Page 65 of Your Fault

“Sleep tight, princess,” I said, kissing her cheek.

I closed the door behind me and saw Noah there waiting for me, leaning against the wall next to the bedroom. We needed to talk, and I wanted her to be first.

“You want to take a bath with me?” she proposed with a mischievous smile.

I smirked, took her hand, and led her to the bathroom, opening the tap and watching the tub fill up.

“You look good today…very elegant in that outfit,” I observed, pulling carefully on her hair tie. When it fell, her hair spread like silk over her shoulders. “What did you do this morning? Apart from ignoring me, I mean.”

She looked at the buttons on my shirt and with trembling fingers started to undo them one by one. I grabbed her hands, stopping her, a little anxious about whatever she was hiding.

“I hung out with my mom,” she said. “My battery went dead. That’s why I missed your calls.”

I nodded and let her continue. When she had taken off my shirt, she leaned forward, and I closed my eyes, feeling her lips on my skin.

Nothing compared to Noah’s caresses, the feeling was incredible; they made me feel so good…so at peace with myself. She was my drug, made just for me, able to drive me absolutely wild. I opened my eyes and cupped my hands over hers as they surrounded my neck in turn. I wanted to have her in the bath, relaxed. Maybe that way, I could figure out what the hell was going on.

I took off her top and that skirt that made her skin glimmer. Then I knelt and took off her sandals. Her body was incredible, athletic, not too thick or too thin. I could spend hours just admiring it.

She took off her bra and underwear and slipped into the water. I wanted to tell her it was hot, but she didn’t react; she just sank in up to her shoulders. I got in, too, and when she moved forward to make room for me behind her, I wrapped her in my arms. I clenched my teeth. It was burning!

“Jesus, Noah!” I complained in those few seconds till my body got used to it. “Are you not on fire right now?”

“No,” she responded distractedly, lifting some soap bubbles and observing them.

I pressed my cheek to her ear and enjoyed just being with her undisturbed and comfortable. But it upset me, not being able to guess what was going on in her head just then.

“Can I ask you a question?” she said, breaking the spell.

“Sure.”

“But you have to promise you’ll answer me truthfully.”

With my hand on her stomach, I began to trace little circles around her belly button. I was curious to know where she’d go with this, so I said yes, even if I wanted to toy with her for a moment beforehand. I let my fingers go a little lower than they should have, and I heard her breathing grow more halting. “Do you think your father loved your mother? Before they got divorced, I mean.”

I hadn’t expected that, and instead of clearing up my doubts, it left me even more disconcerted.

“I guess he loved her, yeah…but in almost all my memories, they’re either fighting or Dad’s away working… My mother wasn’t an easy woman, but he brought his own share of problems…” I remembered all those times he’d ditched us because he had to work or because he was just too tired. “When I was little, I started thinking fathers usually lived far away and only came home when they were tired or hungry. Of course, when I got older and could go to friends’ houses, I realized it wasn’t like that, that fathers could be around and it could be lots of fun. One of my classmates’ dads used to take him to school and pick him up every day, and they would go out for pancakes and play baseball in the neighborhood park… I was jealous of him. He made me realize fathers could spend time with their kids.”

I got lost for a moment in those memories, and it wasn’t until Noah turned that I realized I’d been transported to another time. I forced a smile and let her pull my head close and kiss me.

“I shouldn’t have asked,” she said.

I pulled back so I could look her in the eyes. “You can ask me anything you want, Noah. My life hasn’t been a fairy tale, but it’s been close to it, if I compare it to what some people have to go through. Not everyone’s made to be a parent, and some people really try and fail anyway.”

I wasn’t going to sit there and cry about how my parents hadn’t gotten along. My childhood hadn’t been perfect, but it would be ridiculous to piss and moan about it, especially in front of her. Noah felt bad for me, I could see it in her magnificent eyes, even though my life had been a walk in the park compared to hers. Maybe my father had been a selfish asshole when I was a kid, but at least he hadn’t tried to kill me. Sometimes my mind would mess with me, making me imagine Noah as a little girl, not much bigger than Maddie, hiding from her dad, forced to jump out a window… How could she even waste a second of her time pitying me?

“You think normal families exist?” she asked me. I knew what she meant: the kind of family you see in movies, with normal parents who go to work and their biggest worry is how to pay the mortgage at the end of the month.

Was that what she’d been thinking about all afternoon? Had she said something to her mother that morning? I was furious at the thought of Raffaella pestering her about how our relationship couldn’t be. I sat there thinking about it for a few seconds.

“That’s the kind of family you and I are going to be. What do you say? But no worries about the mortgage, obviously.”

Noah laughed, but I wanted to show her how serious I could be.

“Now it’s my turn to ask the questions,” I said. “Where do you want to do it, in the bath or in bed?”

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