"You can do this, Mattie."

I wasn't so sure. Five days had passed since I had seen my parents for the first time since I was sixteen.

The shower was running, steam fogging the mirror as well as my perception of reality. We both stood naked, my arms wrapped around his neck, chest pressed against his, my face buried between my arms, head tucked underneath his chin. Tears leaked from my eyes, and my chest heaved as my mind attempted to run away into my past.

My fingers, nails chewed to stubs, dug themselves into his shoulders. Mykel stood with his feet planted, arms wrapped securely around me, and I vaguely became aware he was rocking us back and forth. The water still steamed up and around us, and I became aware of his fingers sliding across my skin.

"You can do this, Mattie. I'm right here. She can't get you. She's not here. He's not here. It's just us."

Before I knew it we were at the side of the tub, and Mykel was drawing back the shower curtain, slow and careful. I didn't raise my head from where it rested, but I allowed him to guide me into the tub. The water was at Mykel's back, little droplets bouncing off his body and landing on me. I felt the water collecting on my hair and as my breath quickened I raised my head.

"Come on, mon bonheur, open your beautiful eyes."

It was then I realized my eyes were screwed painfully shut, and I felt his gentle touch along my cheeks; but whether he was wiping away water or tears I don't know. My eyes fell open and locked with his.

His eyes were soft and there was a smile just behind them. I felt myself relax a fraction, though my fingers gripped him still as if my life depended upon it. Mykel had gotten me almost used to daily showers with him, with less anxiety about the whole thing; but in that moment I felt back at square one. I looked away from him in shame, my heart breaking at the thought that I'd failed him.

"Mattie." Judging by the sound of his voice I knew he'd seen the shift of emotions glide across my face in that instant before turning away. I didn't look at him. "Mattie, please look at me, mon bonheur." He cupped the side of my cheek, bringing my eyes to his. I felt the betrayal of stinging, hot tears fall, mixing with the spray of water off his shoulder. His eyes held questions that I couldn't answer. Not then in that moment. He read this clearly and nodded, reaching past me to grab the shampoo.

Going against the grain, he washed his hair first, before grabbing the body wash and scrubbing himself down rather quickly, but not missing anything important. Normally I would do this task, but he seemed to understand that I couldn't move right then.

After he rinsed he put more soap on the luffa and began gently washing me. I lost myself in his touch, concentrating on him alone, and I felt myself begin to calm. He turned me around to wash my back before wrapping his arms around me, his chest pressing completely against my back.

I knew what came next, and I felt the resolve I'd built up crumble. I stayed silent as he grabbed the shampoo. His fingers messaged my scalp and hair into a soapy blob.

I felt the water stream move and I knew he'd taken the shower head with its mobile function attached to a hose. He started at my shoulders, the water running down, rinsing soap from my body.

He did this so I could prepare. We both knew he'd have to essentially repeat this process after rinsing my hair.

"Ready?" This question always brought with it fear, but it had been less and less the past few months. This day the question brought with it a title wave of undiluted terror, and I felt overcome with tremors.

"Mattie." I looked at him, my expression a pathetic plea to just get it done with. I turned my back to him once again, tipping back my head as I did so. "I'm right here. It's just me and you." And my demons I added silently. "Here goes."

I felt the water touch the back of my head, his fingers working with the stream to both calm me and work the soap out. The stream worked its way up toward my forehead and I closed my eyes.

Just as my breathing became erratic, as the screams of my younger self became too much for me to hear, the water disappeared and shut off. Vaguely I heard the shower curtain slide open in the background and before I knew it, a towel and familiar arms wrapped around me.

I melted into his embrace, and he picked me up from the tub, his bigger body holding me against his chest bridal style. No words were exchanged as he carried me into his room, my clothes already laid out on his bed. He set me down by the bed and we both made a short order of getting dressed.

Suddenly I was angry. At myself. At Mykel. At my parents, my sister, the very world. I stood beside the bed, my back to Mykel, my arms crossed over my chest defiantly.

I felt more than I heard him walk up behind me. My breathing stopped and I stiffened as he touched me. His fingers, barely grazing the tops of my shoulders slid away and I heard him sigh lightly behind me. "Mattie..." His hands lightly gripped my elbows in attempt to turn me to face him, but I shook from his grasp and stepped away from him. And I kept stepping.

Liz was in her bedroom, her door open as I came down the stairs. I heard her call my name but I didn't stop, nor turn around, as I all but ran from the house.

It was daylight enough that I didn't make another unexpected dive into the small pond, and I steered clear of it.

I wasn't so much running as briskly walking.

I heard no pursuit behind me. Neither Liz nor Mykel followed behind as I crossed the property line. I hadn't paid close attention to where exactly I was going and when I finally looked around I realized I had wandered off onto one of many trails that hikers often traversed. And one I didn't know, on top of that.

Mykel and I had come out walking many times over the past few months. But always in the daylight. And always with him as my guide. I looked around at the canopy of treeline above my head.

Fuck.

It was nearing dark now, the last little bit of light fading from the horizon. I looked around. It left the trail in just enough light to see, abundant in shadow from the trees.

"Shit. What now?"

"Now it's time to come home."

I spun around, my heart jumping into my throat, my breath catching. "Jesus fucking Christ, what are you trying to do to me?"

Mykel smiled softly. "I'm sorry. Come on, Mattie. We should get out of here." I took his offered hand in mine and we set off toward the house. We were quiet for a long time, not speaking until breaking the tree line onto Liz's property. Among trying to get my thoughts together, I was trying, and failing, to keep my footing. However, it seemed that tree roots magically popped up underneath my feet with every two steps I took.

As we paralleled the pond, I stopped, my hand not leaving his, the pull of his arm as he kept walking making him turn now back toward me. "I didn't know you'd followed me." I was staring out at the water, still with the barest of ripples fluttering across it as a wind swept along its surface.

"I kept my distance. I called you a few times before you went into the trees, but I guess you didn't hear me."

"I really didn't," I said as I shook my head. "I looked back once, but I didn't see anyone following me."

Mykel shrugged slightly. "I didn't want you getting lost. And I kinda figured you would. You don't really know the area that well."

I nodded but I don't think he saw. "I'm sorry, Mykel. I, uh..." I chuckled humorlessly breaking my vision with the glittering, moonlit pond. "I don't know, I just...I..." I dragged my eyes up to his, my expression pleading understanding. "Ever since that night...which is fucking stupid. Nothing even fucking happened!" I was yelling at this point. Not at Mykel but myself. I grabbed my head with fists full of hair, hiding my face away, and bent slightly at the waist. Quieter I said, "And now it feels like it's all falling apart."

"Mattie, nothing-"

But I didn't want to hear it. "Mykel, don't. Okay? Please, just...don't. I can't."

Mykel stared at me for what seemed like forever before finally a look of defeat entered his expression and he nodded. "Right."

I didn't look at his retreating form as he walked, head bowed, back inside. "Goddamn it." I shook my head at myself. I don't know how long I stood there, staring at the water's surface, but when I turned to go inside, Liz stood beside and just behind me. "Jesus Christ on a fucking piece of toast, Liz, you scared the shit out of me." My hand pressed against my chest willing my heart to slow before I dropped it unceremoniously to my side. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough. You looked deep in thought. I didn't want to interrupt you." Her voice was soft, arms folded in her hoodie against the gathering cold.

"I..." My throat clenched. "I didn't mean to hurt him."

"Mykel's a big boy. He's just worried about you. I'm worried about you." When I didn't answer, she took my hand. "Come on, Mattie. Let's go in. You're gonna catch your death out here."

I followed her silently, allowing her to lead me like a lost child back to safety. I felt like a lost child. That scared little boy that I always had been. A nobody. A...whipping boy.

For all the progress I thought I had made, I felt at that moment like I was getting nowhere. Two steps forward, three steps back. A tiring, endless line of absolutely nothing. I felt myself reverting back to the person I'd been when I first came to work for Liz. I felt myself falling headlong into the darkness that I'd almost found my way out of.

A type of hopeless despairing overcame me, and one I had never felt previous. Sure, I'd never hoped for anything but death as a child, there was no light to cling to. But now I had been made aware of what love could be like. I knew that love didn't have to come candy coated with hatred and pain; and now that I'd had a taste, I didn't want to let it go. I didn't want it to let me go. And right then I all but felt like it was all slipping from my grasp, sand crystals falling between open fingers.

"Mattie." She had dragged me into the house, through the kitchen and into the living room, where she pulled me down next to her on the couch. "What's going on lately?" I looked at her incredulously, as if the answer to that should be beyond obvious at this point. She smiled. Message received. "I know the catalyst, yes, but you've been pretty closed off as far as everything else. Talk to me. You've always been able to talk through it with me before."

She reached for my hand and I took it, squeezing, pushing all that I felt into the contact. With my eyes closed against tears and fears and the never ending taunting of my inner demons, I fell into her hold. A maternal hold that I so longed for.

It didn't matter our ages. It didn't matter that she wasn't quite old enough to be capable of being my mother. Her arms wrapped around me was, then and still to this day, the most maternal act I'd ever received.

"I don't know," I finally said, my voice a strained whisper. "I feel so lost. I...I can't think, I can't I can't I can't...fucking talk...I can't breathe, Liz. I keep seeing them staring down at me and all I could think was..." I stopped. I didn't want to say, but I knew I had to.

She rocked us gently, petting my hair and holding me so tightly. She kissed my temple. "Thinking what, baby?"

I tightened my grip around her. "That I needed...I n-need-need-needed needed to get back in m-my my my, n-needed to get back in my box." The sobs and wails came directly after this confession, and I felt the screams building, climbing through my bowels and up my chest.

I don't know how long she held me, it felt like hours, but couldn't have been more than three quarters of one. Though the tears slowed and eventually stopped altogether, my slight, but constant, quivering spasms held on that much longer. "I'm so tired. So tired of all of it. I'm scared, Liz."

Gently she kissed my head as she ran her fingers through my hair. "Of what, baby?"

"Of being that alone again." The confession was little more than a croak of a broken whisper.

"You're not alone anymore, Mattie." The comfort in her tone, her loving touch, the feeling of her arms wrapped around me; I felt my entire being ache for what she promised.

"I wouldn't survive being that alone again, Liz. But I'm scared...that...you'll just...be tired of all my fucking bullshit baggage. Tired of me breaking down and freaking out at work, or freaking out in general. Just irritated after a while that I'm still some broken nothing and just...be...done. Both of you."

Gently she pushed me to a sitting position, her warm, smaller hands cradling my face. "I love you, Mattie. There aren't any conditions to go along with that. I don't care how much you may cry, baby, or how often you freak out. You're not a nuisance. To either of us. But as far as I am concerned, Mattie, you're just as much a part of me as...oh, my love...I could never just cast you aside." She thumbed away tears from my cheeks before vanquishing them from her own. "I knew what I was getting into when I hired you, Mattie. Do you think I was unprepared for what might happen bringing you here? I brought you here, permanently, because I love you, Mattie. And I've already lost two brothers. I won't lose you, too. I'm not going anywhere." With that she pulled me back into her embrace, and repeated she loved me in a softly spoken mantra as her shirt soaked up more tears.

I heard someone come downstairs, their progress slow with attempted unobtrusive entrance; I curled further into her. Mykel knelt down behind me, his torso leaning against the edge of the couch before settling back. He did not touch me and for this I was both grateful and hurt by the lack of contact.

Grateful because I knew his touch would be my undoing and I'd unravel entirely. The pain was of an imaginary rejection, and a longing of his arms that I had been resisting.

"Mattie," he whispered, his fingertips touching gently between my shoulder blades. "Please, Mattie, look at me." It wasn't the request that made my head turn, but the tremor that accompanied it. I did not at once acquiesce, but first had to fortify myself to face the look I knew was painted all across his beautiful features. Tears clouded my vision but I managed to make and keep eye contact, the struggle that it was. I had no idea how much he heard, or how long he had lingered on the stairs listening to the things I had told Liz. "I love you. I love you more than you know. I couldn't and won't just turn my back on you."

His eyes were as blood shot as mine felt and I stared a moment before speaking. "How can you love me like this, Mykel?"

"Oh, mon bonheur, I'll love you anyway I can, and nothing will ever stand in the way of that. Not your past, or your fears, or your parents, or you, for that matter."

"You still want me?"

I hadn't meant to say it. It was something that had been circling my mind like vultures waiting for death in order to feast upon it. It was then my biggest fear. The knowledge of having fallen so hard for him, to have him discard me after having me.

I didn't tell him then and I haven't told him now, but the nights leading up to this moment were full of vivid dreams turned nightmares of us making tender love. He whispers words of love and beauty, painting a canvas in sweat and feeling.

We climax together, our names on each other's tongues, before he's rolling off and away from me. His expression then always changes from that smile that I adore to one I hope I never see adorn his face. I watch in horror as he reaches for his wallet, and pulls out three one hundred dollar bills, tossing them on the bed.

"Mykel, what...?" I can never finish the question, and I don't need to.

"What? Did you really think I loved you? Get a grip, kid. I paid my whore, now I'll be on my way." He laughs in the most cruel way then and he turns away. As the echo of the door shutting reverberates in my head, I scream and I wake.

"I want you, Mattie," he said in a reality more lucid than dreams. "More than that, I need you." He stroked my cheek with a curved knuckle and I captured his hand in mine.

"Why do I feel like this?" The question was broken by gasping breaths and tears.

"Baby, just because they couldn't get to you physically doesn't mean that simply seeing them, having them stand over you, hearing their voices...it doesn't mean that those things didn't affect you. It doesn't mean that the experience can't or doesn't hurt you, or bring it all back again." She pulled me closer to her, her arms wrapped securely around me. "And it doesn't mean that you're weak, baby."

Those last words, spoken softly against my ear, combated one of my greatest fears. My shoulders shook with silently screaming sobs, and I buried my face against her side and my arm. I felt Mykel's hand along my back and neck, Liz's hands running through my hair; the contact was warm and the level of comfort and love I received from it calmed me quicker than I would have guessed.

For a long time I lay, my face hidden from them both, meditating on the feeling of their lovingly caressing hands, their warmth, them. I loved them both in very different ways, but each was new and completely alien to me.

Liz had been taking care of me in her own way for the last few years, but I admitted then that our relationship had reached a new plateau, and along with that realization came the knowledge that I couldn't possibly live without her. Unconsciously I tightened my grip around her. She responded in kind, making shushing sounds as if comforting a small child. And I guess she was, in part. That little boy inside me was just as scared as he had always been. Still chained to the past, waiting for the next time he would get forced under the water.

In truth until I met Liz and then later Mykel, I had never really escaped that box for which so long offered the only safety I knew. While I had left the confines of that particular horror physically, mentally I had only created my own prison, hiding myself behind layers of mixed sweat and the occasional line of cocaine; trapping that boy away not unlike my parents had done to me.

Liz drew us both out, assuring us of a safety within her embrace and mere presence that had been too good to even allow myself to fantasize of, because I knew such things were too good for the likes of me. Until Liz took a chance on a lost kid from the city who had no experience in anything but sex and pain, and quite frankly I didn't think putting prostitute in previous job history would go over very well, I had nothing and I had no one. When I walked in I was terrified, more so I was cold, wet and hungry...

"Hi, honey, can I help you?"

The place was nearly closed and by consequence empty. My head snapped up from the floor, I hadn't heard her come around the corner from the back room.

"I-I-I...um...th-that is...I came came came a-a-a-about the the the..." I paused, my heart racing and my breathing quickening to keep up with the faster blood flow.

"Easy, honey, easy, okay? Here, take a seat before you fall down. I just mopped, see, I don't wanna mop any blood off the floors now that they're clean." There must have been something on my face that made her features soften. "I'm just kidding." When I sat, she sat across from me, her energy calming me and I felt at once like I could breathe. "Now...you came in because of the help sign?" I nodded afraid I wouldn't be able to articulate my answer. "What's your name, honey?" Her voice was gentle and until then no one had ever spoken to me with such kindness.

"Mattie O'Neill."

"Well, Mattie O'Neill...give me just a minute." She got up and went back to the back, at last returning with a large towel. "Here. Dry off. You look like you're freezing." I did as she asked, folding and sitting on the towel so as to not drip further onto the floor. "Have you ever worked in customer service before?"

I shook my head and bit my lip. "I've...n-neh-never h-ha-had a job before. I'm new here."

"How long have you been in Rockford?"

"A week, maybe."

She looked at me for several seconds, silence filling the space between us, and for a moment I was sure she'd turn me out like everyone else had before her. "Can you start tomorrow?" I looked at her, shock evident in my face. She smiled gently and continued, "The work isn't too difficult, though through the tourist season it gets pretty crazy busy. I can train you in what you need to know. I'm pretty full for employees right now...for the next two weeks anyway, then the lot of them go back to their dorm rooms. We open at six. Can you be here about five-thirty?"

I nodded. "Yes."

"Alright. You can fill out everything then and we can start you training. Sound good?"

"Yes. Th-thank you."

"Promise me. Promise me you won't leave me. I'm sorry that I'm so insecure. And that I'm still so scared. I don't mean to be. I..."

Mykel leaned forward, pressing his forehead against my cheek. "Mon bonheur, listen to me, my love. We're not going anywhere. Either one of us. I swear. And we'll prove it by proving our word." He kissed my cheekbone and I felt his lips tremble, just as I heard his voice shake as he spoke his next words. "I'm so in love with you, Mattie. Not for your body, but for you. And..." he paused and looked to his sister before meeting my gaze, as I looked to him when he stopped talking. "I've never felt this way before. Not...not with Kaiden, not with anyone. And...with as much as Kaiden's death about destroyed me, Mattie, I don't think I could survive losing you. In any form."

I watched as tears fell unbidden from his eyes and he made no move to brush them away. Liz still dragged her fingers through my hair, calming me. "I love you, too, Mattie. I've grown pretty attached to you these last few years, huh. Sitting out on the swing with you in the mornings is my favorite time of my day. I'll be sad the day you two get your own place and move out."

For some reason I didn't understand the thought frightened me. At that moment I couldn't imagine leaving. "I don't want to move any time soon," I told her in a gentle voice that was still rough and laden with surfaced emotion.

She leaned forward and kissed my temple, smoothing the hair from my face before whispering to me that I never had to leave until I was ready. I told her then that I'd never leave, and at that moment I meant it more than I'd ever meant anything. She was my first friend. My first taste of love and safety and home, and I never wanted to be without it. Without her close enough that a calling of her name would bring her forth.

"Looks like you'll have us for the foreseeable future, Lizard," Mykel said softly, a hint of amusement at the name. I could hear his grin through the word.

"I'm not a lizard. And I wouldn't have it another way. My Mattie and my Monkey." I smiled, a small laugh escaping me, and I nuzzled further into her side. "Oh, what was that? Was that a laugh I heard?" Liz walked her fingertips down my rib cage and I wriggled within her grasp like a worm on a hook. I heard Liz laughing at my reaction, and in turn Mykel. She tickled me until I was begging her to stop. She did stop, eventually, and I smiled up at her as she smiled down at me. "I just wanted to make you laugh, love." She swiped tickle-crazed hair from my eyes. "I love you. It's alright to feel afraid. Sometimes fear isn't logical. Let it work itself out. Then you'll find one day that you aren't afraid anymore and you won't even realize when it happened. But within your fears, keep in constant reminding that you're safe. You're loved. And you're wanted just as much as you're needed. And we'll both remind you of that. You're home now, my love."

"Thank you, Liz. Both of you." As I sat up, I pulled Mykel to me and drew them both in. They hugged me and we hugged each other as if this circle of three unified a family by blood and circumstantial bond.

In that moment I felt a heavy weight abandon my chest, and I could breathe freely.