CHAPTER 51 CADEN #2
I don’t know why or how… but my lips are now pressing on the peak of her shoulder. She gasps at the contact. I break away from her quickly, dragging my attention down to my own body and beginning to scrape any leftover clumps of mud. Grief is a weird fucking thing.
She turns around and I avoid her gaze but it’s obvious she can see I’m hard. It’s like a goddamn pole between us.
“He is a coward, Elodie, but it’s fine. We don’t need him.” I dare to look up to her because I need her to hear this. “You don’t need him.”
She nods and lifts a shoulder. “I know. It just makes me so mad how he didn’t care. How he made me stop looking. How I was too weak to defy him. Too scared.”
I look down at her, this little brat, and find it so hard to believe she could have been too scared. Of anything.
“You don’t have to be scared now, he can’t touch you again,” I say.
“I know that too. I’m not scared of him anymore.” Her eyes drift down my body, freezing me in place. “Back then I was, but I stopped long ago. I just stopped caring. It never got worse, I just stopped feeling after a while.”
She drops her face and beyond my better judgement, I drop my hands from my chest and cup her face, bringing it back up. “But you never stopped fighting, and that’s what matters.”
She offers me a weak smile, and I let her go before this strange warmth in my chest transpires into anything more than I can cope with.
I finish rubbing my body down while she stares off to the side, not really paying attention, which I’m grateful for. I think if she paid any attention to my rock-hard cock I wouldn’t control myself. I pick the sponge back up and start washing properly.
It catches her attention, and she lifts a small hand, placing it over mine against the sponge on my stomach.
I’m turned to stone beneath the gentle touch, and I practically catch fire when her eyes come up to meet mine once more, pinning me in place.
She takes the sponge and begins stroking it over my body.
My hand drops to the side and my throat runs dry.
I let her wash me, powerless to do anything else. Her other hand comes up to my chest, and she works the soap over my skin with her delicate fingers. The sensation of her hand on me sends my mind reeling. I brace a hand on the wall to keep myself upright.
Her eyes break from mine and travel down, passing over all the ink and the hundred stories and secrets they hold.
“Do they all mean something?” she whispers, looking at the justice scales in the middle of my chest.
My voice is thick, croaked, when I say, “I wouldn’t engrave something into my body without a reason.”
“Are they all bad reasons?”
It hits me then as I look down at her skin. How our bodies are so different, but in the same vein. I mark mine on purpose, to permanently etch my darkest times and nightmares, whereas hers is permanently etched with the same things, only she had no choice in hers.
Dismissing yet another bout of nausea, I say, “Do they look sentimental and soppy to you?”
The corners of her lips twitch upward. “I guess not.” Her eyes find mine again. “I think you may be more sentimental than you let on, though.”
This unfreezes me. I take the sponge from her and finish washing. “Whatever you think you’ve deduced about me tonight – it’s wrong.”
“I choose to believe otherwise.”
I square my chest. “Believe what you wish. I know what I am. I’m reminded every goddamn day. I don’t know how to be anything else. And I don’t want to.”
A sadness clouds her eyes as she peers up at me. “You don’t have to be anything else. You’re…” she trails off, her throat bobs.
I wait, the breath caught in my lungs, afraid to escape in case I miss her next words.
Finally, she sighs. “You’re not the worst person I’ve ever met.”
The air shoots out of me in a sharp exhale. “I guess that says a lot more about the people you’ve met than it does about me. I’m pretty fucking bad.”
She laughs despite herself, although it’s laced with despair. “Yeah, I think you’re right.”
“Come on, we’ve used enough water to fill a swimming pool now.”
We step out and I wrap her in a towel first then myself and we walk into the bedroom. I pull out some fresh clothes for us. We dry and dress and when I turn around, I see her staring.
“What about that one?” she asks quietly.
“What one?”
She wrings her fingers in front of her. “The tattoo on your back. The angel wings. The date. That one doesn’t look sinister.”
My gut twists itself into a knot so tight I’m sure I’ll throw up.
I avert my gaze. “We’ve had enough heart-to-hearts tonight, Elodie, I draw a line at that.” Thankfully, my voice remains soft, even though I want to scream.
“Is it for your mum?”
I close my eyes. “Please.” The word sounds so desperate and pathetic I grimace at myself, gritting my teeth before gathering composure. “I can’t talk about any more death.”
I open my eyes and see the understanding on the face. She nods, eyes drifting away from me.
Silence falls over us, then we just… hover.
God, this is so awkward.
I rake fingers through my wet hair. “Listen, Elodie… I know we don’t sleep in the same room, but I’m going to sleep in my bed tonight. You’re welcome to stay, of course, but if you feel weird I’ll put you up in one of the spares.”
She shrugs. “Doesn’t bother me. Not tonight. I’m on the floor, anyway.” She walks to the side of the bed and kneels, arranging her blankets.
I bite my lip, fiddle with my snakebite a little before climbing onto the bed and getting under the duvet.
We lay there in silence, the gravity of this entire fucking day and night crash landing on my conscious in a matter of seconds.
What a fucking whirlwind. Which just ended up with us in a shower together.
I scrub my face. The shower did offer me what I needed it to.
I needed the closeness, the connection. I think she did too.
But now I’m up here and she’s down there, it feels too far apart again.
I feel too far apart from everyone and everything.
I know if I asked, she’d say no. Whether because she doesn’t like the mattress or me in it, but she wouldn’t join me.
I’m going to regret this so much when my senses return. I fling the covers off and lower myself from the bed and squeeze in the small gap between her and the bedframe. She tries to turn to look at me but I nudge her shoulder forward.
“What are you doing?” she whispers.
“I’m not sure.” I stick my legs under her blanket and the heat from her body hitting mine is immediate. It instantly calms my nerves.
“You can’t sleep on the floor.”
“You can’t sleep on the bed.”
“So what are you–”
“Elodie, please.” I sigh as I mould my front with her back, snake an arm under the crook of her neck and hook it around her chest, my other arm coming around her waist and bring her into me. “Just… stop talking.”
To my absolute shock, she does. She falls silent and I listen to our quick breaths fall in sync as our heartbeats settle down together.
We have a lot to figure out. A hell of a lot of questions to answer.
Between us and our families. It’s going to be long, and it’s going to be tiresome.
But right now, there’s solace here on my bedroom floor this morning.
In this new connection, in this new sensation of being with her and not having her bite my head off and not wanting to do anything to her but lay here.
I don’t want to question it; I can’t even fathom it.
Whatever it is, it’s keeping all the other bullshit at bay and for once my mind sounds quiet.
There’s a calmness settling into my bones.
A deep serenity that I’m determined to cling on to for as long as I can before anything else can ruin it.
I don’t know what the future holds. Or what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know if this is a turning point for us or just another step in the same perilous direction of us hating each other. All I know is I kind of like lying here with her in my arms.
So, for now, I just close my eyes, and I fall asleep to the steady rhythm of Elodie Valor’s breaths.