Page 18 of Fragile Touch (Fragile 1)
It seriously looks like there’s an old woman living here. That was all he could conclude. None of it made sense. He would have to ask her. Now was the perfect time, since she was not her normal mysterious self.
He filled the glass with ice and water and, heading back to Lillian’s room, made a fart noise with his mouth at the black cat asleep on the chair. The cat didn’t move.
I hate cats, he thought.
She hadn’t moved.
“Here.” He took her hand and touched it to the glass. She grabbed it with both hands like she’d been thirsty for days, and gulped half the glass down.
“You’re good at chugging.” He tried to break the quiet. The music in the other room didn’t quite reach her room at its current volume. “Had some crazy college days, I bet.”
She looked up at him with an evil eye, then went back to the water. A small stream of it dribbled down her chin, and she shoved the glass back at him before wiping it with the blanket.
“You don’t have to be here,” she croaked as she hugged the big pillow.
“You’re right, I don’t.”
“So you can go.”
“What if you need something?”
“I won’t need anything.”
“Who’s Amelia?”
Obviously, Lillian was still more drunk than he thought because he saw her face crinkle like tissue paper. A stream of tears just like the water down her chin trickled from the inside corner of her eye and made a small puddle on the pillow.
She said something so quietly he couldn’t understand, but it sounded something like “I need you.”
“Is she your friend?”
“She’s not here anymore, don’t you understand?” The sudden shouting shocked him.
“I don’t understand, because I don’t know her at all, and I don’t know you very well. But I want to.”
Ignoring what he said, she dug her fingernails into the edge of the mattress. Her knuckles turned white. “I never let myself be sad about her.”
“What happened?”
“I lived with her above the nightclub, and she told Reg to make me a drink, and then she saved me when the bad things happened.” Her voice was garbled behind the fresh slew of tears, and Cayden didn’t try to translate. That wasn’t what he had been expecting her to say.
“Where is she now?” His voice came out just a hint timid, and it surprised him. It wasn’t easy to make him feel uncomfortable, and somehow this small neighbor he barely knew had managed to do it in five seconds.
Lillian’s bedroom suddenly got cold and deathly quiet.
“She’s dead,” he heard her whisper, so softly he wasn’t sure if he heard right. “My best friend is dead.”
Oh, shit. He was positive he wasn’t ready to handle this kind of heartbreak, but Lillian was very adamant about wanting to live independently and not wanting him to spend more time around her than he had to.
It made him want her more.
He lost track of his thoughts for a moment, processing the vulnerable information she had just shared. He heard himself saying “I’m so sorry, Lillian,” and suddenly he was kneeling beside her bed, brushing the hair back from her sweaty face. And she wasn’t protesting. “Are you going to be okay?” he asked innocently. In a situation like this all he should be thinking about is how beautiful Lillian was, drunk and sleepy or not, but the memories of his friends calling him “whipped” and worse crept into the back of his mind.
I just want to make sure she’s okay. Focusing was hard. Alongside these thoughts, his eyes kept wandering to the empty side of her bed. She was hanging halfway off this side. There was so much space next to her. He knew he would fit perfectly into it.
She nodded, her eyes mostly closed. He almost blushed; she looked so peaceful despite the emotional turmoil that she had been going through. Hopefully it had just lasted for today, and wasn’t something that plagued her all the time. He saw how fragile she was on the outside and figured she was much stronger on the inside, but that didn’t detract from his wanting to see her happy and healthy.
“Can you unlock your phone for me? I’m going to put in my number, and you text me or call me if you need anything.”
