The steam was fogging up all my senses, clouding out all the intrusive thoughts and suffocating them under a blanket of hot air so thick I could barely see.

The shower knob was turned as far as it could go, but it still didn't heat the chill lingering beneath my bones; it didn't erase the past two weeks and everything that had broken me in the meantime.

The heat from the water wasn't enough to do what needed to be done, but it did enough.

It didn't soak the fire down past my skin to the muscles and veins beneath. It didn't destroy the monster hiding under the surface, roiling and pacing and begging to be let out to let the world hear its beastly roar.

I kept it on a short leash, unable to escape and terrorize, but sometimes--like that night--I let it out.

I let it shine through behind my eyes, let it bare its teeth at those who could hurt me and who do so without thought of consequence or reason.

Sometimes, I wish the beast would take over and reduce the rest of me to the shell of a person I'd become without it.

But I knew that I was nothing without it.

Was I nothing with it, too?

Was I still even here?

Was I already nothing, already the blank emptiness my mind craved to un-feel each and every day to stop this madness from creeping in and swallowing me whole?

If I couldn't climb out of the despair, maybe I should've just found a way to cease to exist.

Maybe this steaming, burning water would show me the way.

I stepped into the spray, letting out a whimper of pain that barely reached my ears.

I reveled in the pain, letting the flames of water lick up and down my spine and shoulders until I could feel the skin blistering beneath its heat.

The sound of my skin boiling and bubbling was almost audible until the water immediately turned to ice, hissing pelts of icicles where I wanted wrath and fire and flame to reside.

Pulling back the curtain revealed Grey, hand still partly in the shower where he'd turned the temperature gauge to freezing.

"What the hell are you doing in here?"

He didn't look guilty, or ashamed, or even particularly too out of place, which was a given considering this was--and has been--his bathroom for his entire life. Why would he seem out of place?

But then, why would he feel the need to interrupt my shower time?

He tucked his hands into his back pockets, an easygoing smirk on his lips as he leaned back against the countertop, acting for all the world like he was reveling in a prank on his new housemate.

"That wasn't funny, asshole."

One dark eyebrow raised, and I noticed that he'd put in a piercing on the edge of the left one that hadn't been there the night before.

Just like the piercing that adorned his lower lip, the small silver hoop interrupting the expanse of otherwise smooth and plump pink skin that I would've fantasized about on any other day, before.

Before...

The clouds jumbled up everything in my head, like there was an overcast day happening in my thoughts, and every so often, the sun shone high and bright and gave me the blessing of clearheadedness.

But then, the clouds came. Then, the fog took over.

"Sorry, but I thought I told you I took showers in the morning. Maybe you shouldn't have been using all the hot water."

He definitely did not look sorry.

His dark as night hair was strewn messily across his head and strands of it brushed across his cheeks and forehead, a slight stubble adorning his otherwise flawless skin.

How he managed to not have a single breakout astonished me.

I was almost jealous--of the perfect skin, of the long and pitch black eyelashes adorning his midnight eyes.

Almost--because being jealous would've been an admonition of feeling anything for Grey, and I wasn't ready to acknowledge any feeling pertaining to him. Not yet...maybe not ever.

"I didn't get a chance to shower last night."

"And why not?"

"I had...homework."

His lips pulled up into a knowing smirk, and if my eyes were working properly, I would've noted that it was most likely the sexist thing I'd ever seen.

Though his style screamed 'Stay Away', his body was clearly honed in the gym, all hard cut lines and muscle visible through the thin black cotton of his long sleeve t-shirt.

His denim jeans? Black.

His shoes? Black.

His hair, his piercings--even the ink I peeked crawling from up out of the neck of his shirt--all black.

"Well, maybe this will work out for the both of us, after all. You and I can shower together every morning, conserve the water."

My face dropped in shock. Surely I didn't understand what he'd just signed with his hands. There was no way he'd actually just said that...well, signed...ugh. There was no. way. I had that right. Right?

"Excuse me?"

I turned the shower off, seeing as I'd already washed my body and was in the middle of an existential life crisis when Grey had come in and interrupted what was most likely me self harming in an attempt to feel something other than the drowning nothingness I was staring into the face of.

"Naturally, I wouldn't want to burn myself, so we'd have to keep it at a decent temperature."

My eyes narrowed as I realized where he was going with this.

"Is that so?"

"Yes. I like it at a very mild temperature. Wouldn't want to burn myself."

"Oh, no you're totally right."

I turned the water back on again, at a normal temperature this time.

"Alright, it's ready. Aren't you getting in?"

"What?"

"The shower. You said you wanted to shower together, right? Come on, its ready for you."

I noticed as the gleam in his eye turned wicked.

"You think I won't do it, don't you? That's where you're so wrong."

I watched in a strange trance as Grey undid the laces on his black combat boots.

His deft fingers worked in a concentrated fashion, expertly untying quickly until he was onto the next boot.

I let the shower curtain drop as I disappeared into the shower again and placed some more body wash on my hands just to make it seem like I was still busy, even though I'd already washed myself before he'd so rudely interrupted me.

He thought I wouldn't go through with it? Typical. I was calling him on his bluff.

He'd be the first to back out, I just knew it.

The sound of his belt hitting the tiled floor of the bathroom filled the air, and suddenly I was wondering if this was a good idea after all...

The suds from my body wash came into contact with the skin of my back and my shoulder and I hissed out in pain, the throbbing and mind bending pain momentarily blinding me as stars and black dots assaulted my vision.

I had to get the soap off these burns that I'd given myself in the shower, but the thought of putting my injured skin in the pelting water was enough to make my knees sway with terror.

Grey tapped on the shower curtain, probably to see if I was alright, because it wasn't like he could just yell out, 'Cami, you good?'

"I'm fine, just...hurt my back earlier."

He grunted before the telltale sound of a zipper being undone echoes off the bathroom walls.

Okay, this was definitely not a good idea.

"Are you really going through with this? It was a joke..."

Even I could hear the panic in my voice as it trembled out.

I was just so stupid, stupid stupid.

I'd let Grey draw me in and bring out my stubborn pride. I'd let him bait me and my idiotic attitude and personality had fallen right for it.

I placed my back into the spray of water after a silent countdown from ten and the guttural cry that came out of my mouth was almost as painful as the first impact of the water itself.

Suddenly, Grey's hand appeared again, but this time it was holding a towel.

I shut the water off and gratefully took the towel, wrapping it around my skin before pulling the curtain back to find...something I wasn't expecting to see. At all.

Grey had pulled the vanity chair out and motioned for me to sit as all different arrays of moisturizers and lotions and bandages were placed on the counter.

The zipper I'd heard? It was from the bag filled to the brim with first aid products.

The belt I thought I'd heard hit the ground? The handle from the metal kit.

"How did you know...?"

"You're not the only one in this house who's done that before."

I was intensely aware of the shame crawling up my neck and resting in a blush along my cheeks, but still I dragged my dripping wet body clad in a pristine white towel to the vanity chair and sat while he inspected the wound.

I stared back at him in the mirror while he used his hands to tell me what I'd done.

"Looks minor, might not even blister, but we'll use the bandages anyway just in case. First, aloe, then bandage. This isn't going to feel good, so get ready."

I closed my eyes. I didn't want to see it coming; I wanted to feel the shock of the pain when it happened.

His touch was feather gentle and light--a stark contrast to the stinging pain that the salve brought to the skin.

But suddenly--that burn eased and the pain turned aching, and the sting from his fingers turned into a tingling chill that rose bumps along my arms and down my spine.

I shivered beneath his touch.

His hands left me and I looked up to him trying to speak to me.

"Is this alright?"

"Yeah. It doesn't hurt. Thank you."

There was some kind of unspoken, tangible thread between the two of us that I was scared to wonder if he felt, too. It was like some kind of mutual understanding that we could be as fucked up with the other as we wanted because we'd both seen it all.

His touch became firm as he placed the two thick bandages on my body, one on my upper back and the other on my left shoulder where my neck met the rest of me.

Already, I could feel whatever he'd put on me start to get to work.

"What did you use on my skin? Aloe?"

"No. Burn cream."

"Oh. Well, thank you."

"Just don't do it again. You're already making me relive memories I don't want to remember."

"Oh. Sorry."

"It's fine. But seriously, don't do that shit again."

"Fine, fine. I won't."

His demeanor had chilled, and suddenly it was like staring into a reflection of myself from the night before--someone hostile and half emotionless and fully done with this moment.

"Sorry I stole your shower time too. I didn't think it would bother you this much."

I stood and tugged the towel tighter around my frame, and I realized with sudden fear that I was shaking. Shivering and trembling from the cold or from the emotional upheaval--I wasn't sure which it was.

"Whatever. Get dressed--I'm taking you to school."

And then he left with a moody door slam that made me flinch from the sudden noise of it all.

Driving me to school, my ass. I was going to take advantage of the new Mercedes out in the driveway that Maria had let me use for the time being until they got Parker a new car.

"Cami! Yo! If you're not ready in fifteen, I'm taking the car without you! Better hurry, don't want helmet hair with grumpy driving you, do you?"

I silently cursed under my breath while I locked the other side of the bathroom door that led to Grey's room and got to work with the blowdryer, praying that I had time.

And then I remembered.

I'd be driving Parker to school.

Shit. Well, at least he was the lesser of two evils, right?

Right?

God, I hoped I was right.