The Blossom of Rose

33 • Denying

♚ Luca ♚

The amber liquid swirls in my glass.

We pulled up to the house and she said, in a hurried urgency, that she needed to bathe and bolted inside before I have the chance to turn the engine off.

I checked on her only to see her sitting in the bath, still in her blood-spotted dress, waiting for it to fill up. She had her knees pulled to her chest as she stared, distantly at the marble tub. She told me what happened that night. I told her she didn't have to, but she insisted. I think she thought if she said it aloud then it would stop happening in her head.

I'm not sure if it worked.

A squeezing fist wrapped around my chest at every abrupt, shuddered sentence that left her quivering lips. It got too intense for me, strangling my breath away.

So now, I'm sitting on the fucking kitchen stool on my second fucking glass of whiskey while she's still in that fucking bath. I glare at the liquid, unsure whether it's my enemy or my saviour. Usually, it's the latter.

We all have our coping mechanisms. Mine is the numbing pleasure of isolation and alcohol and hers is long, hot baths where she scrubs herself until her skin withers away.

I've never dealt with this shit before.

Hence, I woke up Mancini and he told me that I have to bandage her arms and thighs up or she'll self-harm even more.

That was...I check my watch, half an hour ago.

After I spoke to Brando, I pressed my ear to her bathroom door only to hear the foam of the soap scrubbing, strongly, against her skin.

That was...I check my watch again, twenty minutes ago.

I take her pills, fill up a glass of water, grab the roll of bandages and make my way upstairs. Ricky sits up at the sound of my footsteps as I near her door but when he senses it's me, he relaxes again.

I expect her to be sitting on the bed but it's empty. Panic immediately settles in my blood, and I abandon the things in my hands, bolting for the bathroom door.

It's silent. I can't hear anything.

The anxiety and fear shake my fists and I pound on the door, unable to utter her name because of the boulder in my throat. There's an agony every time I imagine the thinkable unthinkable.

This can't be fucking happening.

No, she can't be. She must be in there. Alive. Fucking breathing.

Fuck it.

I rattle the handle of the door and it flies open.

The bathroom is empty except for the suffocating steam. She's not laying in the bath, lifeless. I exhale an unbearably relieving breath, unclenching that fist that was strangling my chest.

In my 27 years of life, that was the second moment when I felt pure fear. For losing someone I'm growing undoubtedly attached to.

"Luca."

That voice. It unclips the shackles of my black fucking heart and drowns me in relief. Relief relief relief.

I spin to see her standing there. In person. Alive. Fucking breathing.

The damp strands of her crimson hair fall just above her waist, and she holds some in the smaller towel she's using to dry it. The t-shirt she wears sits loosely on her body above her knees, but you can see the small baby bump sticking out. Her beautiful green eyes are clouded and are not as bright as usual but sit above the dark circles under her eyes of her paler skin.