The Demon.

Really, this part of Billie's story still needs a lot of work. This small chapter isn't quite right yet, but I don't think I'll have the courage to post it again - it's been sitting on my computer waiting to be revealed for a few months now, and I need some kind of kick up the butt to get stuck into it. Either that or a few more hours each day to sit and write as opposed to sit and study :P Anyway, enough from me. Let me know what you think :)

Henrietta Harris taken from my Pinterest.
Also from here :)

The steaming water streamed down Billie's naked back as she sat curled up on the shower floor. The white tiles gleamed at her while she held her knees encircled in her arms and allowed the sobs to heave out of her chest, the noise wrenching itself from deep within her. Even though she was soaked to the bone, she could still feel the tears tracing patterns along her cheek, lips and chin.

She couldn't understand it. She couldn't understand anything.

How someone so good as him would take an interest in her. How she would explain her past - the things she had done, the things she had seen. She couldn't understand how this emotion that she didn't realise existed or that she still had the capacity to feel - the strange sensations and the faint smiles that wouldn't leave her face, and him whispering to her that he felt the same - would lead to her sitting on this shower floor. Crying, crying, crying.

It was too much. She wanted to give up. To tell him that he had waited too long to find her in that alleyway. That she was already ruined, wrecked.

Her throat felt like it wasn't able to take anymore as another almighty sob hauled itself out of her body, and her head ached so much it felt like it was going to explode.

She couldn't pinpoint where this mass of emotion was coming from in her head, like it had taken over. The pressure of finding that place in her brain saw Billie begin to start weeping bitterly with her legs now crossed, arms wrapped around her stomach, and her back arched as she allowed her head to fall onto the gleaming tiled wall. Her thoughts left her alone as her eyes continued to fill up and spill over.

The water along her back began to feel like a warm cloak, a fort, a blanket, and slowly, slowly, Billie amounted the strength to stop the tears. She played with her toes as her arms fell spent by her sides and she pulled her head up.

When the water began to lose its steam, she crossed her feet at the ankles, held onto the shower taps and pulled herself up. She grimaced at her reflection in the mirror, half-heartedly wiping some of the water droplets off of her body, wrapped the damp towel around her breast and walked to her bed, shutting the door softly behind her. 

She let the towel fall to the ground, pulled on a clean, light pair of underwear - something small to make her feel innocent - and replaced the towel with her white sheet. As she nestled her head into her pillow, and held the sheet tight around her, the electric fan blowing cool air onto her hot face, Billie felt it would be okay. She had beaten the demon for another day, and now, with heavy eyes and a spent heart, she could sleep.