Page 62 of Little Ballerina

“A little. A shower, not a bath. Showers soothe me.” She struggled to get the words out between madly chattering teeth.

“All right, shower it is.” He smiled, juggling her from arm to arm he turned the shower on. With the water heating up, he set Naomi back on her feet. “Arms up,” he instructed, then pulled her nightgown over her head when she complied. Her smooth white skin was a mass of goose pimples, and with the room now filling with steam, he put her in the hot shower.

Intending to go grab her something to wear once she was done, he released her, but Naomi grabbed at him. “Come in with me, please? I don’t want to be alone.”

She was on the verge of tears again, and he couldn’t get enough of holding her anyway, so he stepped into the shower fully clothed and pulled her up tight against his body. She was still shaking so he wrapped himself more firmly around her. Naomi lay heavily against him, letting him hold her up, she sighed contentedly and nestled her head against his chest. Sam maneuvered them so that the majority of the spray rained down upon her. Holding Naomi’s naked body in his arms felt so amazing. Yes, it was arousing, but it went so much deeper than that, it wasn't about sex, he wanted to comfort her, he wanted her to know that she wasn't alone. He didn’t want her to ever feel dirty inside when she was with him.

Eventually her shivering ceased, and she rested more heavily against him, she was worn out. Keeping one arm around her waist to keep her on her feet, he turned the shower off and reached for a towel. Patting her down, he tucked it tightly around her, picked her up, and carried her to his bedroom.

Naomi mewed a small protest when he set her down on his bed. He pressed a kiss to the top of her head. “I’ll be right back.” Shrugging out of his soaked clothes, he left them in a pile on the bathroom floor along with Naomi’s nightgown then returned to the bed. Still naked he lay down beside her, and leaving her still bundled up in the towel, he tucked the covers around them.

Curling into him, she rested her head on his shoulder. Tears began to fall from her eyes, dripping down onto his bare skin. It seemed that now she had allowed herself to cry she couldn’t stop. “I'm so tired, Sam,” she admitted. In his armsshe was trembling like a baby bird and felt every bit as fragile as one.

The weary way she said it punched him in the gut. No wonder she was tired. The burden that she had carried alone for over two decades, for reasons he wished he could convince her weren’t true, was enough to crush anyone. That Naomi had managed to bear it made his heart swell with pride. She was amazing.

Eventually, her ragged breathing evened out, and he thought she had fallen asleep. Attempting not to jostle her, he reached out to turn off the lamp on his bedside table. As soon as the room was plunged into darkness, Naomi spoke, “Are you going to tell them?”

That was a tough one, he wanted to respect her privacy, and she was right when she said that her grandfather was dead so it seemed unlikely that the sexual abuse she had endured was in any way related to her being stalked now. Yet his gut said otherwise. Aside from that, he was extremely concerned about the pressure that she put on herself to constantly give off the illusion that she was in control. He was worried that she had just about reached her breaking point, and that she was poised to crack at any moment. He needed to know the reason why she thought it was so important that everyone thought she was perfect so he could find a way to help her move forward.

“Sam?”

He could feel her looking at him even though in the dark she was nothing more than a shadowy outline. “I might have to. I'm sorry, but maybe it would be good for you to have your family’s support.”

“I don’t want them to know,” she whispered against his skin as she turned her face into his chest.

“Why?”

She just shrugged.

“Naomi, why do you need your family to think that you can handle everything?”

“Habit, I guess,” she answered softly. “My mom needed me to be strong, she needed me to be the good one, I was all she had. David and Eli were dead. Ruth was a drug addict by the time she hit her teens, she was in and out of rehab, she was in and out of relationships. And Seth, he suffered from depression, he committed suicide when he was seventeen. With three dead sons and a daughter who seemed determined to kill herself with her addiction, my mom couldn’t handle anything else. Especially after my stepfather went to prison. Clara and Aggie, they have both been through so much and they're just starting to get their lives together, to be happy, I don’t want to ruin that with my problems. I don’t want anyone to worry about me.”

“But your family does worry about you,” he reminded her. “Iworry about you.”

She stiffened like he had somehow just insulted her. “I don’t want you to worry about me.”

“Tough.”

Lifting her head, she glared at him. “Tough?”

“Get used to it.”

“You shouldn’t be worrying about me, you should be angry with me that your nephew is dead because of me.”

“I thought we were done with that,” he rebuked. “I felt like I made my position perfectly clear. That is not your fault. None of this is. You have lost a lot too.”

“I lost my house,” she shrugged dismissively, “you lost a family member.”

“You lost yourhome, not just a house. And you lost pretty much everything that was inside it. There had to have been things in there that meant something to you, that are irreplaceable,” he pushed.

“There were some things of David and Eli’s,” she finally admitted. “Family pictures and a couple of toys I managed to find after the fire. David loved animals, he had a whole set of plastic farm animals in the sandbox in our backyard, I found them there after the fire. And Eli had this plastic drum that he was always banging on, it must have gotten left outside, I found it too. But those are just things, Sam. You lost aperson.”

“You always dismiss your feelings like they don’t matter.” He knew his tone was sharper than it should be. Naomi was suffering, but some of it she was inflicting on herself. Why couldn’t she see herself as he saw her?

“They don’t matter. I'm broken inside, disgusting, vile, imperfect, that’s why I try to be perfect on the outside.”

“When this stalker thing is over you get therapy. I want to help you, Naomi, but I'm way out of my league here, I don’t know what to say to you.”