I don’t remember being too uncomfortable last night.But by the time I woke up, I was lying down normally on the couch, Curse gone.He’s so much bigger than me.I don’t even think he could stretch out all the way on this piece of furniture.My heart sinks at the thought that, not only was he recovering from the overdose, but he was also in pain from whatever position he’d slept in all night.
“Alright,” I say, rising from the couch, hearing the plastic squeak and sigh as I release it from my weight.“Show me your room, I guess.”Now that I’ve decided it’s bedtime, it’s like my body has finally let me feel all the fatigue that’s been gathering.My head is so heavy, my stomach bloated and a little nauseous.I just want to lie down.
His fingers twitch forward, and for a second I’m dizzy with the thought that he’s about to take my hand.But of course, he doesn’t.He merely lifts it in a gesture towards the gigantic marble staircase that leads from the house’s giant foyer up to the second level.Suddenly, the thought of even climbing the stairs becomes too much.I’m not even sure that I could crawl up them at this point.With a groan, I let my knees buckle, sinking back onto the couch.
Curse is on his knees in an instant, his fingers firm at my jaw.
“What is it?”he asks, turning my head with his hands.I shiver as his touch ghosts over the bandage at my temple, shifting the strands of hair away.“Your head?”
“Myeverything,” I admit.I’m too exhausted for bravado now.Sickness roils in my belly.“You should move,” I tell him weakly, trying to bat his hands away.“I think I might puke on you.”
“Go ahead,” he says instantly.“I’m not moving.I’m not going anywhere.”
I blink at him, finding his beautiful face so close to mine.Close enough to feel his breath, close enough to kiss.His eyes, so black, so absorbing.But eyes that I know from experience, that I know from twenty-two years ago, have so much warmth in them, if only when the sun hits just right.Along with the nausea comes the sudden agony of grief, rising on an unstoppable tide inside me.I can feel it, a physical wave, expanding painfully, pushing higher and higher, past my ribs, right up into my throat.
I tip my head down and vomit.I’m too sick to even feel bad about the fact that I puke down the front of his shirt and onto his legs where he kneels.At least I warned him.He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even pull his hands away.Instead, I’m distantly aware of him gathering my hair at the nape of my neck, holding it out of the way.Like he doesn’t care if his own clothes get wrecked, but letting my hair get dirty is one step too far.
“Sorry,” I croak when I’m done.“I told you that you should have moved out of the way.”
“Don’t apologize,” he says.“I knew what I was in for.”
He knew what he was in for and he didn’t turn away.He knew what he was in for and he didn’t back down.He just stood there, holding me, even while being splattered in my filth.
It’s a reminder of what I’d quietly hoped for, a long time ago.In my fantasies about marrying Curse, I sometimes timidly wondered if I might ever be able to tell him what had happened at Carlo Messina’s house in Taormina, in that terrible darkness, that little bed.I’d tell him one day, and he wouldn’t flinch.He would stand by me, hold me like I was just as whole and pristine as he always thought I was.I suppose that’s the biggest fantasy of all, isn’t it?That I could tell him what had happened to me, that I could tear myself open and show him just how ruined I was, and he would love me through it anyway.
Maybe I could tell him right now.He’s already covered in my literal vomit.And I already know that he will never love me.So really, what do I have to lose?
But I don’t have the strength.I can’t even string the words together inside my own head.Whenever I try, the little girl in there starts screaming behind the glass I’ve locked her into, slamming her fists against the walls until tiny hairline cracks begin to form.Her little hands are bleeding.
“I’m serious.Is it your head?”Curse asks me, still holding my hair, still so fucking close.“Maybe the injury is worse than Morelli thought.I’ll call him.”
“I don’t think it’s that.The pill…” I scanned the leaflet that came with the morning after pill and saw some side effects listed there.I hadn’t paid them much attention, to be honest, because I had no choice in taking the pill.I’d swallowed it down with my water and had taken a rather cavalier, come-what-may sort of attitude towards the outcome.
Curse’s jaw, and the muscles around his eyes, twitch with tension.He gives a grim nod, releases my hair, then stands.
I shake my throbbing head at the sight of him.Barely-digested lasagna and bile form a foul line down his front, from his chest to his knees.I’m already opening my mouth to apologize again when tells me, “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”I hedge.
“Don’t fucking say sorry again.Not to me.Never to me.”
He pulls his shirt off in a swift movement, tossing it down on top of the puke on the floor.His pants follow suit, until he’s standing before me in nothing but his tight black underwear.I avert my gaze, swallowing.I desperately need to rinse my mouth out, or brush my teeth.But first, I need to clean up this mess.Take back all the poison I’ve poured out into the world.Scrub it, hide it, make it disappear.
“Don’t do that, either,” Curse says sharply when I reach for his dirty clothes.“Someone else will deal with it.”
“No one else should have to deal with it,” I cry.“That’s horrible!”
I slide forward on the couch, about to sink to my knees beside the messy pile, when two hands seize on me.My breath catches as I’m suddenly lifted, swept easily up into Curse’s arms.It reminds me of the last time he did this.Only then, I was crying hysterically, basically on the edge of a nervous breakdown.This time, it’s post-puking.Lovely.Somehow I always seem to show myself to him when I am at my worst.
But he carries me in his arms anyway.
“Are you going to haul me into a cold shower again this time?”I ask him.My lips unintentionally graze his neck as I speak.Fascinated, I watch as goosebumps break out over his skin there.What would he do, if I gave into the urge to touch his skin?To trace the constellations formed from his flesh?
“No,” Curse says, taking the stairs two at a time.Even with the extra weight of me in his arms, it seems to be no real effort for him at all.“I’m going to put you to bed.”
“I need to brush my teeth first,” I say.I’m totally wiped-out now, but even so, I can’t imagine collapsing into bed with my mouth tasting and feeling this way.
Curse grunts his acknowledgement, taking me into the same bathroom I showered in earlier today.My suitcase is still here.He sets me down on the counter, in the exact same place he had me earlier, when he was on his knees before me.He pauses a moment, as if to make sure I’m not going to puke again, or pass out and fall off the counter, before he releases me to bend over the suitcase.He retrieves my pink toothbrush and the toothpaste, passing them to me.
