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My breaths come faster once again, my eyes fill with water until my eyes can no longer contain the tears and they spill down my cheeks. Hate fiery and harsh floods my veins and with savage brutality I rake my hands across one breast, and then the other. I claw, smack and scratch at them, marking my skin over and over. “I hate you. I hate you.”
With each scratch I hear the doctor tell me I have cancer, with each sting I see my mother dying again, with each burn I see what the rest of my life could have been – what I can no longer have. Sobs make me choke and bring knocking and pleading to the bathroom door. In a haze I stop, I stare at my marked partially bleeding skin and I mourn. I mourn the life that I want, but can’t have. I mourn the fight I wish I had within me but don’t.
Oliver’s words somehow penetrate my mind, “Remy! I will break down this door. Please. Please. Open the door,” he cries.
Moving to the door, I open it. I feel nothing when Oliver’s horrified gaze sees what I’ve done to my body. “Oh god, Remy. Oh my god.”
“They just looked so innocent, so normal. Like they aren’t infested with a cancer that’s killing me. I couldn’t… I couldn’t-” I choke on a sob once more and my legs give out from under me, my emotions finally taking their toll.
Oliver holds my naked and self-battered body in his arms. I can feel him trembling. He walks me to the toilet and has me sit while he removes his clothing except for his swim trunks. Turning the water off in the shower he instead begins to fill up the large bathtub. When the water is to the temperature he desires, with much tenderness he picks me up and places me in the water. When he leaves and then returns with a cup in his hand, I obediently move my head back as he wets my hair. “I can do this,” I tell him, my voice sounding raspy.
“I know you can. But I’m going to.” I shake my head, “Please,” he says firmly.
At that word, I look into his eyes. Seeing what’s there, I drop my gaze immediately in shame. I hate that I caused the emotions I’ve stirred. . But no matter how crazy it may appear. I needed to allow my anger to come forth, to tear my nails into my skin. I needed to let myself feel and react emotionally for the first time since this has happened. Looking at him, I see his need to provide comfort, to tangibly support me – and so I acquiesce and let him.
The fact that I’m naked for the first time in front of him doesn’t faze me. I don’t feel embarrassment; I don’t feel anything other than exhausted. He even uses my body wash sponge and puts soap on it to wash my body. When I inhale sharply at the sting when soap meets my scratches, his jaw hardens but he continues his work until he helps me out and I dry off.
When I’m finished, he waits for me to dress and then picks me up and lies me in bed. I almost tell him I can do it for myself but stop myself again.
He lies next to me and pulls me onto his chest. We’re quiet for a while and he strokes my arm up and down. Time passes and I can feel myself relax and calm bit by bit. He’s a balm that soothes the fire within me and if I wasn’t so exhausted from my emotion explosion, I’d be embarrassed. Instead, I let myself relax further and sigh deeply, I hear Oliver say, “I’m sorry.”
Lifting my head I look at him in confusion, “Sorry? For what?”
His face flushes and if the circumstances were different perhaps I’d tease him. I’ve never seen him blush before. “I shouldn’t have… I didn’t know that…” he stops and seems flustered.
“Are you apologizing for kissing me? For being intimate with me?” He nods quickly, his eyes meeting mine before looking away. I shake my head, “This is not your fault.”
“Yes it is. You’re… you just found out for Christ sake and here I am practically mauling you.”
“Oliver,” I sit up to look at him more directly, “Oliver,” I say his name again, on purpose, so he will meet my gaze. “I wish I could explain what happened, other than I simply needed to be angry. To rant and rage and be pissed, but that has nothing to do with what you did, okay?”
I can see the doubt on his face still, so I take it a step further, “I loved it when you kissed me, when you touched me. I didn’t want you to stop and I am pissed that my stupid pent up emotions chose that time to surface. I’m the one that’s sorry.”
Without a word he pulls me back to lie on his chest. He holds me close and then finally says, “We can talk about it more later.”
Closing my eyes I take a deep breath and the smell of him, salt and musk, a smell I’m coming to crave, calms me. “Oliver?”
“Yeah?”
“Can you give me one of your reasons?”
He’s quiet for a while and I don’t think he’s going to answer. I close my eyes and just about succumb to sleep when I swear I hear him say, “You. You are all my reasons, Remy.”
