chapter twenty • shower talks

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Ivy Matthews

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Ivy Matthews

"Nathan?" I question, knocking on the closed bathroom door with some clean clothes I stole from my brother's room in hand.

When I don't hear anything but the shower still running I knock again before I slowly open the door and close it behind me. I'm all ready to just plop the clothes on the counter when I hear faint sobs echoing from the shower.

"Nathan?" I question again, "are you still in here? Are you ok?"

The sobs don't cease with my question and I hesitantly walk toward the shower curtain, pulling it back slowly to reveal one of the most heartbreaking sights I've ever seen.

Nathan is curled up in the corner of the shower, still wearing his t-shirt and boxers, soaking wet while his head is pulled between his knees and sobs echo off of the light pink tiles. He hears the opening of the shower curtain and looks up at me, his eyes red-rimmed while his dark hair is plastered to his forehead.

"Fuck." He inhales, neither one of us taking our eyes off the other.

"I'm sorry I sorta barged in here." I start with a hesitant step forward, "I was about to just pop in and leave clothes on the counter but then I heard crying and wanted to make sure you were ok."

He heaves out another sob at my words, his voice shaky when he finally speaks, "you shouldn't have to see me like this, I'm pathetic."

Taking another step forward I sit down facing him in the shower, "you are far from pathetic, Nathan."

"I'm wearing clothes while crying in the shower in the middle of the afternoon, not sure how much more pathetic it can get." His tone is a biting laugh like he finds it as much funny as he does disappointing.

"Well I'm also wearing clothes in the shower in the middle of the afternoon so I must be pretty damn pathetic too." I try to joke but his face doesn't change and I let out a sigh. Scooting myself closer so that I'm sitting next to him instead of in front of him, both of our backs are resting against the shower wall while I let us sit there in silence for a minute, the only noise present the pattering of the rainfall shower crashing against the tiles.

"I'm kidding, but why are you in here? What's wrong?"

"Nothings wrong, don't worry about it." He mumbles, slapping his head back against the wall.

"If you haven't noticed, I'm a natural-born worrier, so you might as well tell me because I'm not letting you leave this shower until I know what's wrong."

"Someone is pushy." I hear ever so quietly under his breath before he turns to sit against the other wall, his body facing me while I crane my neck to look over at him, "do you wanna know why I'm in here? Why I'm crying in your bathroom in the middle of the day?"

Sensing it's a rhetorical question I don't verbally answer just fitting a small nod of my head into the conversation before he starts up again.

"Because I don't have this." His voice has climbed louder as he starts, angrily gesturing his hands around the bathroom, "I don't have the nice brownstone in the upper east side, I don't have the big supportive family, I barely have a family for fuck sake." Another bout of tears leaves his eyes, streaming down his cheeks while his rage remains stagnant, "I haven't seen my mom in two weeks, she's packed up and off on her next work trip before I get home from school, and the old fucker who's technically my father is probably dead somewhere."

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