𝐒𝐞𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐝𝐢𝐩𝐢𝐭𝐲

Chapter 42

Why was he here?

What sane person would stay after taking a look at the impossible fucking state I was in?

Nobody ever stayed. Nobody wanted to bother with me because I wasn't their problem. So of all people... why was Elliot the exception? Why was he here taking care of me?

What had I done to deserve his help?

Elliot continued to lather the soap in my hair, softly massaging the peak of my head and behind my ears with his fingertips. Any other day and I would've melted in his hands at the gesture.

I didn't want him to leave.

Just for once in my stupid, sorry life... someone had accepted me for the way I was.

"I'm going to wash it out now," he uttered. "I hope the water isn't too cold."

But when he reached up to get the showerhead, it fumbled out of his slippery grasp, hitting the edge of the porcelain bathtub with a metallic clang. The sound was like another gunshot. It had me jerking away with a horrible shudder in my shoulders.

"Shit, I'm sorry—" Elliot stammered— "I'm so sorry."

Forcing deep breaths through my flared nostrils, I suffered silently as the sound echoed through my mind, goosebumps flaring over my arms.

It wouldn't stop.

It just kept on reverberating in my head, making my hairs stand on end and leaving my muscles rigid. It was a hurricane—and you couldn't fight a hurricane. Enduring it was the only way the torment would subside.

But then, as Elliot's small fingers curled through a section of my dark locks, another sound cut faintly through the air.

If you could feel sounds, then whatever was echoing through the bathroom felt like the comforting embrace of a warm blanket in a cruel winter.

Elliot... he was humming.

Quietly, of course, and in a tune that was smoother than honey. It distracted me from the thoughts in my head, drowning out the last faint echoes of gunfire and slowly calming me beneath Elliot's light touches.

Carefully taking the showerhead this time, he started up the water and let it trickle on his hand first to check the temperature. When he finally began to rinse out the suds, I tilted my head back slightly, closed my eyes, and leaned backward to be closer to him.

The gentle sounds of his voice put me through a wave of emotions I hadn't felt in a long time. I couldn't even describe it.

It just felt like... well... home.

I'd always wondered why everything felt out of place, and now it was blatantly clear. The apartment had never been a home before this point. There was nothing here that gave me a reason to keep going.

But now... now there was Elliot. His very presence seemed to lock in a piece of a puzzle that had been missing for years. He was distracting me with the quiet hum of his voice, soft notes connected in a repeated melody for me to get lost in.

I wasn't thinking about the burning in my side anymore, or the blood that had been on my hands, or the pain in my body.

Just Elliot.