My Kind of Woman

27. Our Day

I noticed her eyelids were red, like she'd rubbed them too hard, or she'd been crying. I thought then that she might be lying so I didn't worry, that she really was ill.

"Are you in the same clothes from yesterday?" She was smiling, and her voice broke me from my worrying thoughts.

I looked down at myself as if I'd forgotten that I'd passed out in the damp underwear and stretched clothes from the night before. "Uh, yeah. That's really gross, sorry."

"That tired?" She said, a glint in her eye that made me smile a little.

"Yeah, really tired," I mumbled. "I'll go shower, I was just coming to see if you're alright. And I think you are."

"I am," she said.

"Good," I nodded, turning to leave.

"It's the last day," she said.

"I know. I think I'll feel really rough when we go tomorrow. I really love it here," I frowned.

She sat up in bed, pushing the duvet back off her body. "You haven't had a bath yet."

I glanced back at the bright bathroom, seeing the edge of the porcelain tub glistening, its smooth, toothy surface reflecting the button of the sun. My heart ached. "I haven't."

She stood up, wrapping her robe tighter over her figure, and I watched her come striding towards me. I held my breath. She touched my hip as she passed and I repressed a shiver. Her hair had a perfect tangled look to it in the morning, something I'd never seen anyone pass off well. But her hair was just so silky, so perfect, it fell smoothly - no matter what you did to it. She leaned over the tub and turned the tap with the red circle taped on it. Warm water gushed from the wide opening of the faucet and splashed against the porcelain, steam rising in faint swirling puffs. Then she leaned further, extending out her fingers to push open the window, the hem of her robe sliding up against the back of her thighs.

"You having a bath?" I asked, pressing my back flat against the open door.

"For you," she said.

I watched the water line rising and swallowed. I wanted to kiss her, I wanted to ask her to sit in with me, for her to sit in my arms, in that bathtub, with the smell of the sea wafting through the open window.

"Too hot?" She said.

I stepped forward and swished my hand about in the water, checking the temperature. It was just right, perfectly warm, I wanted to sink into it before it was full.

"No, no, it's just right."

The water was getting higher. I'd have to get in soon. My heart was still beating hard, too hard. Still, we were standing by one another, not saying much. There was a lot we had to talk about, a ridiculous piled amount that weighed behind us when we were together. I just wanted to be normal, I think she did too. But the kind of normal she had been for seventeen years of her life, hadn't been the one she wanted.

Once over halfway up, I said,

"I'll get in."

She gave a soft, "okay", and slipped back into the bedroom. But she left the door hanging open. Was she coming back in?

The tops of my ears were burning, in the mirror across from me I could see that they were red. I started to undress. I pulled off my shirt first, it was loose and the neck was stretched from where I'd tugged at it. After tossing it down by the sink, I hooked my thumbs into my shorts and shimmied them down my legs, letting them pool around my feet. My underwear was thin and crinkled where the damp had dried slowly, my bra was twisted. When I unclasped it behind my back and let it fall, my skin had red grooves in it from where my wire had dug in. Those red indents ran under my breasts and to the edge of my ribs. The water was still rising. I finished undressing, turned off the tap and gingerly stepped into the bath.