Page 73 of Rejected Hollow

It all came back at once.

For years, I had treated those moments as if they ended when I walked out of the room. I had told myself they belonged to different places, different people, and different versions of me that I had already left behind.

Sitting there in the water, I understood that none of them had ever really left.

They were still inside me, layered over one another, and right then I couldn't figure out how to get out from under the weight of them.

Half an hour earlier, I had felt at home in my own body. I had actually thought those words. I had floated in this water and believed, for once, that I had finally stopped apologizing for myself.

I lowered my face to my knees and cried.

By the time there was nothing left in me but the occasional shuddering breath, the part of my brain that never seemed capable of shutting up had started doing calculations. How long could a person stay in hot water before their skin started to break down? I had seen photographs of dogs pulled from flooded houses after days in the water. Apparently it took longer than anyone would think.

Maybe I could simply live here.

I could refuse to leave, grow gills, and become a permanent feature of the Baths. A hundred years from now, some Saltmere first-year would discover me shriveled in the corner of the pool, and the school would put up a tasteful little plaque.

Here lies the Stray. She didn't want to walk up the stairs.

A laugh escaped me, wet and ugly and halfway to another sob. It bounced around the black stone walls until I hardly recognized the sound as mine.

Then I heard footsteps at the top of the stairs.

They came fast. Someone took the last few steps two at a time before skidding to a stop at the bottom. Through the steam, I could make out a tall, dark-haired shape bent slightly forward as he caught his breath. Then his scent reached me, and I knew who it was before he spoke.

Cinnamon, warm skin, and stone heated by the sun.

"Reina," Jax said.

The word came out rough and breathless.

I must have looked awful, crouched in the corner of the pool with my wet hair stuck to my face, my eyes swollen from crying, and both arms locked around myself. I heard him take one step toward me before he stopped.

Then, very deliberately, he turned his back to the pool.

"I'm not looking," he said quickly. "I swear on my mother, I'm not looking. I was on the stairs coming back from the lower training yard. I passed them going up, and then I caught your scent in the stairwell. Salt and fear. I followed it down."

He took a breath.

"Are you okay?"

"No." My voice broke on the word. "Delphine and her friends took my clothes. And my glasses. I can't... I can't see."

For a moment, he said nothing.

Then I heard the small, hard sound of his teeth pressing together.

Fabric rustled. He pulled his shirt over his head and held it behind him at arm's length without turning around. Through my blurred vision, all I could make out was the dark shape of the shirt hanging from his hand.

"Here."

I climbed out of the pool and took it from him. The cotton was soft and worn and still warm from his body. It was oversized even on him, so on me the hem reached halfway down my thighs. It smelled like cinnamon, sweat, and Jax.

I pulled it over my wet skin, wrapped my arms around myself, and started crying again from the sheer relief of having something between my body and the rest of the world.

"Okay?" he asked, still facing the wall.

"Okay."