Page 105 of Deep In Love
“You’ve grown so much since we met. I can see your shine.” Her voice quiets. “You’ve always had this…armor to protect yourself—a solid shield to hide your emotions. There’s something softer about you now. He brings it out in you, I think. He lets you shine, Charlie.” A tear falls down her cheek, and matching those streaming down my own. “I think he understands your soul.”
“I hate when you make me cry,” I wail, swiping away the pesky moisture.
Her words linger, though. An arrow piercing what little is left of my shield.
“So…you have a boyfriend?” she screams through the phone, ending the emotional moment—for my sake.
“I-I think so…”
My face heats, the warmth creeping out to my ears and down my neck.
Before Amy can answer, the door to the bathroom cracks open, and I yelp. Mateo’s head pops in the room, his hair unruly and sticking up at a million different angles.
“She does,” he says confidently before he winces and slams his eyes shut. Amy squeals, wolf whistling, and the grating sounds echo through the small bathroom. “Hi, Amy.”
“I’ve been waiting for this moment for my whole life.” She sighs. “Greatest day ever!”
Amy rattles on about how she knew we would work together, but her words fade away when the pinched expression on Mateo’s face worsens.
“We have to get to work,” I say quickly, “I’ll talk to you later.”
I hang up and open the door wide to take a closer look at Mateo. Something is wrong. A tight, twisting sensation settles below my diaphragm. His eyelids are pinched shut as he leans against the doorframe for support.
“What’s wrong?” I grab his cheeks between my palms, moving his head around. He groans and I stop. “Are you hurt? Did you fall? Are you going to vomit?”
Please don’t vomit.
I don’t know if I can handle that. I babysat once, and the child threw up all over me. I’ve never been able to shake the trauma of that experience.
“It’s just a headache,” he says, but he groans again.
“Sit,” I demand, guiding him to the edge of the bed.
He falls unceremoniously, his lashes still fanning his cheeks.
“My CPAP didn’t seal properly,” he mumbles as I sit beside him, dropping my survival kit between us.
I massage the nape of his neck to relieve some of the tension. He sighs, leaning into the touch, and something inside me cracks before mending back together.
I’ve never taken care of somebody before. I was always the person needing the care. Weeks in the hospital. Trips to physical therapy. Years of struggling with arthritis. Someone has always offered support, even when I was too embarrassed or stubborn to want to accept.
My mother spent weeks helping me complete simple tasks after my hip surgery. Showering, moving around,existing, wasn’t possible without someone else. The total dependence on another person morphed into hyper-independence.
I was capable of doing everything on my own. I didn’t need someone to take care of me or coddle me. Amy was the first person I let help me with anything, and even now I hate asking her—I hate burdening her with my problems.
“Take this.” I hand him a pain reliever and my water bottle and watch to make sure he swallows. When I’m happy he’s ingested the medicine, I pull out the essential oils I use when I’m overwhelmed or have a headache from staring at my computer for too long.
I perch on my knees behind him and dab the essential oil on my fingers before pressing them to his skin behind his ears, gently massaging the oil into his skin. His head lulls to the side as a small mewl falls from his lips.
This is the first time someone has let me take care of them, and I’m not going to screw it up.
It’s hard for me to verbally express how I feel about Mateo. It’s there, banging around my chest, but putting words to the feeling makes it real, and I’m not ready for that. So, for now, I’m going to take care of him, the way he’s taken care of me.
Adding more oil, I work the muscles in his neck and at the base of his shoulders, working out the stiff knots where the two meet. His sighs are the only sound in the room, and his muscles loosen until he becomes dead weight, shedding all the stress he carries.
The whole time, I am shoving down my giddiness.
I like taking care of Mateo, I realize as I finish. It’s fulfilling, like it’s something I’m meant to do. The same way I’m meant to publish a paper inNatureand discover a new species.
