Unbandaged

Chapter 2: Shadows and Steam

The shower stall was the last one, tucked against the far wall where the tile was cracked into a spiderweb pattern. Cade shouldered the stiff plastic curtain aside, its metal rings screeching along the rod. He set Rhett on her feet, but kept an arm around her waist as she wobbled, her good leg trembling under the weight.

"Okay," he murmured, more to himself than to her. "Okay."

He reached past her, his body a barricade against the cold air of the locker room, and twisted the knob. A blast of icy water shot out, hitting the ceramic wall with a slap. He flinched, adjusting it quickly. The pipes groaned and hammered in the walls. Steam began to rise, warm and thick, carrying the eggy smell of sulfur from the school’s ancient water heater.

He tested the spray with his hand. Lukewarm. Not warm enough to soothe, not cold enough to shock. It would have to do.

"Your head first," he said, his voice subdued. He didn't ask permission. His fingers, surprisingly gentle, parted the matted hair at her temple. She stiffened. The cut was small but deep, caked with parking lot grit and dried blood.

He guided her under the spray. She gasped as the water hit, not from pain, but from the sheer, overwhelming sensation of it. It sluiced through her hair, over her scalp, turning the dried blood into pink rivulets that ran down her neck and into the collar of her shirt. She closed her eyes.

Cade’s hands were careful. He used his thumb to wipe gently around the wound, clearing the debris. The water darkened around their feet, swirling with dirt and flecks of old adhesive from the tape. He didn't speak. The only sounds were the steady hiss of the shower, the distant drip from another stall, and their own breathing.

He reached for a small, half-used bar of soap sitting in the rusty dish. Ivory. It smelled clean and simple. He worked up a lather between his palms, his movements focused, clinical. He applied it to her temple, the suds stinging the open cut. She winced.

"Sorry," he whispered, the word getting lost in the steam.

He rinsed it, cupping his hand to direct the flow. The pink faded to clear. Satisfied, he turned his attention downward. His gaze landed on the dark, blooming bruise on her thigh, the perfect imprint of a boot toe. His jaw tightened.

He crouched, the knees of his jeans soaking in the runoff. His fingers hovered over the ugly mark. He didn't touch it. He just stared, as if memorizing its shape, its meaning.

"You're freezing," he said, noticing the goosebumps rising on her arms despite the steam. Her soaked clothes were a heavy, cold second skin.

He stood and reached for the hem of her shirt. It was an automatic, practical motion—the same motion he’d used a hundred times before when they were kids and she’d fallen in a creek or gotten drenched in a rainstorm.

But this wasn't a creek. This was different.

Her hands came up, fast and weak, and clamped over his wrists. Her eyes, wide and glassy, met his. A silent, trembling no.

He froze. His own eyes widened in understanding. The intimacy of it—the violation it now represented—crashed over him. He jerked his hands back as if burned.

"Right. Yeah. Sorry," he stammered, color rising in his cheeks. He looked away, running a wet hand through his own hair. "I'll just... turn around."

He did. He faced the mildewed tile wall, his shoulders hunched. He was a statue of self-imposed exile, giving her the privacy he’d stolen from her on the bleachers.

The act, this small respect, broke something loose inside her. The brittle shell of her fury finally cracked, and what seeped out wasn't more anger, but a devastating, total sorrow. It felt like drowning.

Her fingers were clumsy, numb with cold and shock. She fumbled with the buttons of her jeans. The wet denim fought her, clinging to her skin, to the raw burns on her ankles. She had to sit on the damp floor of the stall to wrench them off, her teeth clenched against the pain. The sweater and shirt came next, a sodden, heavy pile she pushed into the corner with her foot.

The water hit her skin directly, and she shuddered. It was a baptism in nothing holy. She sat there on the shower floor, knees drawn up, letting the lukewarm stream pound her back. She wanted it to scour her. To wash away the feel of the tape, the sound of the laughter, the sight of his profile next to Sutton’s.

She saw the faint, ghostly outlines left by the tape on her arms and torso—pale strips against the flushed, abraded skin. A map of the betrayal. She scrubbed at them with the bar of soap, but the marks weren't dirt. They were memory. They wouldn't fade.

After a few minutes, the shaking began in earnest. Not from cold, but from a shock that was finally reaching her core. Her teeth chattered. The sound was small and pathetic in the tiled space.

Cade heard it. His back was still to her, rigid. "Rhett?"

She couldn't answer.

He hesitated, then slowly turned. He kept his eyes carefully averted, fixed on a point above her head. He saw her hunched on the floor, vulnerable and shaking, surrounded by the ruins of her clothes. His expression fractured.

He moved then, not with the calculated cool of the boy on the bleachers, but with a frantic urgency. He grabbed a stack of clean, faded towels from a shelf outside the stall—the rough, institutional kind that barely absorbed water. He shook one out and stepped into the spray, getting instantly drenched.

"Come on," he said, his voice thick. He draped the towel around her shoulders, then carefully, so carefully, wrapped a second one around her torso, tucking the end in to secure it. He did it all without letting his gaze drop below her chin. It was an act of penitent concentration.

He lifted her again, towel and all, and carried her out of the stall. He set her on the same wooden bench, now beaded with condensation. He grabbed another towel and began rubbing her hair, his movements brisk, practical.

The friction warmed her scalp. The coarse fabric was an anchor. She let her head loll forward, her eyes on his soaked sweater. The wool was dark with water, clinging to his chest. Her hand, of its own accord, rose again. She pressed her palm flat against the wet knit, right over his heart. The beat was a frantic, trapped bird.

With her index finger, she drew. Two letters in the moisture.

O. K.

He stopped rubbing her hair. His hands stilled, holding the towel against her head. He looked down at her finger, tracing the familiar signal on his chest. His breath hitched.

"Don't," he begged, his voice cracking. "Don't say that. Not that. You can hate me. You should. Scream at me. Just... not that."

She lifted her gaze. Her eyes were emptied out, oceans of fatigue. "I forgive you," she said. The words had no weight, no resonance. They were just sounds, exhaled into the humid air.

They hung there. A lie. Or maybe a truth so devastating it felt like one.

Cade’s face did something complicated. It was like watching a building collapse in slow motion—a wash of hope, immediately crushed under the wrecking ball of understanding. She didn’t forgive him. She was surrendering. Giving him the words like a token to end the war, because she had no more soldiers left to fight it.

He sank to his knees on the damp floor in front of her. He didn't touch her. He just knelt there in his sopping clothes, water pooling around him, and looked up at her. The charisma was gone. The shallow charm was stripped away. What was left was nineteen years old and terrified.

"I love you," he said. It wasn't romantic. It was a raw, desperate fact, hurled into the space between them like a plea for a verdict. "I’m in love with you. I think I have been since we were fifteen. And I just... I vaporized it. For what? For a laugh from people whose names I won't remember in five years?"

He bowed his head, resting his forehead against her knees, careful of the bruise. The towel around her was the only barrier. She felt the heat of his skin, the tremor that ran through him.

"I don't know how to be without you," he said, the words muffled. "And I just proved I don't deserve to be with you. So I don't know what that makes me."

Rhett stared at the crown of his head, at the familiar whorl of his hair. The words I love you echoed in the hollowed-out chamber of her chest. They should have felt like a key turning. Instead, they felt like another lock snapping shut.

This was the confession she’d once secretly hoped for, on countless late-night drives and lazy Sunday afternoons. It had arrived not with flowers, but with duct tape, delivered by a boy who had chosen to humiliate her before he chose to say it.

The ache in her body was a single, unified throb. But it was a cleaner pain than the one twisting in her heart.

She placed a hand on his head. A benediction. A farewell.

"I know," she said softly. "But I’m leaving, Cade."

He went perfectly still.

"My aunt got me a transfer. To Lincoln. I start Monday." She said it to the dripping showerhead, to the fog on the mirrors, to the ghost of their friendship lingering in the steam. "I was going to tell you tomorrow. As my best friend."

He lifted his head. His eyes were red-rimmed, swimming. "Lincoln? That's thirty minutes away."

"It might as well be thirty years," she whispered.

The finality of it landed on him, a physical weight. He slumped back onto his heels. The fight, the panic, the guilt—all of it seemed to drain out of him, leaving behind a profound, hollowed-out stillness. He just looked at her, seeing her properly for the first time that night: not as a problem to manage, or a possession he’d damaged, but as a person who was walking away.

"Okay," he finally said. It was just a word. Empty.

He stood up, his movements heavy. He was dripping everywhere. "You can't drive like this. I'll take you home. I'll... I'll come back for your car later. If you want."

She nodded. It was practical. It was all that was left.

He found her gym bag in her locker, the one from last semester. Inside were a pair of old grey sweatpants and a Lincoln High t-shirt from when her aunt had first gotten the job. The irony wasn't lost on either of them. He handed them to her and turned his back again while she dressed. The cotton was soft against her painful skin.

He led her out through the side door, into the cool night. His truck was parked nearby, an old Ford that smelled like gasoline and pine air freshener. He helped her in, buckling her seatbelt with a careful click she felt in her teeth.

The drive was silent. The roads were dark and empty. He didn't turn on the radio. The only light was the dashboard glow, painting his hands on the wheel in pale green.

The only light was the dashboard glow, painting his hands on the wheel in pale green.

He pulled into her driveway and killed the engine. The silence that followed was absolute, a thick vacuum swallowing the truck’s rumble. Her house was dark, a single porch light left on like a lonely sentinel. Her parents were away for the weekend. She’d told him that yesterday, a casual piece of information he’d filed away and used.

He didn’t move to get out. He just stared through the windshield, his knuckles white on the steering wheel. “I’ll get your car tomorrow,” he said, his voice rough from disuse. “Leave the keys under the mat. I’ll bring it here, clean.”

Rhett unbuckled her seatbelt. The click was deafening. The sweatpants were too big, pooling around her ankles. Every movement pulled at the raw skin beneath the fabric. She reached for the door handle.

“Rhett.”

She stopped. Her name in his mouth still felt like a hook, tugging at something deep in her chest.

“What happens on Monday?” he asked. He wasn’t looking at her. He was looking at the dark shape of her house, as if it were a fortress he’d lost the map to. “You just… go? And that’s it?”

“What do you want me to say, Cade?” Her own voice surprised her, flat and tired. “You want a schedule? I’ll pack Sunday. I’ll drive over Monday morning. I’ll sit in a new cafeteria. I won’t know anyone.”

“You could stay.” The words were out fast, desperate. “I’ll fix it. I’ll tell everyone it was my idea. I’ll make them delete the videos. I’ll—”

“You can’t,” she interrupted, not unkindly. It was a simple fact. “You can’t unscramble an egg. You can’t un-ring a bell. All those stupid sayings are true.”

She pushed the truck door open. The interior light was a brutal invasion. It illuminated the tear tracks she hadn’t realized were on his cheeks. He swiped at them angrily, turning his face away.

The cold night air hit her, sharp and clean. It smelled of damp grass and distant woodsmoke. She took a step, her body protesting. She took another.

“Rhett.”

She turned back. He was looking at her now, his face a wreck in the yellow dome light. The boy who had everything, who everyone wanted, looked utterly lost. He was still sitting in the driver’s seat of his truck, but he looked like he had no idea how to make it go anywhere.

The words formed in her mouth, born not from forgiveness, but from a profound, weary loneliness. From the terrifying silence of the empty house waiting for her. From the memory of his forehead against her knees, and the two letters she’d drawn on his chest—a language only they knew, now rusted and broken.

“Come with me,” she said.

The night insects stopped chirping. Or maybe she just couldn’t hear them over the blood rushing in her ears.

Cade blinked. He leaned forward slightly, as if he hadn’t heard correctly. “What?”

“To Lincoln.” She clarified, though it clarified nothing. The idea was taking shape as she spoke it, monstrous and compelling. “You get a transfer too. You come with me.”

He stared. His expression cycled through confusion, a flicker of wild hope, then deep, settling dread. “You… you want me to come? After what I did?”

“No,” she said, and the honesty was a relief. “I don’t know what I want. But I’m scared to go alone. And you’re… you’re the only person I’ve ever not been alone with. Even tonight. Especially tonight.”

It was the worst reason in the world. It was the only reason she had.

“You hate me,” he said, his voice barely audible.

“I know,” she replied. “But I don’t know how to do this next part without you. And you owe me. You owe me a universe of things. Start with this.”

He was silent for a long time. The hope was gone, fully extinguished. He understood the transaction. This wasn’t absolution. It was a sentence. A life debt.

“Okay,” he said. The word had no air in it. It was just a sound of surrender.

“Okay,” she echoed.

She turned and walked toward the dark house. She didn’t look back to see if he was watching. She knew he was. She fumbled with her key, her fingers stiff and clumsy. The lock turned. The door swung open into deeper blackness.

She stepped inside and closed the door behind her, leaning against it. She listened.

She heard the truck door open and shut. She heard his footsteps on the driveway, hesitant, then firm. They stopped on the porch. She could see his shadow through the thin curtain of the side window, a tall, uncertain shape.

He didn’t knock. He just stood there. Waiting for her to let him in. To let him follow.

She closed her eyes. The ache in her body was a single, solid thing. The silence of the house pressed in, a physical weight.

She reached for the deadbolt. Her hand hovered over the cool metal.

Her hand hovered over the cool metal.

Then she turned it. The deadbolt slid back with a heavy, final chunk. She didn’t open the door. She just walked away, leaving it unlocked, and moved into the living room. She stood in the dark, listening.

A minute passed. Maybe two. The floorboards on the porch creaked. The door handle turned, slow and tentative. A wedge of yellow porch light sliced across the floor, widening as he stepped inside and closed the door softly behind him. The lock clicked again, sealing them in.

He stood just inside the entryway, a silhouette. “It’s cold in here,” he said, his voice too loud in the stillness.

“The heat’s off,” she replied. She hadn’t noticed until he said it. “My parents are in Florida.”

“Right.”

She could hear him breathing. She could smell the chlorine from the shower on him, mixed with the damp wool of his sweater. It was the scent of the aftermath. She walked toward the staircase, her socks whispering on the hardwood. “I’m going to bed.”

“Rhett.”

She paused on the bottom step, one hand on the banister. She didn’t turn.

“What does this mean?” he asked. The question hung in the dark air, pathetic and huge.

“It means I’m tired,” she said, her voice flat. “It means the guest room is down the hall to the left. There are blankets in the closet. It means we figure out Lincoln tomorrow.” She started climbing the stairs, each step an effort. “Or don’t. I don’t care.”

She heard him move further into the house, a restless shadow. She went into her bedroom and closed the door. She didn’t lock it. The significance of that choice vibrated in her bones.

She peeled off the sweatpants and the t-shirt, her skin screaming in protest. In the dim light from the streetlamp outside her window, she saw the full map of damage. The bruises were darkening. The rope burns were angry stripes. The tape burns were raw, inflamed patches. She pulled on an old, soft nightshirt and crawled under the comforter.

She lay stiffly on her back, staring at the ceiling. The house was a cave of silence. She heard the pipes groan as he used the bathroom downstairs. She heard the soft click of the guest room door closing.

Silence again. Heavy and complete.

Then, a soft knock on her door. It wasn’t tentative. It was a quiet, sure tap.

She didn’t answer.

The knob turned. The door opened. He stood in the frame, backlit by the hall nightlight. He’d taken off his wet sweater. He was just in his t-shirt and jeans, socks on his feet.

“I can’t sleep,” he said. It wasn’t an apology. It was a report.

“Neither can I,” she said to the ceiling.

He walked in and sat on the edge of her bed. The mattress dipped under his weight. He didn’t touch her. He just sat there, looking at his hands in the half-light. “I keep seeing you fall. In the parking lot. I heard the sound your body made when it hit.”

She didn’t respond. She just breathed.

“I erased the video from my phone,” he said. “For what it’s worth. Beckett and Jonah won’t. Sutton definitely won’t.” He swallowed. “I can’t make them. I thought I could. I can’t.”

“I know,” she whispered.

“I’m sorry.” The words were worn out, worthless.

“I forgive you,” she said again, the same hollow tone. She turned her head on the pillow to look at him. “I’m not saying it to be nice. I’m saying it because I can’t carry the hate anymore. It’s too heavy. It hurts worse than the bruises.”

He finally looked at her. His eyes were dark pools. “Then what do I carry?”

“Me,” she said, the word simple and terrible. “For a while. You just carry me.”

A shudder ran through him. He understood. This was the sentence. This was the debt. He lay down on top of the comforter, on his side, facing her. He kept a careful inch of space between them. He lifted a hand and carefully, so carefully, brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. His fingers lingered near the cut at her temple.

“Does it hurt?” he asked.

“Everything hurts.”

He moved then. Not with passion, but with a slow, inevitable gravity. He shifted closer, dissolving that inch of space. He slid his arm under her neck, his other arm circling her waist over the comforter. He pulled her against him, gently adjusting her sore body to fit against his. He tucked her head under his chin.

She stiffened for a second. Every raw nerve screamed. Then she melted. Her body went limp against his. A broken sound escaped her, a sigh that held all the day’s terror. She buried her face in the cotton of his shirt. He smelled like her soap now.

He held her. He didn’t speak. He just held her as if the pressure of his arms could contain the damage, could hold her together at the seams. His breath warmed her hair.

“I’m yours,” he whispered into the dark, the words a vow and a prison sentence. “However you need. Whatever that means. I’m yours.”

She believed him. That was the most frightening part. She believed the desperation in his voice, the absolute surrender. He was handing her the keys to himself, a hollowed-out kingdom.

She tilted her head back. His face was so close she could see the faint stubble on his jaw, the frantic pulse in his throat. She didn’t kiss him. She just looked at him, this boy who was her oldest friend and her newest wound.

“Prove it,” she said, her voice barely audible.

He didn’t ask how. He nodded once, a sharp, accepting dip of his chin.

In the morning, he did. He made calls from her kitchen phone, his voice low and steady. He talked to the Lincoln High registrar, to the guidance counselor. He fabricated a story about a family relocation, his tone convincing and smooth. He arranged his own transfer.

He made her toast she couldn’t eat. He drove to her car and brought it back, vacuuming the grit from the floor mats. He went to his own house and packed a duffel bag, telling his parents a version of the truth they wouldn’t understand.

By evening, he was back. He made her his in the only way left to him. He became her shadow, her attendant, her living monument of guilt. He navigated the new school for both of them, a buffer against curious stares. He sat with her in the silent cafeteria when she couldn’t speak. He applied aloe vera to the rope burns with clinical, trembling fingers.

He never asked for anything. He just was there. A permanent, repentant fixture.

And she let him. Because the alternative was silence, and the silence was filled with the echo of laughter from the bleachers. His presence was a different kind of noise. It was a scar. It was proof she had survived.

He made her his by making himself entirely hers. A possession. A penance. It was not love. It was something older, and darker, and more binding.

It was ownership.