Samick doesn’t waste time relaxing like I did. I hear the splash first, then the rubbing of soap over a facecloth.
Keeping my back to him, I wander the bathroom.
It’s not large enough to be an exploration or anything, but there are enough cupboards to hold my interest just by rifling through.
It’s more entertainment than I’ve had in months.
I don’t waste the time I have.
Samick is already washing his body, so I get started on applying moisturiser all over me, and night cream for my face, and I comb out my hair, then clip my nails, and by the time I’m fingerpainting an avocado green mask to my face, Samick slices through the silence—
“How did your mother die?”
I look over my shoulder at him, his stare running over the back of my legs.
Then he lifts that stare—and his face turns to a blank canvas of surprise.
Because my face is green.
Guess there’s no avocado face masks in the dark fae world. Or he wasn’t paying attention, and didn’t see it coming.
Samick blinks, then drops his gaze to my fingertips, glazed in a glossy green sludge. His frown is unamused and full of judgement.
“It’s skincare,” I tell him, then stroke my fingers down my neck, covering more of my winter-beaten skin in the mask. “And she died of cancer.”
He looks at me. His stare is blank, unaffected.
He says nothing.
“Do you know what that is?” I pry.
There it is again.
The echo, the whisper, the fucking ghost of a smile. “Even plants get cancer.”
I lower my lashes and, with a roll of the jaw, turn back to face the mirror.
I’ve never heard such a fucking minimalization of cancer before—and it churns something ugly in me.
The water splashes gently behind me. “My mother died long ago, too. But I do not wallow.”
The ugly churning in my belly hesitates.
I rinse my hands, then I angle towards him.
Wrapping my arms around my breasts, I hold the towel in place.
Cloth tossed aside, stuck to the ledge, he runs his shampoo-slicked fingers through his hair.
“How’d she die?” I ask.
“A territory dispute.” He sinks into the water to rinse his hair free of blood, grime and suds. Then when he rises, water spilling down him, his face and hair are sparkling clean. “My father, too. I do not remember them.”
“So it’s easy for you to not care, right?”
His dull stare returns to me, fringed with long lashes and surrounded by a water-glistening face.
“Idoremember my mum, and I remember her dying—slowly. I don’t care if plants get cancer, or you lost your parents before you could even remember them. It’s not the same, Samick.”
