AllFreeNovel
Share Us
"What is it you think you are doing?" he snaps.
"Getting dressed," I answer.
I can see his longing to punish me. To hurt me. To push me away. But I also see the relief hidden behind those harsh emotions. I’ve seen him vulnerable now, and it has changed everything between us.
Even now, the tension still lingers. The chemistry that neither one of us can deny. His palm throbs with the craving to pull me closer. To keep me at arm's length so I can never run away from him. But I think that even Javi knows he is powerless to this force now.
He is softening. Bit by bit, I am chipping away at his armor. At his insecurities. I have seen this transformation. I have no intentions of stopping it.
I point to the comb and scissors laid out on the counter.
"I thought I might give you a haircut today," I tell him softly. "If you'd like."
His eyes move over the comb and then my face. I won't get a firm yes from him. I can already feel him slipping away. It needs to be now. I walk to him and take him by the hand. A hand that is so much larger than mine. A hand that can inflict pain and pleasure in equal amounts.
I stroke my thumb over his palm and smile up at him. Soft. Vulnerable. Nervous. I want him to say yes.
I pull on his arm, and he follows. And when I gesture to the chair next to the sink, he sits.
The chair is small, and he is large. Still naked. He doesn't like it. So I remove my towel and wrap it around his shoulders before placing another over his lap. Towels so large they swallow me whole look like mere scraps on him.
I spread his long hair out and reach for the comb. I don't know how much he'll let me cut off. I don't know if he's even had a haircut since he was a child.
"How short would you like it?" I ask.
He's quiet. Tense. Annoyed.
"Just cut it all off," he answers.
So I cut. And I cut some more. And I keep cutting, waiting for him to erupt. But he never does. When it's short enough, I pull the electric razor from the drawer and start to trim.
It’s a long process. But he does not complain. The longer I work, the more relaxed he becomes. When I am finished with his hair, I move onto his beard. Trimming it to a more manageable level. One that highlights the strong features of his face, but still hides the scars lurking beneath.
And when I am finished, I hand him a mirror. He stares at his reflection for a long time. I don't know what to expect. I don't know if he likes it.
He simply hands me back the mirror and grunts.
"Are you done?"
“Yes.”
He gets up and tells me to finish getting dressed while he walks down the hall to his own room.
I know what will come next. I hasten to put on my dress and wait for it. I wait for his fury. His yelling. And just as I feared, he appears in the doorway a moment later. This time, he is clothed in jeans and a tee shirt. But his fists are locked at his sides. The vein in his neck is pulsing. And his eyes are lasered in on me.
"Where are they?" he demands.
"You don't need them anymore," I whisper.
He stalks towards me, and I scurry back until I hit the wall behind me. He corners me and grabs my face, rough and dominant.
"Where. Are. They?" he roars.
It takes every ounce of courage I can muster to do what I do next.
I yell back at him. The way he always yells at me.
"You. Don't. Need. Them."
He stares at me in disbelief. Then annoyance. And I wait for it. Wait for him to blow. To flip. To say he's going to punish me. To threaten me and scold me and have his way with me like he always does. But this time, he is waning.
There is uncertainty in his eyes. He wants to believe me. And I am not about to let this opportunity pass me by.
"I have already seen you," I tell him again. "There is no reason for you to be lurking around here with your face covered in shadow all the time. Especially not now that you've had a haircut."
He searches my eyes. Looks for the lies hidden within my words. I take him by the hands again, and he lets me. He lets me touch his face.
"Is it so wrong of me to want to see you?" I ask. "Can you not believe that perhaps I am telling the truth, Javi? That perhaps I actually find you incredibly handsome."
He doesn't respond, so I continue.
"Things are always worse in our own minds," I remind him. "You should know this better than anyone. The way you exposed my fears and exploited them when you brought me here. The words you played on repeat. The ones you knew would hurt me most."
He looks away. And for the briefest moment, I thought I saw shame in his eyes. But he does not voice it. He does not allow me to witness it again, either.
"Your scars mean nothing to me, Javi. Please. I am only asking you to try it."
"I want them back," he says again.
But his voice has lost the harshness from before, and he does not demand that I bring him the hoodies now.
Instead, he simply leaves the room.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
JAVI LOCKS himself in the office over the course of the next three days.
He has not asked me for his hoodies again. From the rare glimpses I get when I catch him in the hall, I know he is walking around without them.
I am lonely.
There is a hunger inside of me that I can’t defy. I ache for his body against mine. The smell of his skin. The vibrations of his voice. I lay in bed at night and wonder what he's doing. I wonder how to break through the walls he has built so high around his heart.
And then I wonder why I want to. Why am I still so broken for him?So willing to overlook the things he has done.
My mind and heart are divided.
I don’t know how to find peace with either decision when they both hurt so much. It is ripping me apart. I can love him or hate him, but I can't go on feeling both.
I write in my journal. I play at my piano. And I sing songs with words only he can hear. But still, he does not come.
My heart is melancholy, and I think of my father too often. I wonder where he is. If he's even still alive. I wonder what he would tell me to do if he were here now. Then I remember it wouldn't matter. Because I have always been on my own. Even when he was there, the solitude was an ever-present guest. He was consumed with work, and I was consumed with vying for his attention.
My soul is tormented by the mystery of his fate. The unknowns that still linger. But even so, there is peace in my bones. Peace that wasn’t there before.
I am at ease with the knowledge that Javi needed him too, in his younger years. Regardless of whatever happened between them, Javi did love my father once. He looked up to him. And I know my father loved him too.
Now, only questions remain. Questions I am not certain I will ever have the answers to. Not until Javi is ready to share them.
The doorbell rings again this afternoon, and this time I do not race to see who it is. Javi locks eyes with me before he moves towards the door. Searching for what he is so certain he will find there.
Hope.
Hope that someone else has come to save me. But that is not what he sees. I know, because it is not what I feel. I ignore the visitor and continue the business of writing new lyrics.
It is only River anyway. He comes into the kitchen to snatch an apple from the counter before he follows Javi into his office. They shut the door behind them and remain there for an hour. And when River leaves again, Javi emerges.
Agitated.
He looks at me, and I do not like what I see there. I don't like the doubt in his eyes. The shift in his mood. He seems cold now. Shut down. I think he's going to punish me again. He's going to push me away or hurt me. But that isn't what he does.
He goes to the gym. And stays there for two hours.
Punishing himself instead.
I'M SOMEWHERE between worlds when Javi startles me by removing the book from my hands and setting it on the table beside me.
The conservatory is dark now, apart fr
om the glittering lights of the stars above and a solitary lamp on the table beside me. The roses are fragrant, and the air is warm, and there is something else in the room between us.
A new energy. A strange energy. An exciting energy.
Javi bends down and scoops me into his arms, carrying me to the bathroom. He places me on my feet again and removes my clothes before starting the bath.
I don't question his actions.
We are both silent when he helps me into the bath and begins to wash me. Shampooing my hair and cleaning my body with his hands. When he is finished, he moves to pull the plug, but I stop him.
"Don't," I plead.
His eyes are absent of the turmoil I saw there earlier. He is softer now. And I don’t want to waste these moments, which are so rare with him.
