Minutes pass; the steam thickens.
Then her voice comes, small and raw.
“Logan?”
I swallow. “Yeah?”
A pause.
Then, barely above a whisper, “Thank you.”
Something inside me cracks open. Not in a dramatic way.
In the quiet way grief breaks you, slow yet inevitable, without asking permission.
I pull the curtain carefully, stepping closer to the water, trying not to make a huge mess all over the bathroom floor. My pants are getting soaked, but I don’t care. This is about her and what she needs right now, not about me.
I pour shampoo into my palm and work it into her scalp, slow circles, not rushing, not trying to fix anything—just doing the one thing I can do.
Sloane’s head tips backward automatically.
Her shoulders drop a fraction.
And when her breathing catches, when a small, broken sound slips out of her like she didn’t mean to make it, I keep my hands steady.
“I’ve got you,” I whisper, close to her ear. “I’m right here.”
She doesn’t answer.
She just leans back slightly, letting my chest support her for one second.
And inthatsecond, I realize something terrifying:
If she lets me hold her like this, even for a moment?—
I might never be able to let her go.
Sloane stays under the water like she’s trying to let it rinse the last two weeks off her skin.
Like the hot water can wash grief down the drain if she just stands there long enough.
I keep my hands slow in her hair, careful fingers working the shampoo through the roots, massaging her scalp the way Pops used to do when she was little and had a headache—she told me that once, years ago, like it was nothing. Like it didn’t mean everything.
But I remember.
The steam wraps around us, turning the bathroom into its own small world. A world where there’s no gravesite. Nocasseroles in disposable pans. No people saying he’s in a better place, like that makes the place he left any easier to live in.
She makes a tiny sound, caught in her throat, and her shoulders start to tremble.
I don’t stop. I don’t ask her to talk.
I just keep going, because giving her exactly what she needs feels like the closest thing to prayer I’ve ever understood.
When the shampoo’s rinsed, I squeeze the conditioner into my palm.
“Okay?” I murmur, close to her ear.
Sloane nods once.
