The hot shower turns out to be a bad, bad idea.

I’m not thinking, so I turn into a muscle-memory machine, walking into Silas’s bathroom and doing my pre-shower routine. Find a towel. Turn on the water spray. Pull the curtain. Start to undress. As I yank my shirt off, I inhale sharply through clenched teeth. I’m essentially dragging shards of glass along my skin.

I move very, very slowly, using my injured hands to pull the dirty, torn cloth of my shirt off my skin and over my head. A small sprinkling of glass strikes the tile floor, making little ping ping ping sounds.

Soon enough, I’m naked.

As I turn, I see that the bathroom door has a full-length mirror attached to the back of it.

I view myself in harsh light for the first time in a while.

It’s not pretty.

Bruises dot my thighs, calves, and arms. A particularly dark one is on my upper hip, close to my ass but lower, on the side. It looks like a piece of dark blue tie-dye, a 1960s freedom festival gone wrong. Small scratches, some healing, some fresh, make me look like someone threw me into a burlap bag with a sack of angry cats.

My bangs are too short, making my wavy hair coil up. My dirty, uncombed hair is–funny enough–a lot like Kelly’s was the night I met her. Before her bath.

At the thought of little Kelly, I look at my own face, eyes wide with emotion. I give myself permission to feel. Like I told Silas, I can cry in the shower.

Turns out, I can also cry before.

I count back the days.

Six days ago, I was sitting at my table at the coffee shop in Santa Barbara, completely unaware of the car bomb planted in my vehicle.

Five days ago, I was at Alice’s ranch for the first time, posing.

Four days ago, I was called back to The Grove and forced to submit to a medical exam that made Silas intervene.

Yesterday, I met Kelly.

And today, I learned the identity of my real father.

Then someone broke into his private estate with a code only Harry, Monica, Lindsay, and his security team knew–and tried to kill me.

There aren’t enough hot showers, bubble baths, or pitchers of sangria to deal with my week.

I pull the shower curtain back and gingerly step in, bracing for the spray.

I scream.

Bang bang bang.

“Jane?” Silas yells, instantly on the other side of the door. He pushes his way in.

The pain of too-hot water cleaning the remaining glass off my skin renders me mute. I open my mouth to reply, knowing I need to. Each gasp makes it harder to tighten my throat and make my vocal cords work. The searing burn takes over all my skin and I step back, trying to escape it.

“JANE!” The only thing between us is the shower curtain.

“WHAT?” is all I can manage to say back.

“You screamed.” He sounds unsure of himself suddenly, his body in shadow, magnified by the bathroom light and my own despair.

“The water. It hurts,” I say back, choking out whatever answer I need to give to make him leave me alone so I can cry.

“We really should have gotten you medical attention,” he adds through the curtain. “Once you’re done, we’ll go to an ER.”

I reach for the shower faucet and turn the water to a cooler temperature. Then I begin to lightly skim my arms, feeling for glass. Nothing.

“It’s okay,” I tell him. “Do you have antibiotic cream?”

“Yes. In a first-aid kit.”

“Then I’m fine.” I say it with a finality, a heaviness that I hope signals to him that he should leave.

I can hear him touch the door. Then footsteps, walking away.

Good. He gets it. He gets me.

I’m glad someone does.

Once the first round of water escorts the broken glass off my skin like it’s going on a perp walk, I sink into the warm water and let myself fall apart.

We hold up these versions of ourselves to the world. I harbor no illusions anymore. Any belief I have about myself is up for question. Nothing is permanent, nothing is real, except the very painful and stark acknowledgement that people want me dead.

Dead like Tara.

Dead like John and Stellan and Blaine, like my mom, like my dad–

No.

Not my biological dad. He is alive and well and working damn hard to be the next president of the United States.

My nose clogs and I laugh as the water absurdly continues, oblivious and stalwart, doing what it knows best. The laws of physics don’t change because I learned a crucial part of my identity today. I haven’t changed, either. Not my body. Not my core. I’m the same Jane who woke up this morning and had a cup of coffee.

For a few brief, wet seconds, the shower water just pours down on me. Same Jane. Same breasts. Same body.

Same ruined life.

The unfairness of it all grabs my gut and twists it. The cold, cruel shower tile presses hard against my cheekbone as I fold in half. Emotion turns me into a wretched, naked thing with an open mouth turned upward, seeking absolution. Seeking relief.

How can I get a break when the pain is inside me? My very existence feeds the shame industry, all of the news headlines beating their big drums until my head explodes. Silas protects me from social media and the newspapers. My phone is filtered. I’m rarely in public.

And yet, I know.

I know the crazy gunman at The Grove will be blamed, somehow, on me.

Tara’s death is my fault.

My own car bombing is my fault.

That’s all I’m good for, I realize as I gasp, clawing at my own wet throat, seeking air. Silas heard me scream when the hot water hit my skin’s wounds, but this silent scream will go unanswered.

I can’t turn what I feel inside into sound.

And so instead it will vibrate through me, multiple frequencies turning my organs and veins, neurons and impulses, into a ragged mess of noise and danger, all trapped inside my scarred and torn skin, the bones my only anchor.

A person can only handle so much pain.

I know this isn’t the end, either.

There is more coming.

Steam curls around me until the shower fixtures float in and out of my vision, lazy and hazy. For a few moments they seem surreal, my mind unable to stay in place for long enough to register my surroundings, hands fumbling for soap on the small ceramic tub shelf. I drop it, the loud thud as it hits the bathtub floor like a head striking concrete, a gavel banging in a judge’s hand, the sound echoing until it softens, like the crash of lovers’ bodies on a bed.

Against a wall.

On the floor.

I bend to find the soap, fingers slippery, the object that makes me clean eluding my grasp over and over. My nailbeds are slightly tinted, blood pooled in them and dried. A flash of Tara, dead, like a doll in a horror film, makes my stomach roil. I know that’s my blood. Not Tara’s.

But is there a difference anymore?

Finally, I just can’t take it, and I slip and slide down to the bottom of the tub, head down, forehead pressed so hard into my knees, it’s like I’m trying to fuse the bones. I cry under the hot spray until ice-cold needles pierce me.

Until I shiver my way into a single internal frequency. From many, one.

One very tired self.

I finally stand on legs that don’t deserve to work. The shower turns easily to the off position. Dripping wet, I step onto the bath mat and pick up the large, folded towel Silas left on the counter. If only life were like this. If only someone took care of me, anticipating my needs, trying to offer what I want.

Such a change from anticipating people who want to hurt me. So different from thwarting people who want to kill me. We focus on predicting and preventing their actions based on their needs. Their wants.

Not mine.

Never, ever mine.

Crying into the big bath sheet isn’t a choice. I can’t help myself. I couldn’t stop if someone held a gun to my head. Here, in Silas’s bathroom, staring at a red, swollen version of my face, the dark, wet hair like a sad crown on my head, I can finally be. I can feel. All the emotion I shoved aside so I could act and react is finally coming home.

While it may not live here, it’s a familiar visitor, and it has some sights it really wants to see before moving on.

“Silas?” I call out, wrapped in the big towel, my hair hanging around my ears, wet and feeling nicely clean.

“Yes?”

“You said there were clothes for me?”

Silence.

“Hang on.” His voice fades as I hear footsteps, then muttering as he comes back. “Looks like they didn’t bring any clothes.”

“What am I supposed to wear?” I look at the pile of filthy, torn, bloodstained clothes on the floor. “I–I–” Panic blooms in me.

“Give me a sec.” His voice fades again. One minute later, he’s back.

Tap tap tap.

“Who is it?” I say, voice filled with sarcasm.

“It’s Silas.” He laughs at himself. “Can I open the door?”

“Sure.”

He does, extending a small stack of neatly folded cotton clothes my way.

“This is the best I could do.” As I take it with one hand, I realize it’s a set of sweats. UC Irvine is on the front of the sweatshirt.

“What is this?”

“The smallest stuff I could find in my drawers.”

“You want me to wear your sweats?”

“Want isn’t the word. It’s all we’ve got until I get someone to do their job and deliver what they promised.” His voice is terse.

I look at the clothes. My bra has glass in it. My underwear should be declared a biohazard. I can’t wear my old stuff.

I have no choice.

“Okay. Thanks,” I say, pressing the door closed. He’s blocking it but moves with an elegance that makes me smile.

I’ll take any reason to smile.

As expected, the sweats are enormous. It’s like swimming in cotton. But the pants have a drawstring and I can walk around without being a nude model.

Minus the artist.

I find Silas in the kitchen, pulling two pints of ice cream out of the freezer. He does a double take, dips his head as if he’s embarrassed, then laughs.

“You look like a mad scientist got his hands on you and shrank you ten percent.”

“I would trade what happened today for that.”

He opens a cabinet door and grabs a bottle of red wine, holding it up to me in a gesture of offertory. “Want some?”

“Wine and ice cream?”

“One of my men’s health magazines says it’s the best way to establish rapport with women.”

“How sexist.”

“Doesn’t mean they’re wrong.”

I snatch one of the pints from him. Bourbon vanilla. “How about making a wine float?”

He’s taken aback. “A what?”

“You know. Like a root beer float? A wine float.”

He has a corkscrew in his hand and takes the bottle, gripping it between his thighs, peeling off the foil from around the cork. His movements are hypnotic, watching him open the wine a form of pleasure in and of itself. The soft cotton of his well-worn college sweatshirt rubs against my stiffening nipples and I force myself to turn away, struggling to control the wildfire of desire that makes me wonder what it’s like to be between those thighs.

I’m jealous of a wine bottle.

“You seriously want to pour red wine over ice cream and eat it?” he asks, deeply amused.

“It’s worth a try. Anything is worth a try.”

Pop! The cork comes loose. Silas gives me a funny look.

“Anything of value is worth a try,” he declares, pouring into a wine glass, careful with the stem. He frowns at me. “Did you put the antibiotic cream on those cuts?”

“No. Not yet.”

“But you will.” He’s firm about it.

“Yes, I will. Priorities.”

“Wine and ice cream come before basic first aid?”

“They are first aid.”

Laughter fills the tiny space between us, Silas lifting his wine glass to his mouth, white teeth showing before he takes a sip. “Hell of a day,” he says, shaking his head slowly. Letting out a breath, he drops his shoulders, body moving from action to rest.

“I’ve had better.” I grab the wine bottle before he can offer and pour myself a glass, drinking half in one long gulp.

He does the same.

“So, how does this work?” I ask, so tired, I’m punchy.

“How does what work?”

“While we wait for some clothes for me, I’m stuck here.”

“Stuck.” He makes a very male sound in the back of his throat, like I’ve offended him.

“Don’t take it personally.”

“I’m not.” But he is.

“I need my own space. I have not been afforded that in ages. I need,” I say, gasping slightly, fighting an unexpected wellspring of emotion, “I need to be alone so I can start to reassemble the pieces of me.”

“You don’t seem broken to me.”

“Then you’re not looking at me very hard.”

“Oh, trust me, Jane. I am.”