I’d like to hope that Juliette would be the same, but something told me that explaining the fact that I’d been sleeping with her son wouldn’t be so straightforward.
39
GABRIEL
That was close.
I had not even realised that I was crying until I saw the concern on Laila’s face.
When she asked me what was wrong, I almost told her everything.
I wanted to. So much. But I could not.
It was not just because I found it painful. It was because if I told Laila, her view of my mother might change.
And I wanted Laila to choose to spend time with me because she wanted to. Not because she had discovered how my mother’s actions had affected me.
Anyway, thinking of this was upsetting. I had to focus on Laila.
When I came out of the bathroom and saw her curled up in a ball on the bed, crying, my heart shattered.
I knew that there was nothing that I could say to make her feelings go away. Talking about her parents had caused a lot of painful memories to resurface, so I needed to be there for her and show her how much she meant to me.
So I picked up the box of tissues on my bedside table, then climbed on the bed and wrapped my arms around her.
Whether she wanted to cry for a few minutes or for hours, I would sit here and hold her for as long as she needed.
* * *
‘Would you like to go for a walk?’ I asked Laila when she woke up. I had held her for over an hour whilst she cried and then she fell asleep. Now it was evening.
Laila shook her head.
‘I don’t have the energy,’ she whispered. ‘I want to have a shower, but I don’t even think that I can stand up. I know it’s stupid because it happened so long ago, but…’
‘It is not stupid. Let me run you a bath,’ I said. ‘You can relax with an audiobook if you do not have the energy to read.’
Her face had brightened at the suggestion before falling again.
‘I don’t have a subscription any more. I couldn’t aff… it ran out.’
‘Do not worry about that. I will be back in a moment.’
Whilst the bath was running, I asked Laila if I could use her phone to reactivate her audiobook account. She was so deflated that she did not even protest, she just handed it over.
After going into her account, I entered my credit card details then charged a one-year subscription with extra credits to it, so that she wouldn’t have to worry about the cost.
Once the bath was set, I lit the candles I’d found in the kitchen, then returned to the room where Laila was slumped on the bed. My heart squeezed. She was always so strong. So determined. I hated seeing her so upset.
‘I will undress you and take you to the bath,d’accord?’ I asked.
Laila nodded.
I laid her back on the bed, undressed her carefully, tied her braids on top of her head, then carried her to the bathroom before lowering her into the bath.
I rested her phone on a chair beside the bath along with a glass of chilled water, then pressed play on a popular romance novel.
‘Relax for a while and I will come back soon to check on you.’
