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There’s this deep, unnerving sort of feeling that stirs up when I think about being inside her again. Bizarrely, it almost feels like… sorrow. Or homesickness. Or some kind of breath-stealing nostalgia. Whatever the fuck it is, it hurts. Hurts to even imagine fucking her again because I want it, want her, so damn bad.
But that’s not what she needs tonight.
She needs tea, which I’ve made her. She needs a bath, which I’ve drawn her.
She needs her hair washed, which I’m doing for her.
She needs to be tucked all safe and cozy into bed. I’ll be the one to do that, too.
Right before I tuck my own scarred body in next to hers.
Chapter 4
Deirdre
“You’re way too good at this,” I mumble. I want to be resentful about it, but the bone-melting pleasure of Elio massaging my scalp makes it impossible.
“I know how to take care of my Songbird.”
“Hmm,” I say noncommittally. His fingers dig and glide along every point of my head, rubbing slow, firm circles in the lather, making my whole neck tingle. The bubbles in my bath are starting to disintegrate into nothing, putting more of my body on display, but at this point I’m too tired and relaxed from the massage to care. My skin is warm. The place between my legs stings.
Elio works the lather down the lengths of my hair, tugging ever so gently, which makes my scalp prickle pleasantly.
“How the fuck do you have so much hair?” he asks. A question like that would have made me bristle before. Because I used to get comments and questions about my hair when I was younger and they were almost never nice.
And while I can’t say that Elio is exactly nice, there’s not the undertone of icky judgment that usually accompanies a question like that. He sounds like he’s genuinely asking, like my hair is some new, confusing thing that needs to be explained to him.
“Um. Genetics?”
“No way. I’ve seen your papà.”
“It was thicker when he was younger,” I say, but then bitterness creeps up my throat, and I don’t want to talk about my dad anymore. “My mom had a ton of hair. Different colour, though. It was the most beautiful shade of blonde. I used to want blonde hair so badly. Especially after she died.”
The fact that it’s the anniversary of her death hits me all over again. The events of tonight have distracted me from my grief, but it comes rushing back. So heavy that in normal circumstances it would push my head beneath the water.
But Elio is here. Holding my hair. Anchoring me. Keeping my head above the water.
It occurs to me that it’s probably after midnight by now. The anniversary of her death is technically done. There’s usually a wooden sort of relief that accompanies the days after the anniversary. A numbness different from the sharper pain. Like I have to slowly claw my way back to living.
Strangely, I don’t feel that. At least, not yet.
Maybe it’s because this year was different. Maybe it’s because I went to see her, even if the night did end in a total shit show. I chew on the inside of my cheek, honestly wondering if, had I known what I know now about how the night unfolded, would I still have wanted to go? I assumed my instant answer would be “no,” but I truly don’t know. And maybe that makes me a terrible person, because people ended up dead tonight.
But still…
It felt right for me to be there. At least at the beginning.
And it felt right with Elio.
In my state of relaxation, I find myself able to slink around the bad parts of the night and remember what happened before. Remember the heart-achingly beautiful bouquet of blooms Elio picked out just for her. Remember the way he knelt down, more respectful than I’ve probably ever seen him, painstakingly cleaning the snow from every nook and cranny of her headstone.
Elio is quiet for a while. He twists my hair, squeezing some of the lather out of it, then suddenly says, “Don’t ever dye it.”
“What, you’re in charge of my hair colour now too?”
“Yes.”
Isn’t that what he said to me on the very first night in this house? Every flaming hair on your pretty little head. All. Fucking. Mine.
