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“You okay, kiddo?” Dad’s voice pierces the air when we’re halfway up the stairs.
“I’ve got everything I could need,” I tell him with a smile, although my heart aches knowing that it’s not the truth. Someone is missing. And if I’m being honest with myself, he’s the only one I want beside me right now as I try to put myself back together.
“Go grab what you need, I’ll get the bath running,” Stella says the second we hit the second floor.
I push through into my bedroom with a lingering hope that I might find him in here. I have no idea if I even left the window open, allowing him entry, but my fickle heart still hopes.
It’s pointless, because I soon discover that my window is locked up tight and my room is exactly as I left it the morning before. A fucking disaster zone.
A smile twitches at my lips, knowing how much he’d hate it if he did appear. It’s way more of a mess than he could deal with.
Memories of driving him to insanity in the short time we lived together fill my mind, and for some bizarre reason, longing to go back to that tugs at me.
There was something weirdly enjoyable knowing just how much I was affecting him, how deep I was burying myself under his skin.
“I found some bubbles in the cupboard. I like to think they belong to your dad,” Stella jokes. “All those muscles, the ink, and the bubbles,” she muses.
Reaching for my pillow, I launch it across the room at her in the doorway.
“There’s something wrong with you,” I hiss as a shudder rips through my body at the image she just painted so vividly for me. Bitch.
“Sorry, would you rather I put another body in your head?” She wiggles her brows. “I bet he’d look hella hot surrounded by innocent fluffy bubbles.” She bites down on her bottom lip as if she’s imagining it, and I can’t help following suit.
Yeah, that’s a visual I’m gonna need one day.
“Okay, enough,” I snap out, dragging my head from the gutter.
I gather up a clean pair of knickers and pyjamas and march past Stella and into the bathroom, dumping the lot onto the floor before peeling the clothes that guy gave me from my body.
“Burn these,” I say, holding them out to Stella who I know is standing behind me. Her concerned stare makes the skin on my back tingle with awareness.
I might not want it, but I also can’t deny that it feels nice, comforting.
“Sure.” She takes a step away, but I don’t let her get very far.
“Later. Come sit with me.”
She hovers until I’ve stepped in the quickly filling bath and have mostly vanished in the mass of bubbles before she joins me and closes the door.
She hesitates for a beat, looking between me and the floor before she shocks the shit out of me and starts pulling her clothes off.
“What the hell are you doing?” I gasp.
“Shut up and spin around,” she demands, and not two seconds later does the water rise around me as she joins me. “Tip your head back.”
I follow orders and let her tip warm, soothing water over my head before she grabs my shampoo and sets about washing the stench of that place off me.
Neither of us says a word. They’re not necessary. I feel it all though, deep down to my soul. Her support, her love, her need to look after me and make sure I come out of this in one piece.
It’s not until she’s rinsed the conditioner out of my dark lengths that she tells me to spin back around once more. And the moment our eyes connect, red-hot tears fill mine.
‘I love you,’ I mouth, needing her to know how much I appreciate everything she just did for me. How much her support means to me.
She reaches for my hand and squeezes tightly.
“Talk to me, Em. What’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”
Laying back, I rest my head on the bath and close my eyes, allowing the warmth to soothe me as well as banish the chill that’s still in my bones.
