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Chapter Thirty Six

After a refreshing morning swim, I quietly have a shower. Rhys is still firmly asleep. Will, Slam and Jules managed to carry him safely from the car to his bed last night. There was no way I would have been able to do that with just me and Slammer. The only thing I did manage to successfully do, was undress and stay with him. As soon as the fresh air had hit Rhys, he became like dead weight in his too-drunk state. I was too scared to fall asleep because I was worried that Rhys might throw up. Fortunately, he didn't. He literally just passed out. But I stayed awake the whole time, just in case.

Exhausted beyond words, I relax to the soothing sound and the warm sensation of the shower. With closed eyes, my entire body lets the water pleasantly drench it. In my relaxed state, I didn't even hear Rhys come into the bathroom. It's only when the shower door slides open, do I become aware of his presence. Pale, unshaven and naked, Rhys stands just inside of the shower with his dull eyes staring back at me. His intoxicated and deep sleep hasn't rid him of any of his anguish; it torturously still blankets every inch of his weary nakedness. Although he is awake, so much despair still haunts his every waking moment. This is Rhys's lowest point. It wasn't last night, it is now. Last night was merely the precipice to his lowest and darkest point.

This is where he completely falls apart.

Not ever taking his desolate eyes away from mine, Rhys solemnly steps inside of the shower. Wearing nothing but his misery, he suddenly falls to his knees with the water baptising all of his pain as he desperately clings to my legs. Falling to my own soaked knees, I embrace Rhys as he breaks apart in my saturated arms. He isn't just stripped bare in a physical sense; he is despairingly stripped bare emotionally and soulfully. Rhys is sacrificing himself to me. He is showing me the deepest and darkest part of himself. What pain and hurt he has inside of himself, he wants me to see all of it. With the water falling down on our bodies, we embrace tightly as Rhys's bitter bereavement is being cleansed. He has tried to be strong for so very long now, he has nothing left to fight with. His sorrow has finally beaten him. He no longer wants to pretend to himself or to me, that he's okay. This is Rhys finally letting go and letting me in. He is offering all that he is, all that he feels, to me. Every broken piece of himself, he is letting me see. He is silently begging that I help to put him back together, because love can do that—it can repair the most broken of souls.

And I will.

I will lovingly put each tortured and beautiful piece of him slowly back together. I will do it because I love him with all that I have inside of me. With the most tender of wet kisses, I start kissing him all over his head, face and shoulders. Each kiss more tender than the other. Rhys cries and cries with his head held low and his arms still wrapped firmly around me. "Stay." That single ragged and broken word is uttered from his weeping mouth.

Cocooning my hands around his thoroughly drench cheeks, I move his head up. "I will."

His wet lashes lift, his bereaved eyes then slowly fix onto mine. "You'll stay?" He asks in such a sad and vulnerable way.

My own drenched face offers him a hopeful smile. "I am staying here with you, Rhys. I couldn't leave you even if I tried. I love you. I love you in a stupidly, ridiculously and crazy way. So, I am staying. I can only ever be where you are. You could say, you're stuck with me now." The shower continues to rain down on me, but with the water falling hard upon my face; I keep smiling at him.

Rhys just pulls me against his bare and soaked chest, holding me as he cries some more. His thumping heartbeat can be felt against my cheek, thumping with relief and hope. He held me like that for quite some time. The warm water continued to fall at the same time as his diluted tears. As the water and tears fell, we said nothing. We just clung to each other on the floor of the shower and clung to what my staying would mean for us.