His lips part, releasing a shuddering breath.“I didn’t save her,” he mutters, the words pulled from his heart.His voice is broken, thick with tears.
His gaze locks with mine, filled with self-loathing.“I let her die.”Tears track through the water droplets on his cheeks.His throat works convulsively.“I should’ve been there,” he chokes out, another rough breath tearing from him.
My own tears blur my vision, my heart breaking for him.
For the little boy he was.
For the broken man before me now.
No words could possibly touch grief this deep.
I move from kneeling in front of him to sitting right beside him.Without any hesitation, I turn and wrap my arms around his shoulders, pulling him gently to me.
His body is rigid beneath my hold.
He remains stiff in my embrace, but I don’t waver.
I keep on holding him firmly, patiently, letting him know I’m not going anywhere.
Then, something gives.
A slight shudder runs through his frame, followed by a heavy exhale.The tension in his shoulders begins to loosen, his muscles melting under my hold.He sags, leaning into my side.His own arms come up slowly, wrapping around my waist, trembling.Another shuddering gasp tears through him, and then his control completely shatters.He buries his face in the nook of my neck as deep, ragged sobs wrack his body, shaking us both.
He clings to me as years of suppressed grief pour out of him in a devastating flood.
I hold him tighter, my own tears flowing freely, my cheek pressed against his wet hair.
Letting him cry.
Letting him finally break.
Slowly, his ragged sobs subside, replaced by shuddering breaths.He remains heavy against me, face still buried in the crook of my neck.My own tears slow.My entire focus narrows to the man trembling in my arms, to the rise and fall of his back beneath my hands.His grip around my waist is still strong, desperate even, but the frantic edge has eased.
Time loses meaning.
In this sanctuary of steam and falling water, there is only the weight of him in my arms, and our shared, broken breaths.
Matthew’s face remains hidden.His breathing evens out further, becoming deeper, though each inhale is thick with spent emotion.My hand on the damp curve of his back slides up to the nape of his neck, just below his soaked hairline.Gently, I smooth the short strands upward, letting my fingertips linger, feeling the tight cords of muscle soften under my touch.
He doesn’t pull away.
He leans into my touch.A subtle yielding.
His hand, which had been gripping my sweater so tightly, flexes.His fingers uncurl.They settle just under the hem, the pad of his thumb now brushing against the sensitive skin of my side.
My heart stumbles, then launches into a frantic rhythm.
Matthew’s head lifts slowly, water sluicing down his jaw and throat as he pulls back.He leans against the shower wall, bringing his face out of the cascade, though droplets still cling to his cheeks.
He blinks, eyes adjusting, before focusing solely, intensely, on me.
I see it all laid bare in those red-rimmed green depths.The crushing exhaustion, the gut-wrenching pain, the profound vulnerability of a man utterly stripped of his defenses.
But underneath it all, something else surfaces.
An awareness…
His gaze holds mine, unwavering, searching.As if seeing me for the first time all over again.
