8. Beneath the Surface
Chapter eight
Beneath the Surface
DELANE
Iknew that I needed to take a shower and to change my clothes. Noah’s clothes. The remnants of my underwear.
I was afraid to look at myself in the mirror.
Seeing the damage would timestamp reality.
I’d have to accept that I was a victim. Or survivor.
I didn’t even know anymore. The Hansen’s were nice enough.
I was grateful for their hospitality, because I wasn’t sure where I’d be without them.
I tried Chelsea two more times since I arrived, but to no avail.
The fact that she left me stranded made my blood boil, but at the end of the day, I blamed myself.
What was I even thinking? I knew I shouldn’t have drank so much.
My drunken stupor finally wore off and I was unsure if I was happy about that.
Now, I viewed myself in a more critical lens.
Mrs. Hansen took me upstairs so that I could use the shower and make myself comfortable in the guest bedroom.
From sculptures, to paintings, the sheer amount of beautiful items that they had in their home was astounding.
I felt very out of place, like a thorn or rotted leaf on the side of a flower that needed to be plucked.
I was a strange blemish in their immaculate home, and I wasn’t sure how to get over the feeling of inferiority.
I wasn’t the most confident girl, and I knew that I had my flaws, but currently, surrounded by objects and rooms that I’d only seen on TV or in my books, and things I knew I could never dream of affording, I felt especially insignificant.
On another, more positive note, Noah had followed us upstairs to make sure I had everything I needed. Something warmed inside me with that.
I couldn’t figure Noah out. And there was something both exhilarating and frightening about that.
His interaction with his brother—pulling a weapon suddenly—none of it made any sense to me.
But after what I had experienced tonight, I wished a gun had been used sooner.
The weapon itself hadn’t made me uneasy.
It was the sheer look of fear spreading across Noah’s face in the moments before he drew the gun, that sent chills into my bones.
I tried not to think about it anymore. I needed to focus on one step at a time.
Clean up. Remove the stench of the alley. Sleep. Get home. I’d repeat these steps to myself until they were done, and then I could forget this night even existed.
Except…
I observed Noah gathering some items from his mom: towels, clothes, soaps. He turned, meeting my glance with a shy smile. He crossed the room with the products in hand.
My heart skipped with each step he took towards me.
“These are for you,” he said softly, handing me the items.
I said nothing, only nodded.
“Here, I’m sorry. Let me show you how everything works here.” Noah gestured to the bathroom door, leading me inside.
When I entered the bathroom, I’m sure my mouth hit the floor.
The marble tile stretched back at least fifteen feet before greeting a full-on waterfall shower with a near sectional inside of it for sitting.
The shower opened from both ends, with walls of cabinets on either side and a massive walk-in closet.
Noah set the fresh towels and clothes down near the sink countertops, and Mrs. Hansen made a joke about how the clothes probably wouldn’t fit me right, since they were her old ones.
“Let us know if you need anything dear,” Mrs. Hansen chirped before floating out of the bathroom and leaving the guest bedroom entirely.
I stood there dumbfounded. Suddenly, I felt extremely small in this room.
“The buttons are labeled, you don’t have to turn a knob or anything,” Noah said abruptly, filling the silence around us. “My friend Alex always got a kick out of that. I guess in normal showers you gotta turn a dial for cold or hot, or some shit like that.”
I blinked at him. “Normal showers?”
Noah rubbed the back of his head. “Look, I know it’s a lot to take in. I hear it… often. That I have rich shit, er– stuff, in my house.”
I crossed the room slowly, approaching the large glass wall encasing the shower. My silhouette crossed in front of a massive vanity with a floor length mirror. I paused. Turned.
There was a stranger I didn’t recognize, looking back at me.
I studied her, that girl in the glass. Fragile. An oversized shirt hugging splotched skin. Pale features sunken in except for the partially swollen face and eye. Ghosts of unwanted hands still lingering across her body.
I shred the borrowed covering, letting it drop to the tile, and trailed my hands across the dark marks on my arms and shoulders, all the way down to the spot on my waist where Silas had placed the knife against my skin.
Even though he hadn’t cut me, the skin there burned.
The layers of my fight started to surface.
Every aspect of my body ached and trembled, even my arms and legs.
There was an audible shift in the air.
My eyes drifted from my own reflection in the mirror, then to Noah, still standing behind me. His mouth was slightly parted, his eyes traveling down the length of my body and back up again. Our eyes locked through the mirror, me watching him, watching me. We stayed like that for a few moments.
I wasn’t embarrassed. He saw this much of me already, whether I liked it or not.
Noah cleared his throat and averted his gaze. His eyes furiously studied the tile floor.
“Uh… sorry,” he mumbled. He doubled back towards the shower, keeping his head pointed low to the ground.
He slid the shower door open with ease and turned on the water.
The sound and steam quickly filled the quiet of the room.
He stood there for a moment, feeling the temperature of the water, then awkwardly backed up without turning his head.
“I’ll let you shower,” he stated, passing me and the mirror as he hurried towards the door.
Heaviness began to gather at the corners of my eyes.
“Noah?”
His stride halted.
“I don’t want to be here by myself. Could you just wait in here until I’m done?”
I listened closely, hearing him take a shallow breath.
“Yeah, of course. I can just sit over there.” Noah’s hand pointed to where I was currently stationed, the vanity area next to the mirror, which had some sitting room.
I swallowed, and went the remaining distance to the shower, slipping out of my panties and stepping in under the hot stream.
I gently closed the glass partition and submerged myself.
The feeling was indescribable, the pressure from the water alleviated tension in my shoulders and neck that I hadn’t realized was there.
I reached for the shampoo, relishing the scent, thankful to rid myself of the “essence of dumpster” that I knew had followed me here.
As I scrubbed the roots, violently, I watched with interest out of the steam clouded glass at Noah.
He sat, back to me, at the vanity as promised, a mere few feet from where I was.
His arm seemed ridged across the counter, and his foot tapped against the floor.
I didn’t know what had gotten into me. Maybe it was the shower. The fact that none of this night even felt like a real part of my existence. But I wanted to know more.
I needed to know more.
Hell, I was in a stranger’s shower, asking him to stand guard for me.
“Noah,” I called, “I want to ask you some things.”
This got his attention. He took a glance over his shoulder in my direction. His foot tapping stopped. I was confident at this point that the heat of the water shielded me from full exposure, so I continued with my shower, lathering my body, removing what felt like layers of grime on my flesh.
“Here’s my argument: You’ve seen me completely naked almost, yet I barely know anything about you.” I just threw it out there; I knew he was thinking it.
He chuckled, angling himself backwards in the chair so that he was closer to the side opening of the shower. He seemed more relaxed now. “Shoot.”
“How old are you?”
“Nineteen.”
“Me too. Well, I’ll be twenty later this year,” I said with a shrug, like he could see.
“Cool.”
I was relieved that the sound of pouring water filled the awkward silence between us. I seated myself on the shower bench to wash my legs and arms, bringing me closer to him. Right now, the only thing separating us was the shower glass wall, and I could practically feel his body behind me.
“Favorite things?” I continued as I lathered.
“Light. My mother’s cooking. Movies.” His answers were short and to the point. I wondered if he was answering honestly.
“What kinds of movies?”
“Action. Maybe a little horror now and then.”
“Do you sleep?”
His neck turned, and I knew he was looking at me through the glass. “What kind of question is that? I’m not a vampire.”
“Just trying to see if I could catch you off guard.” My gaze found his through the ever shrinking barrier.
He grinned and my heart skipped. “Impossible,” he said smugly.
In an attempt to hide my own eagerness for his response to the next question, I got back up to rinse.
“Girlfriend?”
This time he actually laughed aloud, and I cringed, wondering if I had crossed a line. Not very subtle.
“Damn, you ask a shit ton of questions, when is it my turn?”
I rolled my eyes, grabbing what I hoped was conditioner before adding it to my hair. “That wasn’t an answer,” I retorted.
“I am single.” I heard him say, and hints of humor still remained in his tone.
After a deep breath, I prepared for the last thing I had on my mind. This was what I wanted to know more so than anything else I had asked him previously.
“What’s the whole relationship deal with…” I lowered my voice as though someone could potentially hear me outside the bathroom, “...Silas?”
He didn’t answer that one right away. Maybe he was considering what to say.
Or how he’d lie.
“I wouldn’t call it a relationship,” at last he chimed in. “When two people are in love and committed to each other, they are in a relationship. I don’t love Silas Thorne.”