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“Oh my God.”

I don’t say anything. I just lie there next to her, propped up on my elbow, and watch her breathe.

She lifts her arm and looks at me. Her eyes are wet. Her face is red. Her hair is a disaster. She looks at me like she has no idea what just happened to her.

And I think, without meaning to: I want to do that again. Not right now. Just. Again. A lot. For a long time.

I don’t say that, either.

She turns on her side, toward me, and puts her hand on my face again and stares at me.

When I get up to get her some water, I see the sheet. There’s a small spot, pink at the edge, barely anything. My stomach turns over.

“Tess.”

She lifts her head off the pillow and looks. Then at me.

“I’m okay,” she says. “It’s barely anything.”

I look at her face. She means it. She’s looking at me like I’m the one who needs to be checked on.

I pick her up.

She yelps and grabs my neck, and then laughs and wraps her legs around my waist while I carry her across the room. I shut the bathroom door behind us with my foot, set her down on the bathmat, turn the shower on, and get in after her.

She stands under the water with her eyes closed and lets it run over her face. I stand behind her. I don’t do anything for a while. I just stand there in the steam and look at the back of her neck, and her shoulders, and the water running down her spine.

Then she leans back against me.

I put my arms around her from behind. She puts her hands over mine on her stomach and holds them there. The water runs over both of us. She tips her head back onto my shoulder and closes her eyes.

“Will you wash my hair?” she says.

I look down at her at all of it, dark and soaked and stuck to her back.

“I don’t know how,” I say.

“It’s just shampoo, Rafe.”

I put too much shampoo in my hand, and she tells me, and I put half of it back, which she tells me is disgusting. I start at the top, and she tells me to start at the bottom. I get soap in her eye, and she swears and hits me without opening her eyes. I apologize. She tells me you’re so bad at this, laughing with her eyes squeezed shut and doesn’t tell me to stop.

I rinse it out. It takes a long time. There’s a lot of it. Neither of us is in any hurry. And I stand there with my hands in her hair and the water going cold on my back, and I don’t want to be anywhere else on the planet.

When I turn the water off, she turns around and hugs me.

Just hugs me. Arms around my waist, face against my chest, her wet hair cold on my skin. Holding on.

I hug her back. I put my chin on the top of her head.

We stand there in the steam until she starts to shiver.

I wrap a towel around her shoulders, go out to get her clothes, pull on my sweats, and come back with hers. I leave them on the counter for her and go sit on the couch, where my phone’s lit up on the cushion.

Mom: Leaving for church at six. Are you two coming?

Tessa comes out with a towel on her head. I hold the phone up so Tessa can see. She walks over and reads it.

“I don’t want to go,” I say. “Do you?”