The information landed somewhere soft. I couldn't respond to it, couldn't ask the follow-up questions that hovered in my brain, but I filed it away for later. Something personal. Something real.
"Coloring or a movie? After."
The choice confused me for a moment. Then he pulled something from behind his back—a coloring book. Not the cheap drugstore kind, but something nicer. Mandalas and nature scenes, intricate patterns that would require focus and time.
I didn't question why he had one.
My hand drifted toward it automatically, the part of my brain that had been screaming for something to do finally finding a target. He nodded, set it aside on the bathroom counter.
"After your bath. That's for after."
Then he was running the water.
I stood in the doorway and watched his hands move. Testing the temperature, adjusting the taps, waiting, testing again. The motion was practiced. Careful. Like he'd done this before, or at least thought about doing it enough that he knew exactly how it should go.
He added something from a bottle on the shelf. Lavender. The scent rose with the steam, soft and clean and familiar.
"Can you sit?"
He gestured to the closed toilet lid, and I sat. My legs were shaking. I hadn't noticed until I stopped moving.
"I'm going to braid your hair," he said. "So it doesn't get wet. Is that okay?"
A nod.
His fingers were gentle. Competent. He gathered my hair at the nape of my neck and began to work, the movements sure and unhurried. I felt the soft pull against my scalp, the whisper of strands being separated and woven together.
I wanted to ask how he'd learned. Wanted to know if there was a sister, a mother, a previous lover who'd taught him this particular skill. The questions pressed against my locked throat, but they couldn't escape.
He tied off the braid with something soft—an elastic, probably, though I couldn't see it. Then he pressed his palm briefly against the back of my head, a touch so light it might have been imaginary.
"There. All done."
He handed me the soft grey shirt. The fabric was soft as a whisper.
"I'll be outside," he said. "Take as long as you need."
He left.
I stood in the bathroom with steam curling around me and his grandmother's shirt in my hands, and I almost called him back.
Almost.
The word caught in my throat—not because I couldn't say it, but because I wasn't sure what I was asking for. I wanted him to stay. Wanted him to help me undress, wanted to stop being alone with my overwhelmed brain and my too-thin skin and the enormity of everything that had happened.
But I also needed this. The solitude. The silence. The particular sanctuary of a bathroom with a locked door and water hot enough to dissolve the tension I'd been carrying for days.
I let him go.
The bath was perfect.
I slid into it slowly, letting the heat seep into my bones. The lavender rose around me, soft and clean. The water was exactly the right temperature—warm enough to be soothing, not so hot that it overwhelmed.
He'd tested it three times. I'd watched him test it three times, adjusting, checking, making sure it was right before he let me anywhere near it.
The tears came somewhere around the third minute.
Quiet tears. Not the wracking sobs of last night, not the desperate crying of someone in crisis. These were different. Softer. The particular release of a body that had finally found safety and was letting go of everything it had been holding.
