Chapter 16 Marble and Crows
She hadn't been wrong that his bathroom would be luxurious. He led her back to his bedroom, which in itself created a tension that she wondered if only she felt. He took two steps into the room handing her a thick cream towel.
Then he was closing the door as he left with wordless privacy.
She'd felt a zing of scandal as she peeled off her dirty clothes, folding them neatly into a pile, feeling more bare than usual in the marble-encased bathroom.
The shower was tall floor-to-ceiling glass that could have fit five people.
The marble floors matched the shower wall and once she pulled and turned a few different things she was able to get the temperature how she wanted.
Three built-in dispensers gave her soap, shampoo, and conditioner and as she lathered her thick hair with eyes closed she was surrounded by the most gentle floral scent. She imagined sunflowers turning their heads toward the sun with a hint of honey.
She didn't take her time, washing and rinsing quickly, scrubbing until satisfied that the dirt was gone she wrapped the fluffy towel around herself, picked up her dirty outfit before walking into the bedroom.
She was about to put them on, lamenting that she might cover her soap-sweet scent with sweat and dried mud when she noticed a clean pile of clothes neatly placed on the now-made bed.
The door was still closed and she frowned, wondering if he had snuck in to leave these for her. She pictured new sheets that didn't smell like her underneath the sumptuous comforter.
She put on the men's t-shirt and sweatpants that she had to roll a few times so as not to slip on the polished wood floors. Her glasses were last and one look in the mirror and she sighed.
She didn't see a cute woman who wore a large man's clothes.
Instead, she saw a short woman with too much on her hips, thighs, and belly that didn't make the shirt look large and endearing.
The short sleeves were laughably down to her elbows and the hem if she pulled it down would hang to her knees. But she didn't feel sweet and dainty.
She felt small and too much.
Her long, wet hair was hanging limp down her front and leaving spots on the dark shirt so she dug into her jean shorts pocket until she found a hair tie to scoop it up and wrap it into a thick, wet bun on top of her head.
She heard her sister's voice in her mind about her figure.
Or was it her own?
That was the thing about allowing others' voices to leave an impression inside of your mind; it started as theirs and then the more it was allowed ground it morphed into a more familiar voice, one it was hard to demand it leave as it was your own.
She closed her eyes, squeezing tight to stop her thoughts, to bifurcate between what was real and what was allowed in and untrue.
She'd learned this trick from her therapist after she left her husband.
Months of depression and anxiety had led her to the poppy-red door of Dr. Sarah Almey.
She'd had a shiny black bob that accentuated her sharp chin and blue thick-framed glasses that Tilly had found chic and charming, leading her to buy her first pair of red cat eyes.
She'd helped draw Tilly out of a place of believing lies about herself and her life that were holding her captive to dark places and an ongoing loop of trying and failing to live up to a false definition of 'good enough'.
She taught her that when she found herself listening to a voice that would speak something negative about herself or the future, she should stop, physically close her eyes, breathe, focus on something outside of her body, and let the voices show their true face.
Truth or lie?
"Stop."
The sound of his voice made her eyes snap open. He filled the doorway and then he was walking toward her. She froze. He stood behind her in the tall mirror and she didn't know what to do.
"I'm going to put my hands on you and I want you to tell me what you're thinking."
His words tickled along her ribs but he didn't move. Silence stretched.
She licked her lips nervously and then nodded. Only then did his hands gently, barely, encase her hips and the simple barely-there touch sent her heart into a frenzy.
He dipped his head low until his mouth was next to her ear and the sight was spectacular, this large man behind her having to lower himself until he could be near her quiet thoughts.
"You torture yourself," he said gently, the words prodding her mind. "I've watched you undo yourself the last few weeks. Pulling inside yourself, hiding from me, looks of uncertainty. You hold yourself less surely. Tell me what's going on."
He'd noticed all of that. About her.
He spoke as though he knew her, could catch her struggle in the barest of looks and the way that her shoulders sat a little higher and unsure. She had caught her reflection just the other morning as she got ready and recognized the woman standing there. Someone from before.
When you dragged yourself out of dark places, breathed new air and surrounded yourself with goodness and honesty, there was a transformation that happened.
It was slow, and it started painfully from the inside, but then that transformation had a penchant to turn you inside out until you started to look how you feel - glowing and unapologetically strong.
But the other morning, she saw the woman she was before that. And it scared her.
"Can I tell you a sad story and you don't try to make me feel better?"
He nodded, his dark eyes holding hers in the mirror. She liked this, seeing him and him seeing her, but not facing him.
The request was large in a small voice. Sometimes we just need a witness to ghastly, dark things, so that we can know we're a reliable narrator of our own stories. That alone can start healing someone.
"I was married. Years ago. We met in college and none of the backstory really matters, but three years into our marriage I found him cheating on me.
With a friend, a neighbor. I knew before I knew for sure.
It was the way he stopped looking at me and only reached for me for his own pleasure.
He became unkind in how he looked at me and spoke to me like I was a nuisance.
" She tilted her head and looked at her face as she spoke in the mirror.
She was telling her own ghost story, watching the haunting fill her eyes as she revisited becoming a fraction of herself because someone she loved betrayed her.
"I remember she came over for coffee and I caught her gaze following him as he came into the kitchen and then the way that her head turned just the slightest as he left.
It was," she shook her head, "intimate. The way that lovers' eyes touch more than they look.
" She swallowed. "He uh, got meaner and meaner.
I started believing his mean. His voice became mine in my head.
I got smaller. I shrunk. I lost weight and he said I looked good and had no idea it was diseased weight loss from his poison. "
Theo watched her, took in her words and the weight of what she was handing him. His hands on her hips lightly clasped when she stopped talking, telling her to give him more.
Telling her he could hold it for a while.
"When I finally confronted him, the yelling and threats I didn't understand at the time. Why, if he didn't want me anymore, would he threaten to kill me if I left him? He was with someone else. I've never understood that."
Theo did. He'd seen it too many times in his too many years on this earth.
"I ended up in our coat closet, hiding from him one morning.
" She laughed, but it wasn't filled with mirth.
"I was a child. I felt like one," she sobered, the memory playing in her mind.
"Something happened in that closet and I can't explain it.
But I got an invitation to a new life here. And then I started healing."
She let out a breath and connected with his eyes in the mirror.
"And now?" he asked softly.
"While I found healing and I grew out of the person I turned into to survive, I sometimes still struggle with the voices he gave me. And the ones my sister gave me growing up. And my mother."
She felt a gentle, lapping warmth inside of her, a comfort. And though he didn't say it with words, a promise.
"Now, be vulnerable with me," she prodded, a half smile pulling up her mouth.
She hadn't realized he had kept enough distance between them as she spoke to draw her out of her head, but as she smiled at him in the mirror and tilted her head just an inch his foot stepped forward until he was now more than just bracing her hips with his hands.
He wasn't pressed against her, but there was a warm touch of closeness that sent a wave of shock through her. A pleasant shock.
"Ask me," he commanded softly. "Anything."
She wanted to ask him about the Western romances tucked into his bookshelf, obviously read more than once. She wanted to know about the way he carried himself, how long it took to set his shoulders in a way that dared the world to confront him.
She wanted to ask him the worst things he'd ever seen and what he had to heal from to become so thoughtful and calm. What violence in his life had made him so gentle?
She wanted to know why he was here and why it felt like he'd been looking for her since he arrived.
But even as she had given him her shadows, she wasn't sure she was ready for his.
She had to gather her thoughts for a second as her body adjusted to feeling him against her.
"Garlic isn't an issue obviously, since I tasted it in the pot pie."
A nod.
"Sunlight doesn't bother you, but is that because you have an enchanted ring?"
A half smile. "No. Sunlight doesn't bother me. Though I prefer evening."
"Because of your vampire skin?"
"No. Because I like darkness and starlight. Not a vampire thing." His hands flexed and pulled her back against him pushing out a soft breath from her parted lips.
"Oh," she whispered as she felt her body melt just a little more.