Page 18 of Axe-ing for Trouble
I gave him a faint smile, my vision still blurred with tears. “Good water pressure is underrated.”
“Couldn’t agree more.” He stood and offered his hand.
Too tired to fight the urge to handle everything myself, I took it and let him help me up.
“Thank you,” I whispered as I found my balance.
He swiped the rough pad of his thumb across my cheek, wiping away a tear. “Anytime, Trouble.”
I’d visited the bathroom a couple of times today. Like the rest of the house, it was clean. The walls of the shower were white subway tile, and the space was separated from the rest of the room by one of those fancy glass doors instead of a shower curtain.
He hung giant white towels on the rack and set my new clothes on the vanity, then turned, hands in his pockets. “Anything else you need?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat. “Can you help me get the sling off?”
Slowly, he removed it, the screech of the Velcro deafening in the small room.
While he worked, I assessed the shower. It was beautiful. Had he tiled it himself? He mentioned a few times that he’d done a lot of the work on this house.
He eased the sling down carefully, being sure not to jostle my arm. It had been hours since I’d taken the painkillers, but I wasn’t feeling all that much pain yet.
Once he’d set the sling on the counter, he turned back to me. “I’ll pull the T-shirt over your head and right arm first, and then we’ll ease it down the left, okay?”
I nodded as my face flamed with embarrassment. As badly as I wanted to shoo him out, I’d been lying to myself when I thought I could do this on my own.
At least it was only a shirt.
It wasn’t until he’d gotten it off and had dropped it to the floor that I recognized the flaw in my plan.
Eyes squeezed shut, I whispered, “Can you unhook my bra?” Without waiting for him to answer, I turned and faced the wall. Cradling my left arm over my bra-clad breasts, I fought back tears again.
This overwhelming need for modesty was unwelcome. He had, after all, already seen me naked.
“I can do the rest,” I said when he’d undone the clasp, keeping my back to him.
“I’ll wait outside. yell if you need me.”
I grimaced. I’d be fine,and even if I wasn’t, the last thing I’d do was ask for his help. When the door clicked shut behind me, I let my bra straps slide down my shoulders. The fabric was gray with sweat and dirt. There was no saving it after what I’d been through. So I picked it up with my toes and deposited it in the trash.
I pushed the sweats down and shimmied out of them, then stepped into the shower.
He wasn’t wrong about the water pressure. The way the water pelted my back was incredible. I tilted my head up and let the water cascade down my face. Every inch of my being hurt, but the sensation of clean water running over me made going through the motions of bathing worth it.
With my bad arm clutched to my chest, I reached for the body wash, desperate to scrub away the grime and dirt. But as my fingers brushed the bottle, it slipped off the shelf and crashed to the floor. I bent over, grasping for it, but as I did, my injured arm bumped the wall. White-hot pain shot through me, and I was hit with a wave of dizziness. I threw my good hand out, steadying myself on the wall, and hung my head.
God, I couldn’t even wash myself. This was so pathetic.
I thought a nice hot shower and a good night’s sleep would be enough to allow me to keep going. But I was so far away from fixing this.
Without my permission, tears sprang to my eyes again. Because of pain, because of humiliation, and because of defeat.
Doing anything more than existing felt impossible.
The door creaked open, adding insult to injury. “Are you okay?”
I wanted to say yes. I wanted him to go. But I was mid-sob, so when I tried to speak, a hiccup escaped me, followed quickly by a wail.
The door shut, and when he spoke, his voice was closer. “Are you hurt?”
