“10.” He says it forcefully and with a strength I don't have. His voice burns through the scenes in my brain and I clench it between my trembling fists.
“10.” He says it again because I still haven't managed to answer. I try desperately but the word gets caught in my throat. It hiccups and stumbles, unable to fall from my lips.
He realizes it's impossible; tears coat my cheeks so thick they're visible through the streams of water burning my face. My hands are pressed against the shower wall, fingertips digging into the plastic desperately. My body shakes.
He reaches in and grips my arm. Water splashes against him and careens to the floor. I want to speak. I want to curl into his chest to hide from the memories assaulting my brain. They're splashing against my eyelids like acid and seeping into my soul. It's so painful I can't breathe. I can't move.
“10.” He's louder this time and his fingers dig into me. Force and support drips from his lips and spills onto my bare skin. Instead of comforting me it causes sobs to finally break from my mouth; they're so loud I'm embarrassed.
I watch myself sob and hiccup; tears stream down my face and fingernails claw their own palms. I watch him wrap his arms around me in an effort to draw me out, his clothed legs getting splashed with water and soap I'd tried half-heartedly to apply. I watch my body tremble and shake; water rushes from my body with the force.
Please. Please just say 9. I know you can say 9. 9! I'm screaming at myself. I claw at the panic in my brain and slash through it with determination but still I can't force the words from my lips. Fists pounds uselessly against the barrier crafted inside my head; trapped by memories and pain so strong it rips my soul apart.
9! 9! I'm screaming and pounding so loudly my throat hurts. But, I'm sobbing and unable to choke the sound from my strangled throat; instead I tremble and he holds me, shaking on his knees next to the shower.
“10.” He tries again, forceful but weary. He's so tired and so scared. It worms through the panic gripping me and my breathing shutters. I manage to whisper, “9” before hyperventilating into the shower spray and crumbling into pieces of memories.
“That's good, that's so good. 8.” He rubs my back with one hand and the other has a firm grip on my forearm. I'm trying desperately to focus on his hands gripping my body but I can't.
Instead his hands are on me and I can't breathe again. I scrub at my body, fingernails raking over skin as I shake. My mind shatters and I'm stuck between him and the cold ground while he pounds into me and I silently cry. Take it away, I just want to take it away. I would skin myself with my own fingers if it would remove the imprint of him on me.
“8. Please Kitty, you can do it.” His consistent voice finally breaks through. I stop needlessly scrubbing 12 year old memories from my body and still. “That's it. 8.”
“7.” It squeaks from my throat barely audible but he smiles so bright and big I can feel it on me. I know he heard me. I know he's proud. I wish I could be proud too.
Tears scald my cheeks. Shame slips from the corners of my eyes and rolls over my cheeks; it's everywhere. It lives in my cells and invades me when I'm unprepared to fight back. His voice slices through it and I focus on him again- just him.
“6.”
I breathe deeply and it catches in my throat but I force it out, shuttering the air from my lips. “5.”
For a moment I'm gone again and my heart shatters in my chest; it explodes into pieces that stick to bone and chain. I'm stuck. Trapped. Held in place, unable to move or run away, tied with bonds groomed into me- “FOUR.”
The volume in his voice said I'd been gone for too long. The desperate clutch of his fingers in my skin, embedded and imprinted over top of the memories assaulting me, spoke volumes. I sink into the smell of him and the feel of him on my body, unable to escape any other way. “3.”
“Good. You're so strong. 2.” His hand circles my back, herculean and sure against my timidity. He presses his face into my neck and I feel him breathing against me, murmuring words of encouragement into my ear.
I roll around in them- soak them into my soul and preen against the bonds of my shame. He doesn't think it's my fault. He doesn't care. His lips brush across my ear and I shiver. “1.”
He laughs, joyous and relieved, wrapping his arms around me under the spray. My sobs have devolved into hiccups that catch but stretch as he envelopes me in this moment and not my memories. I can finally breathe. My chest isn't cracked open and spilling my insides anymore; it's been mended with patchy glue.
“You made it through those 10 seconds, you did it. Now let's get through another 10.”
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