Page 49 of Golden Burn

The sheer amount of silent pain she’s trying to hide cracks me wide open. I have done this very thing more often than I can remember. I’ve stood underneath scalding water till I blistered, dunked myself in ice cold baths till my toes turned blue, just so my mind could concentrate on something other than despair and longing and grief.

It’s almost as if her gentle, seeking touch unleashes the lock on my soul. She looks up into my eyes and pulls all the oxygen out of my lungs. And along with it, a piece of information I hate remembering.

“She was my wife.”

Harriet blinks, her fingernails dragging across my pebbled skin. “Was?”

“She died. A long time ago.”

Her face crumbles with sympathy. “So you have it too, this… this emptiness,” she says and presses her fingertips beneath my ribs.

“I do.”

She trembles violently now, the cold affecting her system more intensely than it’s affecting mine. I reach to the side and turn the shower off, but my gaze remains locked on hers.

“My heart will never be full again, will it?” she asks as the water disappears down the drain.

It takes me some time to find the right words. Even still, it won’t be enough to rid her of her torment. “It will be packed with different things, all in different places. It will seem foreign, but it will still be full.”

She sighs and drops her forehead onto my chest. “I don’t know if I believe you.” My hands immediately reach for her shoulders, holding her together. It doesn’t require any thought, any doubt. I do it because I must. Seeing her like this is worse than when she screams at me. “Everything about me is different. I don’t even recognize myself. The pain is everywhere. I’m always angry or always crying or always tired.”

She crumbles, curling herself into me, seeking the heat that is hidden underneath my chilled skin. Her arms fold into her own chest and she cuddles me like a newborn baby fresh from the womb. I rest my chin on the crown of her head and stroke her wet hair.

“I miss her,” she chokes.

“I know.”

Because I do. I will never know what it is like tonotmiss Gen. It is an itch that I can never scratch, a piece of my heart that will always be splintered, a nightmare I wish had been someone else’s reality and not mine.

I shifted bodies the night she died and I’ve been trapped in it ever since, too exhausted to find even a sliver of the old me. But somehow, right now, the temptation to search for it rises, like a fresh bud from a dead stem.

“Let’s get you warm,” I say, rubbing her arms.

She sniffles, “I’m pretty warm right now.”

“Not enough to my liking.” She lifts her head and finds my attention. I brush back a piece of wet hair draped across her cheek. My fingers linger, curled behind her ear. Her eyelashes flutter, her mouth parts on a satisfied inhale.

She unfolds her arms, and her hands begin to roam until she finds my hips. She pulls us closer together. I can’t help but grunt, because if I didn’t, I would moan.

I cup her cheek and rub my thumb along her damp skin. “I think you need some sleep.”

“I do,” she nods, but her eyes are not too convinced. It’s clear there’s still a kernel of desire that hasn’t been dampened. I grab a fresh towel and place it around her shoulders. Putting space between us is like peeling apart bricks. I have never wanted to wrap my body around anotherhuman being more than I have in the last hour. And that is strange, in and of itself.

“I’ll be a minute,” she says and I leave her to change.

I do the same outside the bathroom and by the time we are both dressed, the weariness of the last few days begins to take its toll.

Harriet shuffles to bed in a new set of pajamas with a glass of water in her grip. Without words, we slip under the covers. I remain upright. I won’t be able to fall asleep even if I wanted to.

“Goodnight, Odin,” Harriet says, pulling the covers up to her chin and turning on her side so she’s facing me.

“Goodnight, Harriet.”

“Call me Etta.” She yawns and closes her eyes, snuggling her head into the downy pillow. “Or sweetheart, you know, whichever suits your fancy.”

My face heats as the endearment that’s slumbered amongst my vocabulary hangs in the air. Harriet—Etta—smiles to herself but remains asleep, and that tiny glimpse of joy is powerful enough to make me feel as though I’m experiencing a high magnitude earthquake.

I reach and turn the lamp off, bathing the room in a purple haze, and wait for my head to stop spinning.

---