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“I’m not sure,” she says glumly.

“You want me to run you a bath?” I ask. She looks up at me with soft eyes.

“Yeah, please.”

“Okay, baby.”

Going towards the bathroom, I flick on the light. I grab the bubble bath from beneath the sink, a lighter, and the vanilla candle we leave under there for when she takes them. I turn on the water to warm and plug the drain. Lighting the candle, I leave it on the side of the tub. I squirt some of the lavender bubble bath into the water and swish it around with my hand to make it all soapy. Just the way she likes it. I grab a towel from the cabinet above the toilet and lay it out on the counter for her. Before going to grab her, I go into the room to grab a pair of clean pajamas for her. I drop them off in the bathroom on my way back out towards the living room.

“It’s all set for you,” I announce.

She doesn’t move, not even an inch. Walking around the couch, she stares up at me. She always looks so lost, as if she isn’t sure what’s going on. It’s the look on her face that I see in my dreams. When I awake in the night with the look of despair on her face, when I awake in the night with an anger I can’t shake. The people who destroyed her are dead, but every day, I wish they weren’t so I could kill them over again. And again. And again. Their punishment was too quick.

Luna still doesn’t move. I bend down over her and try to scoop her up into my arms, but she flinches away. Rising to her feet, she stares at me with hate in her eyes.

I know I shouldn’t touch her. I shouldn’t try at all, but what am I supposed to do?

Luna walks by me without a word and all I hear is the sound of the door shutting behind her. I go towards the bathroom and try to turn the doorknob, but she’s locked it.

“Luna, please. Don’t lock the door,” I beg through the wood.

I don’t tell her this, but I fear that she might try to leave me. Leave this world. She doesn’t answer. I'm greeted with nothing but silence.

“Luna, please,” I knock on the door. I try the doorknob again, knowing it won’t work.

I stand against the door for at least ten minutes before I give up. Walking back to the bedroom, I lay in bed and stare at the ceiling for what feels like hours. There’s not a sound in the house. Not from the bathroom. Not from anywhere.

My blood starts to race at the thought of her in there, below the water’s surface, and no longer breathing. I suck in a sharp breath.

No. She’s fine.

She is perfectly fine.

Several more minutes go by before I hear the sound of the door. She walks into the room a moment later. I can breathe again.

“Luna,” I rasp. She looks at me.

“What?”

“What?” I parrot. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what?” She snaps.

“Don’t lock yourself in the bathroom and not answer. You haven’t made a single noise in nearly an hour. Don’t do that to me.”

Luna’s face changes. She no longer looks mad but looks apologetic.

“Are you afraid I’m going to kill myself?”

“Yes.”

“I won’t.”

“I can’t know for sure. Just please, don’t lock the door. Please,” I beg. Her shoulders fall. She crawls into bed and stays on her side as she does every night.

I itch to touch her. Not in the ways I’ve always craved, but to just hold her. To feel her skin against mine. I wish, I wish, I wish that she’d just let me hold her.

twenty-six