Chapter 20 First Aid & Fine Lines
FIRST AID & FINE LINES
AURORA
Ipull my arms from around Atticus's chest as soon as we're in the clear. He slows the bike, turning onto more desolated streets as we weave our way back toward my apartment.
And either my adrenaline was so high that the cold didn't register before, or it dropped twenty degrees in the last fifteen minutes. Either way, I'm shivering when he turns onto my street.
He stops at the edge of the walk to my apartment, turning off the bike's ignition.
The silence is immediately deafening, and I mentally bat away the intrusive thoughts rushing in like a swarm of angry gnats. I slip off the bike, wrapping my arms around myself to rush for the door.
But before I get there, I hear the heavy thud of his footfalls behind me.
What the fuck?
I whirl around, seeing him coming up the walk behind me. "What are you doing?"
He stops, his expression hard. Unreadable. "We need to talk."
My chest squeezes, and I frown. "No. I'm done talking to you."
I can't do this with him. Not right now.
It's taking everything in me to look strong, calm, with the storm still raging in my bones.
"This." He gestures between himself and me. "It has to stop. We can't take down our enemy if we are enemies."
Indignation burns in my chest, and I hate how my voice wobbles when I speak. "Yeah, well, then maybe—"
"I wasn't finished. I'm not asking you to forgive me. You've made it pretty clear tonight that that's not on the table."
I press my lips together, swallowing the defensiveness that keeps trying to claw its way out. With the echo of Atticus's words from earlier still rattling in my skull, I'm surprised I still have any rage left to throw at him.
Like, fuck…am I even any better than him?
Letting my fury get the best of me like that? Doing something that could've completely fucked us? Fucked them?
Getting even with Atticus isn't worth ruining their best opportunity to set things straight.
But I wasn't thinking. I just acted.
And now I'm not sure who I'm more angry at…
Him for lying to me and being able to rile me like no man ever has before.
Or myself, for giving in to my own rage and letting him have this effect on me.
"It won't happen again," I mutter when he opens his mouth to say something else I know I can't stand to hear. He's said enough.
His brows draw together.
"Could I come in for a second? Someone should check your arm."
"I told you, it's fine."
He doesn't budge, and my throat burns.
I want the adrenaline back. I don't want to feel whatever this emotion is. He's the one who should hurt. Not me.
I recall the look on his face when he turned around at the sound of my voice up on the bypass, searching for me.
How his footing was unstable, and there was a mix of horror and hope in his eyes.
I remember his fist twisted in the front of his shirt.
He looked hurt. Terrified. But he also looked like someone I could trust once, and I was wrong.
"I won't say a thing." His tone is soft now, and it's worse. Fuck, it's so much worse. "Let me help you bandage it, and then I'll go. I swear."
"Because you're such a man of your word," I snap before I can control myself.
God, why does he make me like this?
I turn for the door, digging my keys from my pocket with numb, trembling fingers. My body is heavy and cold as I shoulder through, and Ellie immediately darts out, pushing her wet nose into my legs with a whine. Sensing my distress.
I'm too spent to argue with Atticus anymore as he follows me inside, greeting Ellie, reassuring her everything is okay, like I should be doing.
I sit on the couch, wondering how long before I stop feeling like a human Popsicle.
Behind me, somewhere in the bathroom, Atticus rifles through the vanity for the first aid kit he stored there when he set this place up.
True to his word for once, when he comes into the living room with Ellie on his heels, he doesn't speak. Atticus bends to his knees in front of the couch where I sit and sets the white box beside himself.
Wordlessly, he reaches for my jacket, and I shrug out of it, doing most of the work to take it off to avoid him needing to touch me any more than necessary.
The sting intensifies as the shredded material brushes over the wound. The blood has dried up a bit, and some fibers from the jacket stick to it like glue.
When his fingers brush over my icy skin, he recoils and clears his throat, rising to get something from the bedroom.
He drapes the throw blanket around my shoulder, and I take the edge of it from him before he can continue to wrap the excess around my torso.
I didn't ask him to get me a blanket. I didn't even ask him to help me dress this wound.
God, I wish he would just go.
Why can't I demand he leave? Why won't the words come out?
Ellie jumps up on the sofa beside me, dropping her chin onto my lap with a chuff. I settle my fingers into her fur and relax a fraction.
"Sorry, Ellie," I whisper, stroking that soft little spot at the top of her nose. "I'm okay."
Atticus opens the first aid kit and pulls out some supplies, dousing some gauze in alcohol. When he rises onto his knees and his eyes meet mine, there's a question in them.
Can I?
I clench my teeth, glancing down for the first time at the scrapes on my arm. They're not crazy deep, but they are covered in dirt and gravel. This is going to suck.
I nod and squeeze my eyes shut as he presses the damp gauze to the wound, and I'm unable to fully suppress my gasp of pain at the sting.
But I'm glad it hurts.
It should hurt.
How could I be so stupid?
Atticus begins to dab away the dirt and bits of pavement, intently focused on his work. His hair is a mess of tarnished gold around his face, wild and unbound. He might not be saying anything out loud, but I can see the gears shifting behind his eyes, and I know it's loud in his head.
When he's finished cleaning the wound, he applies some ointment with delicate brushes of his fingers and tapes on a bandage, all the while so focused on the task and whatever he's thinking that it's like he's forgotten I'm here.
Until his hands fall away and he lifts his gaze to mine.
I'm not fast enough to look away before I'm held hostage in his eyes.
They say a thousand things without saying anything at all.
His lips part, and I brace myself, but he doesn't say anything.
And then just as quickly, he looks away.
Atticus cleans up the first aid kit, putting it back in the bathroom. When he returns, he pushes a hand into his jeans pocket and pulls out a folded sheet of paper that's wrinkled to shit.
I can see the blue ink of the words written on the inside and hug the blanket tighter around myself.
He sets it down on the low coffee table, and hesitates only long enough to give Ellie a quick goodbye scratch—then as quietly as he came in, he exits, locking the door behind himself.
The only evidence he was ever here is the note, bandage on my arm, and the soft, sad sounds Ellie makes as he starts his motorcycle and drives away.
I don't realize how little I've been allowing myself to breathe until the sound of his engine is gone, and I feel everything I've been trying not to.
For a while all I can do is sit here, numb, staring at the note Atticus must've written before coming after me tonight. Not sure if I should read it or destroy it before it can destroy me.
Ellie looks between me and the little rumpled square of paper and back again.
Then she's up, jumping down from the sofa to go to the table. She nudges the note with her snout, barking softly at it before cocking her head at me.
"What?"
She barks again, and I hush her. She's going to wake the neighbors.
I rise and shrug out of the blanket, cursing when it pulls on my necklace, which is apparently caught in my hair. I groan and head for the bathroom, ignoring Ellie's little stamps of impatience at my ignoring her.
My teeth grind as I work to free the knot of hair around the necklace's clasp in the bathroom mirror. Purposefully not paying any attention to how pale I look or the dark circles beneath my eyes—the way their rims are red.
When I finally get the hair free, I fix the chain, letting the small diamond-studded charm rest against my collar.
If my mother is still alive somewhere out there, I wonder what she'd think of this woman her daughter has become. Someone who poisoned her foster parents, committed grand larceny in Paris, and killed a man in the streets. A woman who burnt her abuser to ashes and buried him in an unmarked grave.
The same woman who drove a car off an unfinished road tonight because she was angry and looking to settle a score.
Maybe she knew this was what I'd become when she dropped me at that fire station. Maybe there were signs even then that I wasn't exactly…a nice girl. Not normal.
It was naive of me to think Atticus could ever care for me the way he cares for Seven and Elijah. It's rare—that sort of brutal, uncompromising devotion. Most people will never have it.
Swallowing thickly, I turn and almost trip over Ellie as she pushes into the bathroom, the note from the coffee table clenched proudly between her teeth.
Reflexively, I bend to take it from her before she gets it so slobbery that all the writing becomes illegible.
"If I read this, will you go to bed?"
She barks.
"Ugh. Fine."
I make a show of opening it, then gesture to the door. "Go on, then."
Ellie leaves for the living room, and I can hear the smugness in her little trot.
The little traitor.
I flip down the toilet seat lid and bite my lip as I sit down and start to read.
This time, it's not pages of history. It's only a couple paragraphs.
Idon't think I've properly thanked you for what you've agreed to do for us. More than that, what you've already done. I haven't seen Elijah look so alive in years, or Seven so relaxed—it's actually weird as fuck. But a good weird.
I thought it was a problem at first. You know, that they wouldn't be able to focus properly because of their feelings for you.
I'm sure you'll be shocked to know I was wrong again.
Even if this plan doesn't work—I want you to know that I'm grateful to you for being there for them in the ways I can't be.
There's been something missing for all of us for a long time.
I thought it was losing Flo. Or the Ashfords' collection.
Maybe not having Julian around anymore. But now I think it was you that was missing.
Seeing you with Julian the other day—you fit.
And I promise I won't do anything to ruin what you found with them ever again. Even if I can never be a part of that.
- A man trying to exist
P.S. Destroy this letter.
The words blur as my eyes sting.
Anger is easy. Hate is comfortable.
But this? Him willing to only exist in the margins of my life and try to be better with no guarantee it’ll matter?
This quiet, stubborn devotion that expects nothing in return?
This might actually break me.