“What’s so special about the paper? More stories about how your PowerPoint hero came to the rescue?” Andrew says behind me as we both step into the elevator. The doors close on us, and instantly the space feels small. I don’t answer him, but I feel him—I feel him watching me from four feet away, his arms folded over his chest, his hood draped over his face, his body smelling as if he’s stumbled in from some alley.
We reach my floor, and I step out, not inviting him. If he wants my help, he’ll just have to show himself in. I unlock my door, toss my mail and keys and purse on the table and walk down the hallway to our bathroom. I hear the door close a few seconds later, and soon Andrew steps into the frame, stopping with his hands gripping either side of the wall, his head slung forward. His knuckles are covered in blood, and his legs are spackled with red. He’s wearing black shorts that drape below his knees.
“Why were you fighting?” I ask, pulling the alcohol from the cabinet and the bag of cotton and gauze from underneath our sink. I step to him, and notice his grip tighten on the wood as I move into his view, his lip twitches on one side—he sneers like a stray dog not ready to trust the hand about to feed it.
“I fight for money,” he says, his mouth now a hard line, his brow still shadowed by his sweatshirt. I reach up to move it, but freeze the second his eyes meet mine, the swelling on his brow, the blood on his cheek nothing compared to the broken look in his eyes.
“So this wasn’t like some pissing contest in a bar or you trying to act like a big shot on the ice?” I ask, dabbing the cotton again, ignoring what I saw in his eyes. I wish for that look to go away—it makes me weak.
“I fight to forget about things,” he says, leaning forward just enough that his breath tickles my neck. I swear I feel his lips against my skin. Maybe I imagine it.
Maybe I want it to be real.
My breath hitches, but only once. I look down at the bottle in my hands, inhaling once more, deeply, the scent a mix of the alcohol fumes and him, then I pour some solution on one of the pads, moving it to his face. He’s playing me, and I don’t like it. I expect him to jerk when I touch him; his cuts are deep, and the alcohol is bound to burn at first. He doesn’t flinch. My eyes move from his wounds to his gaze—off and on as I work to clean him up. His expression never changes. It’s hard. His eyes hazed as he watches me. He’s trying to intimidate me.
“What are you trying to forget about, Andrew?” I speak softly; something about him feels like I could set it off at any moment. I push his hood back just then, and my hand finds his hair as I do. The movement is natural, and I don’t know why my fingers act as they do. It’s muscle memory, from one night and years of dreams. I push a few strands back, letting my fingers touch his scalp—touch him. He’s still so familiar. The feeling of him rushes through me, and it burns.
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.