Total pages in book: 114
Estimated words: 106003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 106003 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 530(@200wpm)___ 424(@250wpm)___ 353(@300wpm)
He didn’t deserve this.
Nobody deserves this.
“It was a long time ago, they’re all healed now,” he says as if he doesn’t live in a cave, sleep under a bed, and is afraid of a shower being too loud. Call me presumptuous, but I know it’s connected to the tender skin under my fingers. He’s nowhere near healed from whatever happened to him. He looks back at me with one cautious dark eye. “I’m sorry. Is it off-putting to look at? I can—”
When he attempts to get up I grab his arm and pull his ass back to the water with a wet plop.
“It’s not. I’m just…” My eyes shut as I rest my forehead on his shoulder and breathe him in, relaxing despite his past being so clearly distressing. I know I’m small, physically weak, and have nothing much to offer, but right now I’m stuck with an aching need to protect him from anything that might hurt him, any haunting sight and sound, even his memories. I want to whisper ‘you’re safe now’ despite him being the one to have saved me twice already. I feel so painfully helpless about whatever happened to him in the past. I can’t travel in time, I can’t undo these scars.
“I’m just so sad someone treated you like this. It’s so cruel…”
“Well, I killed her, if it makes you feel better,” Creep mumbles, his heart beating ever faster. Even when admitting this, he seems more worried about my distress than his own.
But I’m not distressed. Whoever does that kind of thing to another person deserves whatever’s coming for them. “It does. It does actually,” I say, my voice stronger by the second as I lean against him, chest pressed to his back, because I need him to not only hear but also feel that I’m on his side. “At least there’s some justice in the world.”
“There isn’t. You have to make your own. I… I was still a child when all of this happened. The shameful secret of my family, meant to be neither seen or heard. If I failed at that, I was punished.”
Creep’s voice is dull, but I have no doubt about the emotion hiding just beneath the surface. I’m desperate to ease his pain somehow, and since he seems so cautious about sex, I don’t want him to feel like I’m trying to seduce him when he’s sharing the rawest parts of himself. So I back away slightly and grab the shampoo, settling on doing what I know so well, physical care not loaded with sexual connotations. I want him to feel seen, worth being taken care of. Even if he was someone else’s shame, he didn’t deserve to be.
As promised, I remain very careful about the noise and move the showerhead close to his skin. He doesn’t try to flee this time, submitting to my ministrations. And as I lather his scalp with the shampoo, gently massaging his head, he tells me about the small, meaningless life he used to lead while under his aunt’s roof. He was left to her by a sister she despised for a ‘sinful lifestyle’.
She hated him in a way no child deserves and bullied him until he chose to remain hidden for most of the day. He emerged at night, when neither the aunt nor his four cousins could sully their eyes with his presence. He was a monster living in the wardrobe, in the small cabin at the back of the orchard, the monster who hid under the bed when someone unexpectedly appeared close by.
Is that why Creep feels so comfortable in tight spaces? Why he moves like a ghost and speaks softly, despite having such a beautiful voice?
The aunt accused him of creeping on the girls and would frequently punish him for it despite being the one to force him under their beds in the first place. I itch to ask why he still does it if he’s free of that bitch, but I don’t want to rip into a wound he’s barely opening up for me. Instead, I take pleasure in comforting him with my touch.
The bathroom is so warm now, Creep accepts when I brush his hair, condition it, when I soap up his shoulders, his back, and even chuckles when I slide my fingers into his armpits.
I don’t feel like we’ve bonded. I’ve gotten much more than that. We’ve somehow transcended that concept, as if we’re both lucid dreaming and our souls see each other.
I’ve never felt like this. I’ve had crushes, I’ve thought I was in love, but this is something I can’t even name yet, afraid words are too heavy for this fragile bond. There will be time for me to pry, to shift the self-deprecation off his shoulders, but for now, I listen to his warm voice, which is only slightly louder than the whisper of the shower.