Page 33 of Kiln Me Softly

She looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, and then must have remembered that he was doing her a favour and changed her mind.

With her nose running in the cold night, she reached into his pocket, fingers lightly brushing his arse in a way that made him hold his breath.

Not just because she was touching him, either, but because it felt like such a familiar gesture.

They’d closed all of that distance she’d worked hard to put between them in one night, and this time, it wasn’t because they were horny and swept away in a moment.

It was because she was vulnerable, and he was helping her.

She slid the key into his lock wordlessly, opening the door into the dark hallway.

‘After you,’ he said when she hovered on the welcome mat. She stepped through, fidgety and hesitant. Why? Why, for once, couldn’t she just be with him?

She eyed everything like it was her first time seeing someone’s home, not that that was what this was.

A home wasn’t something he could ever recall having.

His father’s house was too big, big enough to feel like he might vanish among all the light and space, and this flat was just a place to put all his stuff in while he studied. A place to sleep and eat and shower.

He had tried to make it feel like his: his jackets were hung on the coat stand and a few of his favourite paintings added colour to the white walls, but they felt like a way of torturing himself with the life he was supposed to be living.

Dad had gifted them to him because he’d wanted his son to appreciate art the way he did: for its beauty, yes, but also its monetary value.

He wanted to give Aiden an eye for it so that he’d come to know how to sell, what, why, to who, and for what purpose, too.

When she paused, he took over, guiding her into the living room and flicking on the lights with his elbow.

He wondered if she saw this place as he did: a bland, cold space that looked barely lived in, nothing like her room.

At least mess was proof that she had a personality, interests.

His were stacked on his coffee table. A few tubes of acrylic paint, a stained palette, and a pan of watercolours because he’d wanted to try a different medium if only to get away from the rules he’d lived by his whole life.

There was a low set of cupboards where he’d piled his textbooks, and he shoved them to one side to set Cerberus down. ‘How’s this? He’ll get a bit of light from the window. Do hamsters need light?’

‘It’s better to keep him out of direct sunlight.’

‘Why? Is he flammable?’ It was only half a joke.

Aiden knew nothing about caring for another creature.

Dad had never let him have pets, probably for good reason: because Aiden was selfish and lazy and unreliable, at least to him.

To Aiden, he was just trying to balance the weight of expectations he could barely meet.

Juniper’s look was deadly, which quickly sobered him.

‘He’s nocturnal. He needs consistency. Nothing too bright, but light enough to give him a routine.

Here should be fine.’ She nudged the cage just slightly towards the books, where the corner was darker.

Inside, Cerberus had disappeared into a little wooden hut.

‘Does he always smell like that?’ Aiden sniffed, then wrinkled his nose.

‘Yes.’

Great . Thank goodness he didn’t have many guests over. ‘How often do I need to clean him?’

‘Never. I don’t need you letting him out and losing him.’ She bent over to look for the hamster in his hut. ‘I’ll come by and take care of that.’

‘Okay. Sounds good.’ Aiden mimicked her, curiously wiggling his finger through the wire cage. Cerberus emerged, his tiny nose and long whiskers twitching as he came to see his new surroundings. He sniffed Aiden’s finger, and then— ‘Ow!’

‘Oh, yeah. Sometimes, he bites.’

Aiden yanked his hand away, shaking off the sting. The thing had razor-sharp teeth for such a tiny animal. ‘He’s almost as violent as you.’

He almost won a smile with that. Almost. She sank back on her heels and finally looked at him. ‘Thank you, Aiden. I don’t know what I would have done with him otherwise. It really means a lot, that you’d take care of him.’

His heart stuttered with something warm and hopeful. ‘Of course. Anything, Juni. Really.’

‘I’ll miss not having him in my room.’ She slumped into the nearest seat on the couch, adding life to the cream furniture even with her dark clothes.

Her hair, knotted from the wind, cascaded over one shoulder as she rubbed her eyes tiredly.

‘Gets lonely in there, even with Tilly next door. Then again…’ Sadness flickered on her features.

‘Then again, what?’

She shook her head. ‘Nothing.’

‘You can talk to me, y’know.’ He sat beside her, finger twirling through her hair softly. The smoky scent of the fire clung to her, to them both, along with the fresh damp of outside. She leaned into his touch, a revelation in itself.

‘I can’t.’ It was whispered, but it still stabbed through him like needles. Her voice was thick, close to tears again.

‘Why? Why can’t you?’

‘I’m just so sick of fucking everything up all the time.

Even when I think I’m doing something right, it still all falls apart around me.

And I can’t keep blaming my ADHD for the fact that everything is such a fucking mess.

And I can’t keep blaming you for it, either, because it turns out you’re actually not the devil’s spawn after all, which is highly inconvenient, by the way. ’

‘Um, sorry, I think.’ Aiden arched a brow, trying to piece it all together. He might have been offended, but he was more focused on the other thing.

ADHD . He supposed it made sense. At the exhibition, she’d gotten distracted by each new piece of art to the point of interrupting one sentence to start another, and it was no secret that she wasn’t the best at managing her time.

He couldn’t remember knowing that about her in high school, but when he’d been researching his mental health problems, he’d read that symptoms manifested differently in women for all sorts of things, neurodivergence included.

Perhaps focusing on her art and keeping that ferocity intact had been her way of masking.

‘And also, I feel like shit,’ she continued, words merging together in a rush now.

‘My head hurts, and I can’t feel my legs, and everything is just bad, Aiden.

I think this has actually been the worst day of my life, and I’m only being a smidge dramatic about it.

And you know what’s fucked up?’ Her eyes locked on his.

‘You’re the only one who makes me feel okay about it. You . It was never supposed to be you!’

It was everything he’d ever wanted to hear, but now he didn’t know how to respond. Could only sit in silence, heart pounding, as he tried to resist kissing her until her tears stopped.

She threw her head down to her knees – then paused when she got close to the coffee table.

He’d left his sketchbook there, open on the page she’d seen the other day.

The page of her. It wasn’t the only one, either.

Beneath, he’d started painting the same figure, her, her back turned with a piece of art framed in front of her the way it had been at the museum.

He’d wanted to remember that evening, the way she’d absorbed herself completely in it all.

Problem was, he could never get her shape right.

She wasn’t someone who belonged on a page.

She was too alive for it. A sculpture might have been better, but he wasn’t sure he’d ever be talented enough for that.

‘And you’ve been drawing me,’ she said quietly after moments of suffocating silence. ‘Why have you been drawing me?’

‘I told you. I’ve been feeling inspired.’

She closed her eyes, sucked in a deep breath. ‘Aiden, you’re not my boyfriend.’

It hurt, but he’d been waiting for it. ‘Do I need to be?’

‘You’re buying me concert tickets, and drawing me, and looking after my hamster, and taking me home when I’m sick.’

‘And are those somehow defining factors of a relationship? Should I change my Facebook status to it’s complicated or will that come during the inevitable custody battle for Cerberus?’

She slapped his chest playfully, then leaned back on the couch with her head twisted to look at him. Her lids were heavy, face still far paler than he liked. ‘Stop.’

He leaned back, too, faces inches apart. ‘No. I don’t care what I am to you, Juniper, as long as I get to be something.’

Her mouth downturned as though it wasn’t a suitable answer, and yet she didn’t fight it. Didn’t say anything.

He couldn’t help but feather his fingers across her scalp gently, smiling when her lids fluttered shut. ‘I’ve felt like you do now before. At Elmington.’

‘When you weren’t well.’

It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway, though she wasn’t looking at him. It was only right to be honest with her, now that she was being honest with him.

‘I struggled there. With my mental health. I was miserable. Studying a course I didn’t want to because I thought it would make my dad happy.

Pretending to be friends with people who only cared about me because of my last name.

I was so fucking alone, Juni. I didn’t have anyone, and I was so depressed that I didn’t even make it to class most days.

’ He dragged his ring up and down his thumb anxiously.

‘It was like I couldn’t get a full breath, couldn’t keep going, even when I tried to force myself to.

And I didn’t know what was wrong with me, which made it scarier.

I couldn’t trust anything I knew anymore.

Not my body, definitely not my mind. When I fell behind…

’ A thick swallow. ‘My dad found out, and he said things like you’re saying to yourself now.

And it took me a long time to convince myself they weren’t true.

In fact, I’m still working on it. Even with therapy and medication and every coping mechanism under the sun, I can still feel it surfacing in me every now and again. ’

Her hand found his chest, like she was trying to heal the part where it hurt most. He covered it with his own, feeling light-headed and strange – but free, somehow.

He’d never told anybody but his therapist just how deep he’d sunk.

But seeing the way Juniper was tonight, the way she beat herself up, he trusted her.

Hoped maybe he could help her to feel less alone. Be the person he’d needed back then.

‘I had no idea you went through something like that,’ she admitted.

He shrugged. ‘Didn’t want you to. Didn’t want anyone to.’

‘When Owen was questioning you about your dad at the museum…’

‘My anxiety isn’t always predictable, but I feel worse when I’m around people who want to talk about my dad, who seem to have already put me in a box.

I feel suffocated, like I’m back there, at Elmington, with people who don’t really see me, and…

it’s terrifying. I never want to go back to that place. ’

‘I’m so sorry that you suffered that way.’ She traced his jaw gently. ‘But I see you, Aiden.’

He knew. He could feel it, like light flooding through areas that had only ever been in shadow before. He leaned forward to place a kiss on her forehead, glad when she sunk into him, head against his chest. ‘You always have. Even my shitty parts.’

‘Especially your shitty parts.’ She pulled away, and he had to restrain himself from tugging her back. For once, he wished they could just stay slotted in place. ‘You’re going to catch my cold.’

‘I don’t care.’

‘You will when you can’t remember what it feels like to breathe through your nostrils.’ She yawned, covering her mouth. ‘I should go.’

‘Or you could stay,’ he suggested. ‘You’re exhausted, and I’m pretty sure I saw books all over your bed, whereas my bed is comfortable and bookless.’

‘Show off.’ But she didn’t need telling twice, grabbing the fleecy throw from the back of his couch. ‘I’m not staying in your bed, though.’

‘Because I’m not your boyfriend?’ he teased, helping her spread the blanket over her curled, clammy body.

She nodded, getting comfortable against him again. His arms curled around her waist on instinct, frightened she might disappear if he didn’t hold on.

‘But this couch is quite comfy,’ she murmured finally.

It wasn’t for him, the arm digging into his back and her thigh pinning his knee in an awkward position, but he didn’t care.

As long as she was here and okay, he would endure the rest.

Even if he wasn’t her bloody boyfriend.