“You missed your calling, Colt. You’d’ve cleaned up in the UFC.”
I shake my head. “I’m well shut of all that shit.”
“I know it, I know it. Just saying.” He holds his fist out, and I bump it with mine. “Call me, dog. We’re past due for some cold ones.”
“For sure. Maybe Thursday.”
“I could do Thursday. Got some shit early, but that’s it.”
I nod and he drives off. I open Nell’s door and go in, singing a song so she’d know it was me. The shower was still running, telling me she was probably scrubbing the shit out of her skin. Trying to get the feeling off. She’ll be in there till the water runs cold. I’ve seen too many friends go through this, friends I couldn’t be there to save.
I took a new roll of paper towel from under the sink and her bottle of windex. Fortunately, she had wood floors. It’s easier to get blood off wood than carpet. I sop up the blood, spray and scrub the wood, then find an old bottle of Pledge that she must use on her kitchen table. I spray the floor and scrub some more. Then I wipe the walls and everywhere else.
Eventually, the water turns off and the mess is gone. Nell comes out with wet, stringy hair, clad in only a long Disney T-shirt that barely comes to mid-thigh. I clench my jaw and think of dead puppies and nuns and that time I walked in on my grandma in the shower as a kid. It only helps marginally. She looks more vulnerable than ever and I’m across the room and wrapping my arms around her before I know what I’m doing.
She doesn’t tense this time. She breathes deeply, long, steady, even breaths.
“It’s okay to cry,” I say.
She shakes her head. “No. It’s not.”
“You were just assaulted. You’re allowed.”
“I know. But I won’t. I can’t.” She pushes away from me and goes into the kitchen.
I take the bottle of Jack from her hand before she can drink from it. “I’m not sure that’s the best way.” She jerks it away and lifts it, but I take it again. “It won’t go away forever. It just comes back.”
“I know.” She reaches for it, and I hold it out of reach, snag a couple juice glasses from her cabinet and pour generous shots. “I need more than that.”
“No you don’t.”
She turns on me, eyes all gray now, like storm clouds, angry. “Don’t tell me what I need! You don’t know me.”
“But I know about drowning pain with whiskey. It stops working after awhile. And then there’s not enough whiskey in the world.”
“You weren’t just raped.”
“Almost raped. I stopped him. I’m sorry I wasn’t sooner, but there’s a huge difference between raped and almost raped.” Her eyes blaze and I hold up my hands. “Not saying this is fine. It’s not fine. You’re allowed to feel what you’re feeling. I’m just saying, chugging whiskey won’t erase what happened.”
“What the f**k do you know.” She slams the shot and presses the glass to her forehead, then holds out the glass for more.
That’s when I see the scars. A crosshatch pattern of fine white lines and ridges on her wrists and forearms. Not disguised, not hidden. Some old, some not so old. And some fresh. Still-scabbing fresh.
She sees me see, lifts her chin and dares me to ask. I don’t ask. I’m still not wearing a shirt, so I point to my chest, to my pectorals and breastbone and stomach, to a similar field of scars like wind-tangled wheat stalks. I’ve tattooed over some, utilized others in tattoos, and left others bare and visible. She reaches out with her forefinger, traces them, one scar after another. Some short, like tally marks. Some are tally marks: days survived in the pit, matches won. She traces the scars, the long ones done for the sake of the pain, for the release.
Yeah. I know why she cuts. I just don’t know the seed-reason. It’s deep inside her, and it’ll take time and patience to get it out of her. And I’ll probably end up telling her my reasons, too.
Which I really don’t want to do.
She looks up at me, and her eyes are soft, full of understanding. “You cut?”
“Used to.”
“Why?”
I shake my head. “That’s a story for another night, and it comes with a price.”
She tenses. “A price?”
“Your story.”
She blows out a sigh of relief. “You know the story.”
“Not all of it. Not the deep stuff, the shit that comes from beneath, in the shadows in your heart.”
“No one knows that.” Her voice is barely even a whisper, and goddamn it if it’s not seductive and sultry and vulnerable all at once.
“Yeah, well, no one knows about this, either.” I tap my chest with my thumb.
“A price. A trade.” She’s motionless, an inch away from me, each breath causing her br**sts to brush my chest, the scars, the ink.
I nod. “But not now. Now, you take one more shot with me, and you watch stupid, mindless TV. And then you fall asleep and you stay home tomorrow.”
“I can’t. I have class. I have work.”
“Call off. Say you’re sick.”
“I—”
I cut her off. “Call in, Nell.”
“You can’t stay here all night with me.”
“Why not?”
She stares at her toes, chipped pink polish. “You just can’t.”
“I’ll be on the couch. You’ll be in your room with the door closed.”
“No.” Another whisper.
“Why not?”
“It’s…part of the trade.”
A secret, she means. “Then I’ll sleep on the floor outside your apartment. You’re not going to be alone tonight.”
“I’m fine, Colton.”
“Bullshit. You’re not fine.”
She shrugs. “No. But I’m fine.”
I laugh at that. “Look at me.”
She shakes her head no, chews her lip, and I want to take that lip in my mouth and suck it until the teeth marks are soothed away. I want to chew her lip for her. I want to taste her tongue. I want to run my hands under the silly, girly, childish, double-XL Lilo and Stitch shirt and feel her skin and her curves and her sweet softness.
I do none of this. I just stare at her, then touch her chin with my index finger, lift her head to meet my eyes. She closes her eyes, and I can see the moisture. She’s deep-breathing again, and I notice her hands are clutched around the opposing wrists, nails digging in deep, hard, scratching. Pain to replace pain. I use as much gentle force as I possess to pry her fingers out of her skin, turn them so they’re gripping my forearms.