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She blinks at me. “What are you doing?”
“I’m going to take off your clothes and get you in the tub. You’re soaked through from the rain.”
She nods weakly, and I help peel her wet clothes away and lower her into the tub.
Before I can back away, she reaches for my hand. “Will you get in with me?”
I have other things I need to be doing. I was supposed to leave thirty minutes ago, but I ran to the gates the second I heard Charles was here. Still, I strip down without hesitating and join her in the water. Laila makes room for me to settle behind her, and then reclines back against my chest.
After a few minutes, her trembling subsides and her shoulders relax.
“Now, I’m better,” she sighs.
I kiss her shoulder. “How’s your hip?”
“Better,” she admits. “Arsen, please don’t tell my mom about what just happened. I don’t want her to know he showed up here.”
I lift her arm out of the water. The marks are faint but still raw and red. “How will you explain this?”
“I’ll figure it out. I just don’t want to worry her.”
“Very well.” I press another kiss to the tender bruise. “She won’t hear about it from me.”
“Thank you.”
We sit in silence for a long time. I trickle warm water down her arms while she rests against my chest, sighing softly every so often.
I’ve never experienced anything like this before—the peace that cocoons us. The ease of simply being with someone without needing to fill the silence.
My hands work gently over her body, tracing the shape of her under the water. When I reach her hip, I remember something I heard. I can’t stop myself from breaking the silence.
“What you said back there, about why your father left… Is it true?”
She turns in my arms. “Yes, it’s true.” Laila looks peaceful, but there’s a storm churning in my chest. “He stuck around for maybe a week after Mom and I left the hospital. The day they removed her bandages… that’s when he left.” She draws slow circles across my chest, tracing my scars and tattoos. “I woke up and heard voices from downstairs. I listened from the top of the staircase. Mom was crying, but he was stone-cold. ‘How can I stay now? Everything is ruined. Look at you.’”
I hold her tighter. “He’s an asshole,roza. He’s scum. A pitiless excuse for a man.”
“I don’t disagree.” She purses her lips. “But, up until that moment, he was still my dad. He was around, at least. I thought that was enough.”
“Being a father is about so much more than just being there. It’s putting your kid first no matter what. It’s sacrificing your happiness if it means ensuring theirs.”
She smiles sadly. “Did you have a father like that?”
“I did. He was a good man.”
I can’t remember the last time I talked about my dad. Either of my parents, really.
But Laila presses.
And, for some reason, it feels easier with her here.
“What were they like?”
“Dad claimed it was love at first sight. She was a waitress at a cocktail bar, and once he laid eyes on her, that was that. He said he knew she’d be his wife one day.”
“Wow,” she breathes. “Turns out the rom-coms weren’t lying to me after all.”
I shrug. “It doesn’t matter now. They both died young. They never got their happily-ever-after.”
