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but right now, I was ashamed and the pain - this pain - was welcome.
    I didn’t hear the bathroom door open, and I didn’t notice Calix until the glass door of the shower had swung open and Calix had turned the hot water to a very mild warm. Stepping into the stream, he demanded loudly, “What the fuck, Nova?”
    I didn’t even respond.
    I had nothing to say.
    Calix wrapped his hand around my upper arm, pulling me from the floor. I moaned, feeling the raw skin of my back ache with the shift and Calix demanded again. “What the fuck are you doing?”
    “I don’t know.” I answered honestly, more tears falling. “I don’t even know who I am.” I laughed then, feeling slightly nutty and immensely exhausted. “Who am I Calix? What am I worth?”
    His expression twisted from anger to absolute rage - pure, terrifying, rage. “Fuck me.” He growled, but I barely heard him. “You’re worth everything, love.” His arms moved around my body and he steered my back into the stream of lukewarm water. It was a gentle kiss against my raw flesh and I moaned, dropping my face against his chest. He said again with vindication. “You’re worth everything, Nova.”
    Calix held me in the stream of water for so long, as I cried in his brutal, conflicting arms. He was like Jackal and Hyde. I never knew which face he would greet me with - I hated that about him. And I hated that I loathed something about a man I loved. Yeah, as much as I didn’t want to - I knew I loved Calix. It was hard to admit when the truth was so damning - but hell, it was the truth.
    My mom always said that love and hate go hand in hand. You can’t hate someone you’ve never loved, or don’t still love to some degree - because hate takes serious effort and if you didn’t love someone, even a little, then you’d never take the effort or waste the energy needed to hate them.
    I’d never really understood that statement until now. Now, I truly, with every fiber of my being, understood that statement. I was beginning to believe my mother was a wise woman.
    Slowly, Calix dropped his head to my shoulder. He didn’t apologize for pushing me to this breaking point. Instead, he pressed his lips against my shoulder. He kissed me there. Once. Before lifting his head to look into my eyes. I saw in the blue depths that something was torturing him - I just didn’t know what. And I didn’t have the courage or the strength to ask him.
    “Will you wait in here while I wash quickly, love?” Calix asked gently.
    I knew better than to believe that when Calix asked a question, he expected anything less than acceptance.
    So, despite the exhaustion seeping through my bloodstream, I nodded.
    I stood in the back of the shower, feeling cold without the heat of the water or his body against mine, as Calix moved quickly through the motions of his shower. But not once, did he take his eyes off me. When he was finished showering, he turned off the water before reaching out to grab for a towel hanging beside the shower. It was fluffy and bronze like all of Calix’s towels - and I watched as he moved toward me.
    Wrapping me in the soft fabric, he dried me off as though I were incapable of completing the small task myself. He even squeezed the water from my hair, before bending down and pressing a gentle kiss to my forehead.
    When he was finished drying my body, he wrapped me up in the towel before seeing to his own body with the other towel. When he was finished drying himself, he hung his towel, took my hand in his, and led me to the sink. I watched through drooping eyelids as Calix loaded the toothbrush before handing it to me.
    “Brush your teeth, love.” He said quietly.
    I took the toothbrush and did as he requested as he brushed his own teeth. Again, not even a moment passed where I felt the heat of his eyes fall from my face.
    When I was finished brushing my teeth, Calix put my toothbrush in the holder beneath the sink before leading me past the closet and into the