The following days were some of the best that they'd had in Paris. They baked cupcakes one day and they washed their clothes another and everything felt like a really cheesy romance movie. When they baked, they smeared icing on each other and kissed the mess away and when they did laundry, she ended up sitting on the machine with him in between her legs. He thought that she might be getting better, slowly recovering, because she hadn't let him touch her this much in ages and she hadn't been smiley for so many days in a row in what seemed like millennia.
The plum colored skin beneath her eyes was fading into a light lilac color because she was sleeping peacefully every night. The matted hair on the top of hair had been brushed everyday and her belly was full every night. The sunlight beneath her skin hadn't shone in such a long time, hidden beneath layers of scratch marks and sadness, but he was sure that it was close to the surface when she laughed at his story about him and the lads egging a neighbor's car.
One night after one of her best days, he slipped out of the house and bought a really cheap bottle of champagne. She sipped down two thirds of it and he drank the rest, him buzzed and her flat out drunk. He was messily kissing her swollen lips and she was messily kissing him back, slobber and chapstick smearing across their cheeks and chins.
"I love you," she slurred and he couldn't ignore that it was the first time she'd said it in weeks.
He said it back and you could hear him smiling because he was just so happy that she really did love him, not that he ever had doubts.
Before either of them really knew what was happening, she was fumbling with the button of his pants and he was biting his lip and both of them were so ready for this. Her hands were surprisingly steady as she yanked down his pants and his underwear too and his soft little reassurances made her feel drunker than she already was.
She was about to put him in her mouth and then her drunken mind wandered to Year 12 when her boyfriend hung her lace lingerie in the boys' locker room and everyone called her a slut until she had to leave that school and go to a new one. She hadn't even done anything with him, she'd bought that bra and pantie set to make herself feel less like the scum of the Earth, and she still doesn't know how he got his hands on it.
"I can't," she stuttered, trying not to cry and slur her words.
He wasn't going to push her to do anything she didn't want to do, he never would but especially not this. Her mind might've been filled with sickening ideas and horrible memories of a life she didn't deserve, but she knew what she wanted or didn't.
"It's okay baby," he said, pulling his underwear and jeans back up before letting her rest in his arms.
He kept telling her he loved her, kissing it into her hair and massaging it into her arms. She felt tired and fuzzy and so, so sad, sad that she couldn't give him what he wanted and sad that he couldn't see that she was broken beyond repair.
He could feel her shaking beneath the touch of his fingertips and she was cold, very cold. He felt around for a blanket to drape over their bodies and she melted into the fuzzy material and his hard chest and he didn't think he could ever get tired of the roller coaster that she was. It was a bumpy ride, a lot of broken boards and loose bolts, but going up the hills was so great and he'd risk going down them for her.
