Page 35 of Bloom

By the time I pull up to the house, I'm numb. Too numb to hear any of the other names he calls me as I lug him up the driveway. It's a struggle, balancing him and shoving open the unlocked front door, but I do it, so there's another bright side. Another step complete.

The second we’re inside, Dad shoves me away and stumbles into the living room, as if being near me pains him as much as being near him pains me. He flops on the sofa without a word, without so much as a glance in my direction. Less than a minute later, the sound of his snores fill the room.

I want to cry. Looking around, I really want to cry. It's disgusting in here. Dirty and dark and gross. The home I grew upin was in a state of disrepair before I left but now, it's borderline unliveable.

I don't care.

Ican’tcare.

I'm going to turn myself around and get my ass out of here before I pick up a freaking disease.

That's what I tell myself as my feet carry me towards the cabinet under the kitchen sink where trash bags thankfully still live. It's what I tell myself as I fill up bag after bag, and when I do the mountain of dirty dishes piling up by the sink, and when I mop the sticky kitchen floor.

I don't care, I tell myself again and again and again, even as I prove I do.

11

He puts the baby to bed.

Then he sits on the sofa, his eyes closed but his mind wide awake, waiting for the smell of flowers to fill the house again.

I almost crywith relief when I get back to the ranch and Lux’s car is still nowhere to be seen.

The abraded skin of my palms smarting something fierce, I quietly let myself into the house, hoping that the still darkness means Hunter put Alex down already, and he’s taken himself to the spare room for the night.

Honestly, I don’t even know why I try with thishopecrap anymore.

“Are you okay?”

Practically hugging the kitchen sink, I nod without looking behind me, worried that the thirty minute drive from town wasn’t quite enough time to erase the puffy, red-rimmed evidence of this awful night. “Sorry I took so long. You can go now.”

For once, I’d like something to be easy. I’d like someone to listen to me. I’d like a goddamn break, but that’s not what I get; that’s not what the heavy footsteps thudding towards me are, nor the thick fingers enveloping my wrist.

Hunter lifts my hand. His thumb swipes along the curve of mine, coaxing my fingers to unfurl from a painfully, shamefully clenched fist and reveal bloody, shredded skin. “What happened?”

“I tripped.” The lie comes out so quickly, it’s barely even a thought. I kick out a leg, brandishing a matching knee too—innocent people don’t hide things, right? “Too clumsy for my own good.”

A puff of air brushes the side of my face, another warming the sensitive skin of my inner wrist when he stoops to get a better look. “Jesus, Caroline, that’sglass.”

It is? That must be why it hurts so bad. “It’s fine.”

I try to shake Hunter off, but his grip only tightens. With his free hand, he flicks the faucet on before grabbing my other wrist, gingerly but insistently guiding both of my hands beneath the cool water. When I hiss a pained breath, he mutters an apology, and another when he changes the water temperature to freaking boiling, a third when he runs his thumb over the meaty part of my palm.

“You got yourself good,” he… remarks? Admonishes? Laments? I can’t quite tell, and I’m too distracted to decipher it; by how close he is, by how gentle he’s being as he coaxes the debris free, by the effort of trying not to wail like a baby because freakingow.

When the sporadic ping of gravel and glass falling into the metal sink basin comes to a stop and the water running off my palm fades from red to clear, Hunter scrutinizes my skin carefully. “I think it looks worse than it is.”

“That’s good,” I try to reply except the words get stuck in my throat, the thoughts in my brain jumbling, when he lifts my hands higher.

And blows hot air on my palms.

Suddenly, I’m indescribably grateful for the shitty, energy-efficient light bulbs Lux uses in the house; the poor lighting means I can convince myself Hunter can’t see the blood rushing to my cheeks. My sharp intake of breath, I can blame on the pain. The rapid thump of my heart needs no explanation, thankfully—how the hell does a girl explain she’s so touch starved,breathis doing it for her without melting into a mortified puddle?

Guiding me into a chair, Hunter pats me on the shoulder, talking to me like I’m a small, helpless child. “Gotta get the rest of the glass out, okay?”

“I can do it.” I can’t. I’m a baby when it comes to pain, and watching my blood wash down the drain has already made me queasy. But I’m hanging on by a thread as it is, and I don’t think I can handle any more… well, Hunter.

That broad chest heaving with a sigh, Hunter sets his hand on top of my head and tilts it back—and back and back and back—until my gaze reaches the apex of six feet and six inches of pure, frowning man. “Do you let anyone help you ever? Or is it justmyhelp you fight?”

---