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Love was suffocating. How could it not be? It had engulfed Evaldina until she was blind, foolishly blind. She sometimes stared at Herman, only to wonder, how can he bear it? The gentle yet firm hands helped her into the bathtub while her hands clawed into his shoulder. How could he bear me? Evaldina hissed a breath when she placed her foot into the tub. It would be easier if he carried her inside but she preferred to grip him tightly. At times, Herman thought she’d push him away like she’d done so many times before but he never flinched.
When she could bend into the tub, she hastened to clutch the tub’s edges, letting him go. Herman watched it with an analytical softness. She couldn’t bear him. Before these years, she had never truly tried to figure out his mind, let alone thoughts. She never had to study him, not when her magic was enough. The most complex thought she could think about him was if he was breaking free from the spell.
He knew more about her than she allowed and she knew less about him than he allowed. Men were animals, she had once thought.
“Evaldina, how is the water?” A mundane question to ask. A mundane question to puzzle over. She tried to find the Herman she spoke to that one night. The one with bloody lips that curved to her discomfort.
“Beautiful.” She repeated the word he had used that midnight. “How do you define it?”
Herman dipped his hand into the water, which made her straighten her back. He hummed and pondered on whether the water was comfortable. He stood up and left shortly.
Evaldina glanced down at the water and wondered his potential answer. What would be beautiful about her regrets or hate? Was she still beautiful now or was she a burden? Those foolish thoughts, again—she smiled bitterly once she caught herself. She was so old yet she was still so foolish. She’d look anywhere for a dagger to pierce her. Herman didn’t have those thoughts and she once thought of him as foolish for not having them. All those times she had wrapped her hand around his throat and threatened him, he had never met fear.
His fearlessness wasn’t a weakness or a strength; it was just Herman.
“Beautiful.” She whispered to herself, then coughed, another cough until she was clutching her thin undergown. It wouldn’t stop. When she coughed like this, it felt like she’d never stop.
A hand rubbed her back in slow, hesitant motions like she’d still snap at him like a viper. The coughs steadied. Evaldina looked up.
Herman’s eyes squinted and his brows too straight. His lips were gaping. A small line near his brow.
He was afraid.
Evaldina could finally see it. The fear in his parted lips and wrinkling eyelids. His fear only visited when her body weakened, as if he would lose everything. Just as Evaldina realized it, Herman’s face smoothed out into what it was once before. Whenever she coughed, he went quiet as if the silence were as delicate as she was.
He stood up again and for a moment, Evaldina thought he’d leave again. He moved toward the small table and retrieved a large, steaming kettle. He began to drop the hot water into the tub, just near her feet. Evaldina hadn’t realized she was shivering from the cold water until the steam hit her.
“You’re drowning.” She found herself saying.
Herman paused at her face as if tracing the movements of her mouth to understand. He nodded when he did. However, he didn’t answer.
“I can’t save you.” Evaldina stated.
He nodded again.
A laugh rumbled through her panting chest, half irony, half cruelty.
“Is it beautiful?” She asked and Herman parted his lips again, contemplating.
He reached out and took her hands, not to kiss or hold. He wrapped her hands around her neck.
“Am I drowning, Evaldina?” He asked with a sickening smile that never seemed like just a smile. Too joyous, too practiced.
“Do you miss your parents?” She asked quietly and gave his throat a small squeeze.
“I’m better off here.” He couldn’t even grace her with an answer? Evaldina had once thought Herman was obedient to a fault but in hindsight, none of this was obedient. No matter how many times he kneeled, it couldn’t be obedience.
It wasn’t sheer selfishness or selflessness but he was drowning in it regardless.
“Your parents will need someone to look after them in a few years.”
“I’m yours, first.” He squeezed her hands, desiring her to squeeze harder.
She didn’t know when but she couldn’t let go of him. She had fought against it, pushed it away, and turned around so many times, but none of it struck. If she were a selfless person, she would’ve sent him away to his parents like she'd threatened to. If she was a selfish person, she would’ve sent him to the guillotine. She squeezed harder and was granted a rough breath in return.
The pretty soft skin she was holding would have been sliced. She was the one dying slowly every day. A step closer to becoming dust. When she imagined Herman’s strong and healthy body surrounded by blue and white flowers only afforded to a former noble… Her heart hurt.
She imagined that cheerful boy, then imagined the man who gazed at her like she was all he chose. So foolish that it even hurt her. She didn’t want him ending up like her. She couldn’t bear spreading her misery to his clear sapphire eyes. If she were a better person, she would’ve pushed him when she could have.
Her hands fell once he stopped clutching them so tightly.
“Join me.”
Herman, confused, didn’t take off his blouse or vest. He entered the small bathtub. Evaldina hugged her knees to make room for him. He brought up his knees as well. His vest was already wet.
“You could’ve undressed a bit.” Anita sighed and grabbed his shoulders to pull his body to her, laying his head against her chest like she once held that man. Tears scrolled down her cheek. Not for that man or for her beloved family or for any tragedy. She laughed through her tears. A soft laugh. “What skin will you wear once mine disappears?”
He paid attention to her slow heartbeats, and it brought that familiar fear. What will he do? He brought his hands to Evaldina’s waist, holding her but not quite. He couldn’t fight a cruel god and a crueler fate.
They stayed in that uncomfortable position for minutes or hours.
“I can have my body cremated.” He said without any hesitation.
Her hands trembled, hearing that. She finally understood the fear he felt when he saw her cough. Something precious slipping, something inevitable but it pierced through the heart all the same. She squeezed him closer.
The hot water from the kettle didn’t help the freezing water but it was all they had at this moment. The freezing water and their arms. Evaldina bit her lip to stop any further words. Bitterness reflected in her gaze for how these fickle feelings captured him and her so easily.
But Herman accepted everything. He never resisted, as if he was never made for it. Evaldina felt justified every time she forced him away from her plans in favor of the duke and other nobles. So accepting, so dead: Her Herman. Determination and anger would be strange on him.
He accepted his feelings for the fairy, witch, sorcerer, and mage too easily. The ease Evaldina had forgotten.
“Your love already fills your glass so why are you so thirsty?” She whispered against the top of his head. Her breath tickled the messy blue strands of his hair. “How long will you be enchanted by what’s different?”
“How long will you plead blindness?” Herman whispered back, copying her exact tone. He did it so well.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re you; that is what it means.” There wasn’t a hint of cheekiness to it. “I’ll drown with you, Evaldina.”
It did terrify her.