Page 38 of Beautiful When He Breaks

I scrub too hard, but that’s not new. The water runs hot enough to redden my skin, and still I stand under it longer than I should, palm braced against the tile, trying to get out of my own head.

Soap. Rinse. Repeat.

When I finally shut the water off, the bathroom is a haze of heat, and I still feel disgusting. Not physically. Not in any way a second shower would fix.

I towel off, pull on sweats and an old T-shirt, leave my hair damp, and pad back into my room without turning the light on. I don’t want brightness. I don’t want clarity. I want blankets and darkness and for the inside of my chest to stop scraping against itself.

I crawl into bed, turn onto my side, and stare at the wall. For a while, I do a decent job of not crying. That’s the stupid benchmark now. Not feeling better, or processing, or naming. Just don’t cry and don’t make this one more thing that reduces you to some shaking, humiliated version of yourself in the dark.

My throat aches anyway.

I pick up my phone just to have something else to look at. Social media is exactly what it always is, and I scroll because movement feels better than stillness, because stillness lets memory back in.

It doesn’t work.

I drop the phone onto my chest and let out a slow breath through my nose. Then Luca’s face drifts up in my head from earlier this week. That look he gave me in the locker room—half concern, half patience.

You in danger? Tell Killian or me. Don’t do the stupid macho shit.

I close my eyes for a second. Then I grab the phone again and scroll to his contact.

Me: You free tomorrow?

The message sits there for half a second before I add another.

Me: Need to talk.

I stare at it one last time, then hit send before I can lose the nerve. The answer comes quicker than I expected.

Luca: Yeah. Anytime. You good?

I snort softly because, of course, that’s the first thing he asks. Straight to concern. Straight to the point.

Me: Not really. Tomorrow?

Luca: Tomorrow. I’m here for you, man.

That nearly gets me after all. I lock the phone and set it down on the mattress beside my head, breathing through the sudden pressure behind my eyes until it eases.

Tomorrow.

That’s manageable.

Tomorrow means I can stop holding the entire thing by the throat tonight and just survive until morning. It’s a coward’s postponement, maybe. But it’s still more than I’ve done before.

My body starts to sink at last, exhaustion flattening me from the inside out. I’m right at the edge of sleep when there’s a knock on my door.

My whole body goes cold before my brain catches up and remembers there is no scenario in which that man is knocking on my bedroom door inside the Sin Bin. Then the handle turns before I can answer, and the door opens a crack.

Eli stands there in the dim hall light, looking wrung out and tired. He’s in sweats and a T-shirt, hair mussed, and he pauses just inside the room, checking whether I’m awake enough before he comes any closer.

“Hey,” he says quietly. “You asleep?”

“Not yet.” My voice is rough from disuse and almost-sleep. I push myself up a little against the pillows and blink at him in the dim light. “Everything okay?”

He nods, and then half shrugs, which usually means no, not really, but nothing’s actively on fire. “Killian offered to look after Mila for the night so I can get some fucking sleep,” he says. “He said if I checked the monitor more than twice, he was revoking my parental rights.”

That earns him a small laugh before I can stop it. “Sounds generous.”