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“It doesn’t feel like it,” I sniffled.
“I know, baby, but it will be. I promise.” He hugged me tightly until the sobs slowed down a little. “Think you have the energy to stand in the shower?” he asked after a while. I took a deep breath and lifted my head enough to meet his eyes. My face was stinging from the cold and all the tears I has shed and I knew I must look terrible, but he smiled for me as he swiped at my tears with his thumbs.
“I…I don’t think I c-can be alone right now. I’m scared I’ll fr-freak out again,” I admitted shakily. “Will you c-come with me…in the shower? Just to shower, I mean. Will you stay with me?”
He nodded and kissed the top of my head without a word. Then he gathered me up into his arms and carried me through to the bathroom.
Inside the small en-suite was filled with steam now. Nick set me down on the counter and helped me to remove my ripped and blood stained pajamas. Any other time I’d have been terrified about him seeing my scars and watching every micro expression on his face as he saw them, but I just felt numb in that moment, completely drained by all of the emotions I’d been through that night.
“Underwear on or off, baby?” he asked, the words startling me in the silence of the space. The only other sound was that of the water rhythmically hitting the shower tray.
“Off,” I answered, then lifted slightly to help when he slipped off my panties.
I didn’t care as I sat completely naked before him while he hurriedly stripped down to his black boxer briefs. I was still shaking, exhausted, and emotionally spent.
“Evie?” I looked up and found Nick crouched down so we were eye to eye. I blinked to clear the fuzz from my head. “Stay with me for a bit longer, okay?”
“I’m okay,” I whispered.
“No, baby, you’re not,” he sighed. “We’re gonna get in the shower now, okay? I’m gonna pick you up. Can you hold onto me?” He was talking softly, being gentle with me, and I needed it in that moment.
I nodded and wrapped my arms around his neck, pressing my face against his hard, muscular shoulder as he slid his hands underneath me and lifted me up easily. He guided my legs around his waist and I clung to him like a spider monkey, breathing in the familiarity of his scent and taking comfort that I wasn’t alone. That he was there and he had me.
I don’t know how long we were in the shower. I didn’t even lift my head. I just hid against Nick and zoned out, fighting hard not to allow my tears, or horrifying memories to find a way into my thoughts. I was too exhausted to handle anything else.
Gradually the shivering and teeth chattering stopped as the heat from the water and steam seeped into my bones and soothed me as it warmed me. Nick was speaking to me as he took the towel from my arm and washed the cut under the spray, but I don’t know what he said.
At some point Aleks called to check on us and Nick assured him we were okay. I remember thinking I really wasn’t okay though. I just felt like if Nick made me let him go, I was going to break into a million tiny pieces that would never again be put back together.
NICK
Evie clung to me the whole time we stood under the spray of the warm shower. I was talking to her but she wasn’t responding. She was just clinging to me like she was terrified to release me even a little.
I waited until the shivering stopped, then I cleaned off the worst of the cuts as best I could with her clinging to me so tightly. I knew she was exhausted. Her body had worked hard to try and keep her warm with the shivering, and it had drained her on top of everything else that had happened. I guessed she was likely pretty emotionally spent too after the events of the night. It was killing me to see her that way, and there was nothing I wouldn’t do to comfort her.
I shut off the shower when I was sure she was warmer, then paused in the steam filled enclosure, hoping she’d look up at me.
“Evie?” I said when she still didn’t move. “We’re gonna get out now, okay?”
“No…please,” she rasped weakly. “Don’t leave me.”
“I’m not going anywhere. I just need to get you dry, okay? Before you get cold again. Can we do that?” I asked softly. I felt her nod just once, and took that as her agreement. I stepped out of the shower cubicle and hurriedly grabbed a towel, awkwardly struggling to wrap it around her, with one hand, before she felt the chill of the room around us.
“Aleks?” I called through the door when I realized there was no way I could manage alone. I needed to get her dry and dry off myself and I couldn’t do that with Evie clinging to me. And there was no way I was putting her down when she was so out of it and afraid. “I need Aleks to help us, okay baby? Do you think he can hold you for a while?” I asked gently.
The bathroom door opened and Aleks came in quickly, closing the door again behind him to keep the heat in the room.
“Everything okay?” he asked as he looked to Evie with all of the concern I was feeling too.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered tearfully. “I just….d-don’t want to be alone…not yet.”
“We’re here, malenka. We’re not going anywhere,” Aleks assured her as he came to my side and ran his hand over Evie’s wet hair soothingly.
“Can I hand you to Aleks while I get dry, Evie?” I asked. For the first time she lifted her head and looked right at Aleks. She was pale and her eyes were bloodshot and so heavy. She was barely keeping herself awake.
“Come on, honey. Time for my cuddles,” Aleks teased her gently as he opened his arms in invitation. She released my neck a little and I took that as a good sign and lifted her away from me enough to wrap the towel around her front too, desperate to keep her warm after she had been so frozen earlier. I knew it wouldn’t take much to have her shivering again.
Once Aleks and I had worked to tuck the towel around her, I handed her into his arms and she instantly wrapped herself around him, just as she had been wrapped around me.
