Javi locks himself in the office over the course of the next three days.

He has not asked me for his hoodies again. From the rare glimpses I get when I catch him in the hall, I know he is walking around without them.

I am lonely.

There is a hunger inside of me that I can’t defy. I ache for his body against mine. The smell of his skin. The vibrations of his voice. I lay in bed at night and wonder what he's doing. I wonder how to break through the walls he has built so high around his heart.

And then I wonder why I want to. Why am I still so broken for him?So willing to overlook the things he has done.

My mind and heart are divided.

I don’t know how to find peace with either decision when they both hurt so much. It is ripping me apart. I can love him or hate him, but I can't go on feeling both.

I write in my journal. I play at my piano. And I sing songs with words only he can hear. But still, he does not come.

My heart is melancholy, and I think of my father too often. I wonder where he is. If he's even still alive. I wonder what he would tell me to do if he were here now. Then I remember it wouldn't matter. Because I have always been on my own. Even when he was there, the solitude was an ever-present guest. He was consumed with work, and I was consumed with vying for his attention.

My soul is tormented by the mystery of his fate. The unknowns that still linger. But even so, there is peace in my bones. Peace that wasn’t there before.

I am at ease with the knowledge that Javi needed him too, in his younger years. Regardless of whatever happened between them, Javi did love my father once. He looked up to him. And I know my father loved him too.

Now, only questions remain. Questions I am not certain I will ever have the answers to. Not until Javi is ready to share them.

The doorbell rings again this afternoon, and this time I do not race to see who it is. Javi locks eyes with me before he moves towards the door. Searching for what he is so certain he will find there.

Hope.

Hope that someone else has come to save me. But that is not what he sees. I know, because it is not what I feel. I ignore the visitor and continue the business of writing new lyrics.

It is only River anyway. He comes into the kitchen to snatch an apple from the counter before he follows Javi into his office. They shut the door behind them and remain there for an hour. And when River leaves again, Javi emerges.

Agitated.

He looks at me, and I do not like what I see there. I don't like the doubt in his eyes. The shift in his mood. He seems cold now. Shut down. I think he's going to punish me again. He's going to push me away or hurt me. But that isn't what he does.

He goes to the gym. And stays there for two hours.

Punishing himself instead.

* * *

I'm somewhere between worlds when Javi startles me by removing the book from my hands and setting it on the table beside me.

The conservatory is dark now, apart from the glittering lights of the stars above and a solitary lamp on the table beside me. The roses are fragrant, and the air is warm, and there is something else in the room between us.

A new energy. A strange energy. An exciting energy.

Javi bends down and scoops me into his arms, carrying me to the bathroom. He places me on my feet again and removes my clothes before starting the bath.

I don't question his actions.

We are both silent when he helps me into the bath and begins to wash me. Shampooing my hair and cleaning my body with his hands. When he is finished, he moves to pull the plug, but I stop him.

"Don't," I plead.

His eyes are absent of the turmoil I saw there earlier. He is softer now. And I don’t want to waste these moments, which are so rare with him.

"Will you let me wash you?"

He is silent and still for a long while. Too silent. Too still. I don't know what he's going to do. Not until he removes his shirt and unbuttons his jeans and discards them on the floor beside my own clothes.

Then he climbs in behind me, pulling me into his arms. He does not let me wash him. But he holds me. And that is more than I had hoped for.