Page 4 of Absolution

Two

Christian

It’s one a.m. and I’m fighting sleep while I listen to the clattering sound of her showering. I shiver inside a damp blanket, the same one Kerry had on a few moments ago. Trying to make myself useful, and to get a little less cold, I get up and grab a couple of towels from a shelf in her cupboard and wipe the puddles of water and the mud off the floor. Then I sit and listen again. It’s quiet from inside the bathroom and I wish I knew what she is doing. I wish even more I knew what she’s thinking. I see her before me. The way she looked long ago, before I killed the light in her eyes. I wonder what it’ll take to get it back.

If anything ever will.

Trying to keep my teeth from chattering, I huddle in the blanket. I should light a fire, but I’m too drowsy. Running through the woods, fighting her, and the arguing took my last energy reserves. My knee screams at me whenever I move and my shoulder pounds ominously. I just don’t have the will to examine it closer.

I jerk awake when the bathroom door opens, and a cloud of warm-wet, soap-scented air fills the living room. My heart already pounds hard and, a few moments later, when she materializes through the mist, it feels like it’s gonna beat its way out of my chest. She’s dressed in flannel pajamas, covered from top to toe in pink roses. The one I found and put in a neatly folded pile right outside the bathroom door. On her feet, fluffy white fleece socks. Her face looks naked, new somehow. Her short black hair is still wet, unbrushed, and lies in unruly tresses around her head. Like a dark halo. She’s so fucking beautiful.

“Cute.” I nod toward the outfit.

“It was a gift.” She fiddles with the collar and adjusts the top button. “Christian…” She walks up to me, hesitantly. “Oh my God, you’re soaked. You have to get out of your clothes. Now.”

I grin. “Are you offering?”

She raises an eyebrow as her face stiffens.

I backpedal. That wasn’t clever. “Sorry. I haven’t got any other clothes.”

“I’ve got some that should fit. You get out of that now.”

She disappears into the little hallway on the opposite side of the room, the one with the jammed backdoor. I start fighting my shirt but my left shoulder refuses to let me raise my arm enough and I have to give up. I yank and pull to get out of my pants instead. When I look up, my soggy pants clutched in my hands, she’s standing in front of me, her eyes wide. She’s holding a pile of clothes and hands them to me with trembling arms. Her eyes dart between my naked legs and my face.

“Here,” she says. “I… You...”

I take the clothes and look through the pile. There’s a pair of green cargo pants, a thick checkered flannel shirt, thick fleece socks, a couple of T-shirts. I look back up. She appears calmer again, chewing on her lip as she studies me.

“Where’ve you been hiding these gems?”

“In the back. They were my dad’s. I—I couldn’t throw them away.”

I take in her solemn features. She still mourns her old man. “I heard. I’m sorry.”

“Thank you,” she says quietly.

“He went way too young.”

“Dad had a massive heart attack. He died instantly. We had no idea he was ill. He rode his bike to work every day, seemed healthy as a horse.”

I reach out with my good arm and lay a hand on her shoulder. “You were close?”

Kerry looks down at her feet, not pulling away, almost leaning into my touch as if I’m really comforting her. “Yes,” she whispers. She sighs and closes her eyes and I don’t know how to interpret the look on her face. “Where do we go from here, Christian?”

I study her, letting my eyes roam over her straight little nose, the plump – very kissable – lips, the damp dark tresses of hair. Clenching my hand into a fist, I have to fight the urge to pull her to me. “Ker. None of us are going anywhere the way it looks outside. When that day comes… we’ll just take it from there. Okay?”

She bites her bottom lip and nods as she looks up at me, her dark green eyes flooring me with the depth of emotions in there. Very much like the first time I saw her. Flashes of a tipsy, over-confident redhead in a bar shoot through my mind. So much has happened between then and now. Not only years, but hurt, betrayal, Cecilia. Her eyes are the same, and yet, with the underlying solemnity that permeates her whole being, they aren’t.

“Okay.” Turning on her heel, she leaves for the bedroom and pulls the door closed behind her.

I remain standing, looking at the closed door. My chest tightens. I wish I could have helped her get warm, hold her tight, take some of her pain away. Her lips were still bluish and her skin so pale. Myself, I feel hotter than hell right now. It must be all the fighting, all the adrenaline. Sorting through the pile of clothes, I then put on stuff I’d normally never wear. Cargo pants that hang loose on my hips, a thick gray flannel shirt that I pull on over my own shirt. I don’t have the energy to take it off when it should dry up soon enough anyway. I look like a new man. A new man I right now wish I was. For her. Them.

It’s hard to find a comfortable position on the narrow couch. My shoulder hurts worse than ever. I’m too tired to look at it now. I’ll do it tomorrow. I toss and turn. I’m so drained I could throw up, but I can’t sleep. My shirt is wet from sweat and I shiver constantly even though my cheeks burn. And the damn shoulder throbs.

I dart up, pull off the flannel shirt and again try to wriggle out of the still soaked one, but it clings to my body and it’s impossible. I try ripping it to pieces with my good arm, but it doesn’t budge over my shoulders where the seams are stronger, and I end up with shreds. Why do I have to buy such fuckin’ high quality clothes? Tiptoeing to her bedroom door, I listen for sounds of breathing. I hear Cecilia’s light snoring and an occasional snivel, but nothing else. I push the crack wider and enter. Spotting the contour of Kerry in the bed, I bend over her and intend to whisper in her ear.

“What do you want?” she whispers tersely before I have a chance to say anything.

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