With a growl, I stalked away from the door, grabbing a robe from its hook. My bag that I’d brought there with me hung against the wall, and a sense of relief washed over me. I needed an escape for a moment. Some sense of normalcy, and I knew exactly what would help.
Yanking the bag with me, I headed straight for the bathroom. I turned on the tap and let the steaming hot water start to fill the metal, claw foot tub.
Working the laces, clasps and buttons, I peeled out of my gown and undergarments, draping them carefully over a finely upholstered vanity seat. In front of the sink, I looked into the mirror. There was something different in my eyes. Something I couldn’t put my finger on.
I was lost, searching my own expression when the noises in the room shifted, and I was snapped back into reality. I turned swiftly just in time to turn the faucet off, keeping the tub from filling too much. My hands rested on the sides of the metal basin, and I leaned over it, letting the steam flow up around me as I breathed it in before stepping into the near scalding water and lowering myself down.
Having dropped my things on the stool that sat next the tub, I reached over and opened my purse. Rifling around, looking for my bag of crystals that I usually carried with me, I paused when my fingers found my phone instead. Lifting it, I dropped my purse and flipped the device over in my hand.
I knew it wouldn’t work… signal wise. But I couldn’t help but turn it back on. As the screen lit up and icon appeared, I clicked open the photo gallery. Tears found their way to my cheeks as I scanned photos of sunsets, sunrises, my book store locations and employees, my home… my life.
With a deep breath, my thumb slid over the music app icon and I pressed it. Selecting one of my downloaded playlists, I needed to listen to music. Music had always healed me, comforted me. Happy, sad, scared, lost, elated; no matter the emotion, music was always there for me to carry me through each situation.
Right away, I sang along with the lyrics of the first song. My eyes closed, and I placed the phone on the small table near the faucet and leaned back, letting the songs shuffle randomly. And with each tune, I belted out right along with the singers.
It was therapeutic.
I’d sunk down, allowing the water covered every bit of me from my neck down. Shoulders immersed, arms folded into my chest, an acoustic version of Blue October’s “Calling You” filled the room, and I sang along with the winding melody. The lead singer’s odd mix of rough tones and poetic words always made the world melt away for me, and I’d get lost in their songs.
I had been fully unaware of anything but the hot water engulfing me and the music carrying me away from all of the stress surrounding my current situation. So much so that to say I was started when Kane came crashing through the door was an understatement, water splashed as I jumped, hands gripping the sides of the tub to brace for whatever was coming at me.
“Who is in here? Where is he? I’ll kill him!” A deep growl emanated from his chest as he searched the room, the music still lamenting from the speakers on my phone.
“Who?” I curled into myself, lowering into the water up to my chin.
When the song changed and “Mad World” came on in its place, his rampage grew. He overturned the cabinet next to the sink and yanked the door off the linen closet. Not seeing anyone but still hearing the man’s voice, he turned, his eyes boring straight into me. “Is this some kind of magic? Do you communicate with a lover through a spell?” His jaw flexed, causing me to jump out of the tub and cower down behind it, not yet registering why he thought there was a man in there with me. “Are you hiding a lover, Auriena?”
He hardly ever called me by my full, first name. The tears that had ceased suddenly were back. “I don’t know what that woman told you. I don’t even know her. There’s no man or lover that I have other than you. Please! What did she say?” I wrapped my arms in front of myself, trying to hide my naked body as I began to shiver.
His expression twisted. “What she told me? Mika didn’t say anything about you having a man. She would be overjoyed if you had someone to take you from me. I’m speaking of the man I hear in here now.”
“In here?” I started to stand, but when his fists tightened, I sank back down.
The song ended, and Billie Eilish’s voice flowed from the speakers, his head snapped around, catching the phone in his sights. Confusing pulled at his features as he listed it from its resting place. “What is this? Some sort of communication device? Are you speaking to people? Can they not hear us?”
My teeth chattered lightly. “Yes. It is a communication device…a phone.” If I thought he couldn’t appear any angrier, I was wrong. So, I quickly added, “But it also does other things. They can’t hear us because we are hearing recordings. It’s music. I don’t know these people. I listen to their songs. Do you not…”
I stopped, seeing very apparently that his answer would have been “No” to my question. His world did not have recorded music. I wondered if they had music at all.
He started pressing on the screen. “How do you turn it off? I cannot think.” He hit the skip button an “Acid Rain” by
