by Ginger Scott
He doesn’t answer me. His eyes watch me as I work to clean out the deep cuts on his face—one on his eyebrow definitely in need of sutures.
“I’m going to have to stitch this one,” I say, touching it once more with the cloth. He shrugs with one shoulder. “Unless you’d rather wait and have someone else. Lindsey will be home in an hour.”
“You can sew me up.” His answer comes fast, the words crisp and short. His tongue lingers between his teeth as his mouth curves to smile, as if everything he says means something else, too.
“Where else are you hurt?” I ask, treating him like a patient. Andrew is no different from one of the people I talk to at the clinic when we volunteer and fill out charts. This…is just a clinic visit.
Andrew is just a patient.
Just a patient.
His face forms a response to my question, but slowly, his lips curl ever so slightly more on the side, and his eyes close just as slowly. He laughs, the kind of laugh that seems like it comes from somewhere else—from memories, from the past, from loss maybe. What begins as smug body language meant to dominate me gives way before my eyes to confession.
“Everywhere, Emma. I. Hurt. Everywhere.”
My breath stops, and I wait as his eyes look down at his hands, as he turns them to see his palms, to look at the scrapes and cuts on his fingers. He snickers to himself again, but stops quickly, looking at me as he stands in front of me, our bodies maybe a foot apart, maybe less. He grabs the bottom of his sweatshirt and pulls it up over his head, all of him overshadowing me, his skin and muscles bare before me.
I don’t look at first, but when I do I see the dark purple bruising that’s taking over his sides and ribs. That’s not what I’m supposed to see, though. That’s not why he pulled his shirt from his body, why he’s standing here with his sweatshirt lying on the floor at his feet. That’s not why his breathing has changed, or why he sounds like a frightened boy, each exhale short and desperate. The largest scar is maybe three inches long, and it starts an inch to the right of his belly button. Others are smaller, but clustered, and they look like burns. The lines are faint enough I know they’ve been there for a while.
This is something that’s been with him for years.
“How long have you been fighting?” I ask, my arms no longer able to hold the open alcohol still enough not to shake drops on the floor. I set it down on the sink, leaving my hand on the counter to brace myself, my arm shaking with my own weight and need for balance.
“You see my scars there, Emma?” he asks, stepping closer. I try to move back, but I’m in a corner, the bathroom small, and my back already against the sink.
“I do. Andrew, how long have you been fighting?”
I answer him and repeat my question fast, thinking it will make him pause. It doesn’t. He keeps moving forward, his eyes down on his own skin, and the closer he comes, the faster my lungs fight for air. When he reaches for my right hand, the one now gripping the corner of the counter so hard that my knuckles are white, I refuse to let go. Andrew leaves his hands on mine, though, waiting for me to surrender. I eventually loosen my grip, and he picks my hand up in his, his touch tender, slow, sweet. My lip quivers at the memory, but I hold it in. He places it on the line of four small circles on his side, holding it there against his bare skin, his eyes unflinching as he watches his hand cover my hand as it covers his wounds.
“This isn’t from fighting, Emma. These scars…they’re from surviving,” he says. His body shakes under my touch.
He never looks up. Several seconds pass in silence, and the tiny room begins to stink of the opened alcohol bottle. I look over his face, his arms and hands and body—so much of him covered in bruises. It’s like he was stolen—taken by someone, tortured, and returned half the boy he was—only to grow into a man with holes and broken pieces.
“What happened to you?” My voice cracks when I ask, my eyes still on the look of his hand on mine.
His hand. On mine.
“You have no idea, do you?”
I feel my brow pull in tight, my stomach binding as my mind begins to run through the thousand of possible things that means. I shake my head, my eyes moving up his body, gazing along his long torso, his golden skin, his curved muscles and neck and chin—his face so much older, but still the same. His eyes the ones I waited for, the only ones that ever looked at me that way before a kiss. Even if I didn’t realize it, I was waiting for him. I was in love with Andrew Harper the first time he held my hand. I’ve just been waiting to see him again to fully fall. I can’t fall now. Not when he’s…like this. But I fear I may not have control over any of that—over…feeling.
“I’m afraid, Andrew,” I tell him. When his chest fills with a deep breath and his head drops to the side, I know he understands.
“You have no idea…” he says, this time not asking a question.
His hand lets go of its hold on me, but I leave my hold on him a little longer, noticing his eyes close again as I do. When he opens them, he keeps his gaze down and away, his thoughts lost somewhere else entirely.
I let my hand slip away carefully, like a child trying to balance two cards in a pyramid. I watch him for a sign, waiting for him to say something more. I don’t know what to ask. I don’t know what I don’t know. But I’m starting to think it’s a lot—and it might mean the difference between the man standing here in front of me, and the boy I once thought I loved.
“I should stitch you up,” I say quietly, my lip pinned between my teeth to keep me from saying more. A shift happened just now—I hold the power. I can feel it. I’m not sure I want it, or am ready for it. Andrew only nods, his movement small, his eyes still at the corner of the room.
I slide the small drawer at the edge of the counter open and pull out the medic box from our hours at the clinic. Tech believes in teaching the basics early, so all pre-med students are trained medics before they begin their four years of med school. I’ve stitched maybe a dozen lacerations. I’m a better sewer than Lindsey. But I wish…oh how I wish it were her hands doing this now.
I flex my fingers, rubbing the tips against my palms, working the nerves through them. I pull the thread and needle out, readying it before preparing the alcohol and tape and gauze.
“I’ll need you to sit,” I say, expecting Andrew to use this, to take my request and turn it into a challenge, to defy me just for the sake of watching me suffer. Instead, he nods with the same lethargy he’s had since I touched him, his legs moving to the edge of the bathtub where he sits, holding on to the side, his eyes still lost.
I’m careful with every movement at first. And when I finally puncture his skin, I move my hands swiftly, repeating to myself that this is only a patient, that this is just like the other times, and that I can move smoothly. My hands work fast, closing the wound on his brow before the shaking settles in. I don’t feel it until I bring the scissors up to cut, and I have to pause before finally slicing the ends of the thread away.
“The place was called Lake Crest,” he says. I wait for more, but his silence indicates that he wants a response from me. I don’t know what Lake Crest is, where it is, what it means, but I want more—I think I need more. Even if it terrifies me.
“Okay,” I say, my voice quiet, unthreatening. I cut a small square of padding and two strips of tape to cover Andrew’s stitches. He remains on the tub, his hands still clutching—holding on. I’m delicate with my touch, but the tape doesn’t stick, so I run my finger softly along each strip against his face. When I look to his eyes again, they capture mine.
“Lake Crest is a place they send boys who need to be broken…when they fuck up and do something wrong. It’s run by the state, and a guy named Nick Meyers. The first time Nick choked me, it was because I refused to kiss his feet…actually kiss his feet. He held my windpipe in his hands while security stood behind me with a Taser, just in case I decided to fight back.”
Oh my god!
“The second time, I decided to try. The volts sent me
to my knees.”
My eyes close involuntarily.
“Some of the boys did him favors. That’s how it worked there. You were either on top, on the bottom, or invisible. Favors put you on top. I tried real hard to be invisible, but they wouldn’t let me. The ones who did him favors would leave the campus late at night, coming back with large envelopes—sometimes coming back with stab wounds and beaten faces.”
“Nick kept after me. He didn’t like that I said no, that I wouldn’t bend to his needs. I was a threat to his secrets, because I saw more than the others. I paid attention. Money passed through his hands like water, and I saw it all. I didn’t want any part of it. I only wanted to survive. And there were so many things to endure. So many factions, gangs within gangs, groups you needed to be in with and out with. I only wanted to be left alone.”
His eyes find mine again, but his words pause, his jaw working back and forth while he thinks. I think he’s trying to protect me from knowing too much after knowing nothing at all.
“I wrote you letters. Dozens.”
His eyes penetrate me. Mine grow wide, my stomach becomes sick as I clutch the sink again, letting my legs have their way this time as I slide down to sit on the floor, my world spinning.
“You never wrote back. Not once.”
No!
His voice sounds angry, but only at first. It breaks quickly; the realization squelching years’ worth of hate and doubt caused by some unknown force. I never knew. I would have written. I would have traded him, saved him—loved him. I needed him. My heart was broken.
And I needed him.
He needed me.
He needed me…more!
“One day, I said yes.” He looks down again, running his thumb over the long scar on his belly.
“He did that?” I ask, my words crackling from my chest, my eyes barely able to look at the long line that slices through him.
Andrew nods.
“I said yes just so I could get out, so I could find you. I had to know why you weren’t writing, where you were…if you were okay. I never collected what was due to him that night. I never had any intention of meeting his people at all. He found out before I could make it to the bus station to buy a ticket with the money I’d hidden under a loose tile on my floor. You were a forty-minute bus ride away—but I never got to see you. At least not then. I had to continue to live off of your memory. He took me into his office as soon as we got back to campus, hitting me until I could no longer stand. And when the guard pulled my arm over his shoulder to carry me on my weak legs back to my room, he told them to wait for one more second so he could give me something to make sure I’d never forget. The knife was small, but sharp; more of a razor. I bled for days—just deep enough so it would heal on its own…in time.”
It’s all too much. His story—his life!
“Andrew,” I whisper, my lips dry, my mouth drier. My throat aches, and my heart hurts as it never has before.
“You didn’t know,” he says, his mouth half open, his eyes back to the lost place. I shake my head to confirm his assumption. He notices. “All this time…you…you didn’t know.”
“I would have come. I swear, Andrew…if I knew what had happened to you…I would have made them…” I’m breathless with my words, my plea cut short before I can tell him I would have made them stop, would have confessed the truth.
“Em? You home?”
Lindsey’s shout and clamor through the front door rocks me like thunder, and I stumble to my feet, clearing the counter of the remains of my work on Andrew. I look to him, expecting him to be just as frozen, just as stunned and worried about what to say, what to do. Instead, he’s already standing, pulling his sweatshirt back over his body as he moves toward the sink to wash his hands.
I watch him.
“Oh! Damn! You scared me—” Lindsey jumps when she sees me in the bathroom, stuttering when she sees Andrew in here, too. Her eyes dart between us.
“I was helping him. He needed…stitches,” I say, looking for a sign from him, waiting for his eyes to look up to see me in the mirror. He turns the sink off, dries his hands then leans into her, never looking at me at all.
“I had a bit of a fight. Hockey thing. I’m okay. Emma stitched me up,” he lies, kissing the top of her head.
My eyes sting with jealous tears as his mouth touches her hair.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Lindsey says, quickly working her hands to appraise his wounds on her own. He flinches and steps away, but not far.
“Sorry, sore. But I’m okay. I promise. I just promised I’d come by. I didn’t want you to worry. I’m going to go home, clean up, and maybe knock myself out for the night,” he chuckles.
“Sure, yeah. I mean…you can stay…” She’s still taking all of him in.
“Thanks, but I’ll be better company tomorrow,” he says, touching the side of her face gently. His touch is tender. His performance is flawless. His instant hold on me is painful—but it’s real. And I hate Lindsey right now. I hate her so much.
She walks him to the door, and I start to follow behind, but my legs only carry me a few steps before they stop, like I’ve reached my limit—this is as far as I get to go on this journey.
They say a few things to one another, half whispering, and she begins to close the door as he leaves. His hand grabs the edge, though, and his gaze looks over her right to where I am, his eyes saying we have more to say—both of us.
We do. I do. I have scars, too, Andrew. They aren’t evil like yours. Mine are miracles. But you need to know.
“Thanks for the stitches, Emma.” His voice is calm, his mouth a faint smile—all of it…fake.
The door closes, and Lindsey begins speaking. I nod and respond, but I never once hear a single word. I pretend. I keep on pretending.
And when Graham sends me a text just to make sure everything is okay, I tell him it is, pretending for his sake too.
Because the lie is so much happier than the truth, and I only know a sliver of it.
Chapter 13
Andrew
I got sent home from work this morning. Seems the school doesn’t really want the people showing up to hang out with little kids in the morning to look like they just got the shit kicked out of them. I told them it was a hockey fight. It got me a pat on the back from the principal and a promise that he’d have to come watch me play sometime.
I still got sent home though. Whatever. I had eight grand in my pocket and could afford losing out on the ten dollars I’d get from coloring princess posters and playing kickball this morning.
Trent was asleep by the time I returned last night, and I always leave well before he’s awake. So far, I’ve managed not to have to deal with any of the shit on my body or in my brain. But hooray for busted lip and swollen eye! I got sent home early, and Trent is sitting on the sofa slurping the milk from his cereal, eying me, ready to make me work.
“Dude. You look like hell,” he says in between slurps. The bowl finally empty, he slides it in front of him on the coffee table. He’s going to just leave it there. I know it. I stare at it until he rolls his eyes, stands, and carries the bowl into the kitchen.
“You’re like a fuckin’ chick sometimes, you know that?” He actually rinses it and puts it in the dishwasher, which makes me proud. If I’m like a chick, he’s like a Labrador. Only, Labs learn faster.
“Let me get this straight: You’re calling me a woman because I don’t want to live like a homeless man in shit and filth?”
His sigh in response is overexaggerated, and it makes me laugh.
“You’re trying to distract from the point…and hey…shit and filth? Come on, it’s a dirty bowl. Hardly a crack house,” he says, collapsing back into his spot on the sofa, staring up at me, hands folded on his chest.
The shrink is in.
I rub my hand over my chin, and it hurts like hell. Trent chuckles at me.
“Do you want me to ask questions? Or…do you just want to tell me why in the hell you loo
k like this?”
I hold his stare for a few seconds, because shit…maybe I want the ease of just saying yes or no to his questions. I shrug, shaking my head, and take the chair opposite him, turning it backward and laying my arms over the back, my forehead resting on them so I can shut my eyes. I’m exhausted.
“Did Emma do this to you? Or that Harley dude?” he asks.
“Neither of them did anything to me, ass monkey,” I say, not bothering to look up.
“Okay,” he says, his pause long and quiet and…why isn’t he talking? I glance up to find him staring at me, his brow pulled forward, his mouth a hard line.
“Coach isn’t going to like this,” he says.
“Whatever. It’s not like I’m you,” I shrug.
Dick thing for me to say, but it’s true. I’m the guy people expect to show up looking like this. Trenton is the face of the team. I’m just the guy who the crowd loves seeing get thrown in the box.
“Look, I can sit here and play twenty questions and never get close to what’s actually going on with you. How about you try this friendship thing out and maybe trust me with some shit, huh?” He leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. I laugh and look away, but I can feel him looking. I turn back to see his face serious, so I lower my gaze, maybe a little ashamed.
Digging into my pocket, I pull out the envelope from my fight, holding it in front of me for a second before finally tossing it on the table between us. Trent watches it land in front of him, glances to me again, then looks back to it, pulling it in his hands. His eyes react when he opens the fold and sees how many hundreds are stuffed inside. He closes it quickly, tossing it back on the table before running his hands over his face. He can’t seem to bring his eyes to me now, and I know it’s because he’s thinking the worst.