Splashes of ice-cold droplets hit my bare chest.
“Fuck, Helena!” I cut off the water and knelt in front of her trembling body, putting a gentle hand on the top of her head where it rested over bent knees. “Leni, love, why are you doing this?”
She lifted her head slowly, long soaked hair stuck to her face. My eyes widened when I took in her appearance. Her typically tanned skin was reddened and pale, lips purple, teeth chattering, and bloodshot eyes.
“Talk to me.” I framed her face tenderly, yet even in my hands, the shaking was uncontrollable.
“I—I can’t…c-can’t shut it d-down.”
“What? What is it?”
Her gaze was grief stricken and hollow. She clutched at her chest and lowered her head. “It hurts. It hurts…and I can’t stop it. H-he’s gone.”
A torrent of sobs broke from her lips then, each wail louder than the last. I’d never witnessed anyone cry with this much emotion, never seen someone break so profoundly. Her cries moved something in me, and all I wanted to do was make her better. Hold her and tell her everything would be okay, even if I had no idea what tomorrow would bring.
I wrapped her in the towel and lifted her in my arms, and she buried her face in my chest. Her sorrow echoed through my body like a wave, reaching deep inside to parts of me I’d long forgotten existed.
Slipping into bed, I held her close. “It’s okay. Let it out. Maybe it was never meant for you to turn off.” Helena’s hand clutched at my skin, nails biting into flesh as her cries intensified. “You can’t keep so much bad bottled up, love. It’ll consume you from the inside out.”
“He…suffered.” She shook her head, voice hiccupping. “Probably called for me. Oh, God.” Helena suddenly shot up out of my arms. “I’ll find them! I’ll kill them. All of them.”
I jumped after her. “Leni, wait. Stop, please.”
She reached for a Glock on the dresser and racked it back, chambering the bullet. “Get back,” she threatened, gun pointed at my chest. “I have to do this.”
I stepped toward her, and she tightened her hold on the weapon. “You’re not going to shoot me.”
A humorless laugh left her trembling lips. “I plunged a knife into the throat of a woman I’ve known longer than you. What makes you think—”
I held her wrists and pulled the barrel against my skin. “You’renotgoing to shoot me.”
Her brown eyes raged with emotion and indecision, but somehow, I knew that hurting me wasn’t what she debated…Not anymore.
“Leni,” I whispered, slowly sliding the gun from her hands and placing it back on the dresser. “Come here, love.”
“I can’t stand this pain, Silas. Help me. I feel like I’m dying.”
I kissed the top of her head and hugged her tighter. “Hold on to me. I’ve got you.”
She crumpled into my arms and cried hard until her legs gave out, but it didn’t matter because I was there to catch her.
* * *
Soft rays of sunlight filtered in from the edges of the curtain of a nearby window. I wasn’t sure how long I’d been awake. An hour? Two?
My right arm was asleep from being in the same position for most of the night, holding and stroking Leni. She’d cried until her tears dried up and her voice gave out, and without saying a word, she drifted to sleep in my arms.
Looking down, I watched her shoulders slowly fall and rise in time with her soft breaths. I brushed her hair to the side and goosebumps scattered across her skin, no longer reddened by the fiery chill of the shower.
Reaching under her chin, I tilted her head to see her face, where I noticed her plump pink lips and eyelids were swollen.
I ran my thumb over the bridge of her nose, my eyes unable to leave her as she slept.
I knew there was more to her breakdown than her father’s death. Helena had years of demons, ghosts, and skeletons locked inside her mind where she thought she was safe from their poison. But we all reached our tipping point sooner or later. Trauma festered and swelled until the day it overflowed and consumed us.
“You’re being creepy,” she said in a low, raspy voice, no doubt raw from the night before.
She was back.
