Page 80 of Diesel
I don’t want to let go of him, but I do. He lowers me on the toilet like I’m made of fine China. I feel like I am. It’s been a long time since I felt this fragile, this disturbed.
Blood.
Soaking into the sheets.
Thick between my fingers.
I blink once, twice, three times before it morphs into cold tile and sterile porcelain. Zane leans into the shower cubicle, and a second later the water lets down. I listen to it tap against the plastic tray, the rhythm slowing my thoughts.
He’s quiet, too quiet.
The guilt pulses around him and the silence feels thick enough to drown in, but I don’t fill it. I don’t know what to say.
I don’t know how to scrub the image of Chloe bleeding out on that bed from my mind.
He doesn’t ask permission. He grabs the hem of my hoodie and pulls it slowly up my body, like he’s afraid I’ll shatter. Maybe I will. I feel like I’m hanging on by a thread.
I wait for him to say something, to ask what happened, but he doesn’t. He undresses me piece by piece, systematically. Structured, like he always is.
And I sit there, like a ragdoll, boneless and useless.
Numb.
He crouches to pull off my shoes and socks, but he hesitates. He doesn’t look at me, as if he can’t. He just drags a jagged breath in before his forehead presses to my knees and clutches my thighs like he can stitch himself into my pain.
He stays there for a breath. Then two. Then another. His jaw twitches and he pulls back. It’s not controlled, not gentle. It’s unsteady. Wrong.
He moves deliberately, with purpose, but it costs him. The way he releases that final breath, like it hurts to let it out makes my eyes burn. It’s like this is the real war he’s fighting, not the one outside the door.
He slips my trainers off, then my socks. His fingers linger on my heel before he places my foot back on the cold tile.
There’s nothing else to take off now, just my underwear. He slowly reaches behind me, his eyes never leaving mine as he undoes my bra. I want to sink against him, let him take my weight. My head feels too heavy, and my limbs are lead weights.
He slides the straps down my arms and tosses it onto the floor with the rest of my ruined clothes.
The cold makes my nipples pebble, but he doesn’t look at my breasts. This isn’t about sex or lust. He’s sewing all the torn pieces of me back together in this room.
He helps me to my feet, and I hold his shoulders as he slides my underwear down my legs. Goosebumps pebble along my thighs and arms as he shrugs out of his kutte, hanging it on the back of the door. He bends down to remove his boots, unlacing them both in the same pattern before toeing them off.
I stand in front of him, naked, exposed, but held. He’s not touching me. He’s too focused on stripping down to his skin, but it’s like I can feel his touch oozing out of the walls themselves.
His boxers are the last thing to come off and that body that I know almost as well as my own guides me under the water.
It’s hot, but every drop feels like needle points against my skin. Zane crowds in behind me, his heat at my back, his presence holding up the tattered remains of my sanity.
He reaches around me, grabbing the shower gel that I used only this morning. I turn to face him, the top of my head barely in line with his chin. I feel small, in a way I haven’t for a long time.
She was so pale…
The thought scatters as Zane lifts my arm, turning my hand over. He looks at the blood staining my skin like it’s mine, like I’m the one haemorrhaging in the shower. The water hits, turning pink as it swirls down the drain beneath me. He squirts the shower gel onto my arm and slowly drags his hand down my wrist, over my palm, rubbing circles as if he can scrub the memory of what I saw with his touch alone.
I stand frozen, locked in the horror replaying in my mind while he sluices the trauma away.
He’d scrubbed my skin that night as well. The same scene just years apart, only then it happened to be my blood and Zane’s.
And his.
Back then, he’d scrubbed the shame out of my bones. Now, he’s washing away the fear.
