Page 115 of Reclaim Me

“I can’t believe I have to go through this EVERY MONTH,” she whines, her shrill voice bouncing around the small confines of the bathroom we’re currently locked in because she refused to come out.

“I know, baby, but that’s the curse of having a uterus.”

“I don’t want a uterus anymore.”

I burst out laughing, which she doesn’t appreciate. She glares at me from inside the bathtub where she apparently thought it was smart to set up camp for the night.

“You’re going to be okay, Nugget,” I tell her, running a hand over her curls. “It last for a few days, and I won’t lie, some of those days are going to suck, but I’ll teach you everything I know about getting through it alive.”

“Why are you making it sound like I’m about to go to war?”

“Because you are,” I laugh softly. “Periods can be really tough on your body, so it’s important that you know how to take care of yourself. When to rest, what to eat, the medicine to take to manage the pain.”

“So that’s why my stomach hurts?”

“Yep.” I nod, giving her a sympathetic smile. “I like to take a warm shower and then lay down with a heating pad on my stomach to help the cramps. You’ve seen me do that before, right?”

“Yeah. I don’t think Daddy has a heating pad, though,” she says, nodding toward the basket of period preparedness Hunter put together. She’s right. There isn’t a heating pad.

“Okay. I’ll see if he has one, but first, let’s get out of the bathtub and into bed, okay?”

Riley sighs, but when I stand up and extend my hand to her, she takes it and lets me lead her to her bedroom. Once I’ve gotten her settled, I head back downstairs to find Hunter. He’s in the kitchen, twiddling his thumbs while he sits at the island, probably feeling as helpless as I do.

“I’ve got her in bed.” He looks up at me and gives me a relieved smile.

“Good. I was afraid she was going to try to live in that bathtub.”

“Me too.”

“Was the basket helpful?”

“It was perfect; the only thing you were missing was a heating pad.”

“I thought I had one in there.” He twists his lips as he contemplates where it might have gone, and then realization smooths out the lines in his face. “It’s in my bathroom,” he says, already pushing to his feet to go and retrieve it.

“No.” I lift a hand to stop him, which causes him to pause. “I can get it.”

“Rae, you don’t have to.”

His features are tense, drawn tight with the awareness of my feelings around his bathroom. What he doesn’t know is that I’ve been working through it in therapy, using EMDR to reprocess the trauma I associate with that room. I haven’t had cause to test out how effective it’s been until now, and I don’t want to miss the chance. It’s the last thing I want to check off of my list before I finally give Hunter his answer, and I’ve been determined to do it because before the break, this was the place I envisioned us raising a family, and I don’t want to let go of it just because of one bad day in one room. Of course, I know that if I needed him to, Hunter would, but I don’t want to need him to.

I want the treehouse in our tree.

I want a nursery in Will’s old room.

I want him and this house.

I want our home.

“But I need to,” I tell Hunter, turning before he can stop me and heading back up the steps. When I enter his room, it’s quiet. His bed is neatly made, and everything smells like him. The bathroom door is partially open, and I take cautious steps towards it, making note of what I feel in my body as I approach.

Mostly, I feel calm, which is good, and when I push the door open, I feel silly because it’s just a bathroom. It’s different than it was when I lived here. The tub is gone, and now it’s just a grand, walk-in shower with a waterfall shower head. The vanity has been updated, and there’s different tile on the floor, but the configuration is the same.

It’s still the same room, and there’s no changing what happened here, but I’m different now, and so is Hunter, and that’s why this time, this chance we’ve decided to take on each other, will be different too.

46

HUNTER

---