white with steam. I stand in front of it dripping, staring at the blur where my face should be.
I wipe a streak clear, and a pale girl looks back at me.
My eyes are pink-rimmed, and my wet hair sticks dark against my neck. My neck….
Just beneath my left ear is the mark Crispin left. A dark, ugly bruise sucked into my skin, the blunt shape of his mouth still printed into me. My stomach turns at the sight of it, and my mouth floods with spit.
"Get off me," I whisper as I bring the heel of my hand up to scrub at it. I grind against the tender skin until it burns.
I want to fucking claw it off.
I want to take a fistful of my own flesh and tear it away and leave the mark behind on the floor.
My eyes sting with tears again, and I immediately stop rubbing.
Stop it, Lyra.
I press the heels of my hands into the counter and pull in a deep breath. My eyes drop to the pale pink polish on my nails. It’s chipped along every tip.
Enough, I say to myself. You've cried enough.
I keep my eyes on the ruined polish and shove the swell of hopelessness back down, everything beating against my ribs. I refuse to fall apart over this.
Not again.
After all, it’s done and there’s no helping it, but if I keep crying and freaking out over it, then I might as well lay on the floor and die. It’s practically the same thing.
Looking up at the mirror, I stare right into my own eyes. "Get over it," I whisper to my reflection. "Put this behind you and figure out what you’re going to do next."
I clench my jaw as I gather up the entire memory—the office, the couch, his hands, and the pain, and I shove it back, deep into the recesses of my mind. Then I press the lid shut the way I've done a thousand times before.
For a moment, my jaw aches and my hands have gone to fists on the cold counter. But finally my eyes clear and my breathing evens out. And the girl in the mirror smooths her face into something that could pass for fine.
There. Better.
I towel off, then reach for the clean clothes Owen left folded on the counter.
Gray sweatpants and a soft black t-shirt with Wexley University printed across the chest in faded, cracked letters.
I dress, and the pants pool over my feet and the shirt falls past my hips, and both smell faintly of him.
So good.
I comb my fingers through my wet hair, take one more deep breath, then open the door.
Steam follows me into the cool of the hall. I go slow, bare feet quiet on the wood as I look at the pictures that line the wall.
There’s a young woman with green hair and a beautiful smile who looks so much like Nico.
Another picture shows Nico and Owen on their wedding day, both of them laughing too hard to face the camera.
Farther down, three men crowded together on a dock, shirtless and sunburned.
There’s a lake shimmering bright behind them.
Nico is in the middle with his arms slung around the other two, Adrian on his left with two fingers up behind Nico's head, and on the right a man I don't recognize, big and blond, his head tipped back mid-laugh.
They look happy.
I stop at the mouth of the hallway, where I can see into the living room without stepping into it.
Owen is sitting on the arm of the couch.
He looks worn all the way through, but he's smiling.
The blond alpha from the photo is telling him some story with his whole body, both hands going, and whatever it is, it's working.
Owen's shoulders shake, and he drags a hand down his face like the man is too much.
On the other side of the room, Nico and Adrian wrestle a flimsy little folding table open between them. Nico says something low that makes Adrian snort.
"C'mon, you." The blond alpha hauls Owen up off the couch by the hand, towing him toward the table. "Sit and eat at something before you fall over."
Owen lets himself be pulled along, and the two of them drop into chairs at the little table. The blond man flips the lid off a pink box, reaches in, and pulls out a fat donut dripping with maple frosting. Instead of eating it, he just drops it onto Owen's napkin.
Owen looks up at him, and his whole tired face goes soft as Nico reaches over and smooths his hand over Owen’s back.
I stand there in the dark of the hall, watching them, and something aches under my ribs.
Owen sits with his husband and two friends, each one of them talking and smiling at Owen like they're desperately trying to make him feel better. It's so sweet, and I'm so happy that my friend is surrounded by people that clearly love him.
I can't help but wonder what that must feel like, to have people look at you like they're glad you exist. It must be nice.
For some reason, my heart aches at the sight, and all at once the exhaustion drops over me like a weight. I press both hands to my face and drag them down, and when I let them fall, I hear his voice.
"Hey."
I look up, and Owen's watching me from the table, his eyes already on mine. Whatever he sees on my face makes his smile fade at the edges. "You look dead on your feet." He pushes up from the table and crosses to me before I can arrange my face.
Smile, I tell myself. Don’t be more of a burden than you already are.
"I'm okay," I say, but the words come out thin enough that nobody believes them, least of all me.
"You need to eat something." Owen stops in front of me, ducking a little to catch my eyes. "Or you can lie down. Your choice. But you're not going to keep standing there swaying, so pick one."
I open my mouth to say I’d love to sit with them. After all, it's the polite thing, but my body is so heavy it's a fight just to stay upright.
"I’m not tired," I lie, forcing myself to smile as I look up at Owen.
He doesn't buy it for a second. His brow creases and his mouth pulls down at one corner.
His hazel eyes search my face from behind his glasses.
Even with those deep worry lines, he's so handsome. The concern softens everything about him, and I have to look away from it before I say something I’ll regret.
"Lyra." Owen steps in closer. "Sleep," he says, low, just for me. "The donuts will keep. Go lie down."
And the permission undoes something in me.
"Okay," I whisper.
Relief loosens his shoulders, and those worried lines between his brows smooth out.
"Good girl," he says softly, and the small, approving smile he gives me is enough to make my face heat.
"Come on." He sets a hand light at my back, and steers me back down the hall, away from the low murmur of the others.
I love that he’s touching me. It feels so comforting and sweet, making my bones somewhat looser.
"You can sleep in my room." Owen pushes open a door at the far end of the little hall, revealing the primary bedroom.
A big bed sits in the center of the room with the covers dragged up rough. There’s a long dresser with a TV perched crooked on top, and both nightstands buried under stacks of books.
And the whole room smells like them.
"Let's get you settled." Owen pulls the covers back for me.
"Thank you." I hover at the edge of the bed, twisting my fingers together.
"And I'm sorry. For not sitting with everyone.
It's terribly rude, showing up in someone's home and then disappearing before I've so much as had breakfast with them.
My mother would be mortified." I roll my eyes, thinking about the lecture she’d give me.
"Lyra," Owen says, the corner of his mouth tugging upward. "It's really not a big deal. You're exhausted and you've been through something awful. Missing breakfast is the last thing anyone's thinking about."
He reaches out and runs his palm slowly down my upper arm, warm even through the sleeve. The small smile fades, and his eyes go soft and serious behind his glasses, that worried crease settling back between his brows.
"How are you doing?" he asks softly.
The gentleness in his words goes straight past all my careful armor and pulls at the back of my throat.
Dammit. Not again.
"I'm sorry," I say, trying like hell to change the subject.
"What for?"
"For everything. For sneaking into the library, then making you bring me here."
"You didn't make me do anything," he says firmly. "I brought you here because I wanted you to be safe."
I let out a hard breath through my nose. That isn't how it happened, and we both know it, but I don't have the fight in me to argue.
"Something happened last night." My voice comes out flat and careful, the words picked up one at a time and set down gently, because if I hold them at arm's length they can't reach me. "At my parents' house. I couldn't stay there. So I ran."
"Lyra." His eyes drop to my wrists and come back up. "Are you sure you're okay?"
"I'm fine." I plaster an automatic smile on my face, the same bright practiced thing I've worn to a thousand dinners. My mother trained it into me before I was ten. Chin up, pleasant face, nothing showing. "Really. I'm fine."
Owen tilts his head. He doesn't say anything, just looks at me, patient, until my fake smile starts to shake at the edges and I feel the whole practiced mask threaten to slide off my face.
Then, moving very slowly, he steps in and folds both arms around me.
I go stiff for half a second, then I sink into it. He's warm and solid, and he smells like every good thing in this world.
"You're safe now," he whispers into my damp hair. "Do you hear me? Nobody will hurt you here."
I nod against his shirt, letting myself be held.
And it's shameful, but a small shiver moves through me at the feel of it.
Owen has never held me before. A whole year of simple touches, our fingers brushing when he hands me a book, but nothing more than that. But now his arms are all the way around me and his heart beats steadily against my ear.
Something bright flickers under my skin, low and quiet and alive, and after the night I've had, it has no business feeling this good.
But it does.
I make myself step back before I can want more than I'm allowed. "I won't stay long," I say. "I promise. Just until I figure out where to go."
"You can stay as long as you want," he says with zero hesitation. "I mean it."
Warmth pushes up through my exhaustion. I want so badly to believe it's that simple.
"Your husband might have something to say about a stranger in his house," I point out. "You two have a whole life here, and I'll be in the way." He opens his mouth, and I keep going before he can. "And my father will find me eventually. He always does. It's only a matter of when."
His mouth closes. He breathes out slowly through his nose, before he finally nods.
"I'm sorry," he finally says. "I don't know how to fix any of that. I wish I did." He reaches out and tucks a loose strand of damp hair behind my ear, his knuckle grazing my cheek on the way. "But I like having you here, Lyra. I like knowing that you’re safe."
The warm flicker goes through me again, and the guilt comes right behind it. I drop my gaze to the floor, staring at Owen's socked feet and my bare ones beside them.
I like being here too.
The thought pushes up against my teeth, but I swallow it back down where it belongs. He's a married man. It doesn't matter how safe his arms feel or how good this house smells. I don’t belong here.
"Lie down." Owen's voice softens. "I'll get the spare room made up, but in the meantime, nobody's going to bother you in here."
I don't argue. I don't have it in me. I climb onto the big bed, too worn out to feel strange about it, and the door clicks shut behind him.
For a moment I just lie there and let my eyes wander the room. It's such a cozy space, lived-in and warm, nothing in it trying to impress anyone.
I look over at the nightstand nearest to me, where a small stack of books sits.
The thick one on the bottom is about the architecture of old cathedrals.
Underneath it is a slim volume with soft, rounded corners.
It looks like it’s been opened a hundred times.
I squint at the title, but it’s in Spanish, and I can't read a word of it.
This must be Nico's side.
Soft voices drift down the hall, and my eyes start to droop.
I curl onto my side and reach for the pillow on the other side, wrapping both arms around it.
It's Nico’s.
I know it the second it's against my face, his scent soaked all the way through it, and my heart gives that same quick kick it did when he first walked into the living room.
But it doesn't frighten me now. It wraps around me instead, warm and heavy, tangled up with Owen's scent in the sheets until I can't tell where one of them ends and the other begins.
I bury my face in it and breathe them both in. And for the first time since my father's office, I'm not afraid to close my eyes.
They drift shut on their own.