Chapter 1 Bruised Love
The hospital smelled like bleach and sleep.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead like they were whispering things I didn't want to hear.
I stepped into his room with his favorite hoodie folded under my arm and that stupid cinnamon lip balm in my pocket.
My fingers were shaking, but I kept moving, step by step, like the floor might fall out from under me if I stopped.
Arlo was awake.
Barely.
He looked pale and wrecked, bandages crisscrossing his forehead and arms, dark bruises blooming beneath the thin skin at his collarbone. His eyes fluttered open as I approached, lashes sticky and slow. When he saw me, something in his face softened. "Hey, Babe" he rasped, voice dry and cracked.
I swallowed. My chest felt tight, too full of things I couldn't say.
"Hey," I said back, barely above a whisper.
"You came back."
"You sound surprised."
"I—" He shifted slightly, and pain etched across his face. "Guess I thought maybe you wouldn't."
I didn't answer that. Instead, I walked to the edge of the bed and adjusted his blanket. His skin looked too fragile. His hands lay motionless at his sides, fingers grazed with small cuts. My throat clenched.
"You okay?" he asked.
I blinked, surprised by the question. "You're the one held together with gauze and morphine."
His lips tugged into a weak smile. "Yeah, but... you look like you've seen a ghost."
I almost laughed, like the hysterical, about to fall apart in the linen closet kind. I looked away, focused on smoothing out a crease in the blanket that didn't need smoothing.
"I'm fine," I said.
"Berrie."
Something in his voice made me freeze. A thread of worry pulling between us. His gaze searched mine, and I could tell he knew something was off. He didn't know what, but he could feel it. I hated how well he could still read me.
I looked at him then. The pain he was in, the way he tried not to show it. How the hospital gown looked too big on his frame, how his arms were shaking just trying to adjust his position.
He had no one else.
No family—not really. His parents are out of the picture, and his friends, yeah, he had Levi and the garage guys, but they weren't the kind of people who'd show up every day with soup and a change of clothes. They were the kind to pat your shoulder once and say, "Tough break, man."
He needed someone. Against all logic, all pain, all the broken glass still lodged in my heart from what I read last night... I couldn't walk away.
Not yet.
Because love wasn't something you could just switch off. Because memories still lived in my skin. Because there were nights he'd fallen asleep on my lap after a long shift, grease on his fingers and his mouth pressed to my thigh like it was home.
Because once, not so long ago, he had looked at me like I was the center of the map he'd been lost in.
Maybe he lied. Or maybe he meant it then. Either way, I wasn't ready to disappear. Not yet.
"I'm gonna take care of you," I said, adjusting the edge of his pillow.
His brows pulled together slightly. "You don't have to."
I managed a small smile. "I know." I did. I didn't owe him a damn thing. But I was going to do it anyway.
For the boy who kissed my knuckles when he thought I was asleep. For the man who once drove across the city to bring me tea when I was sick. For the pieces of him I did love, even if he never gave me all of himself.
I would help him get better, and then I'd figure out what was left of me.
I signed the release papers like my hands didn't shake.
Like my heart wasn't bruising itself against my ribs.
Arlo leaned against me on the way out, his weight heavy and warm, familiar in a way that made my chest ache.
He didn't say much, just hissed softly when his ribs jostled, and I didn't ask questions.
I just helped him into the passenger seat of my beat-up car, buckled him in like I'd done a hundred times, and stared out the windshield for a second longer than I should have.
"Thanks Berrie" I smile at the nickname only he calls me by. "You sure about this?" he asked, quietly, eyes barely open.
No. Not at all.
"Yeah," I lied.
Back at the apartment, I helped him into bed and made sure he had water and painkillers, then hovered awkwardly near the doorway like some kind of ghost in my own life.
"You're being weird," he said hoarsely, propped up against a pillow.
I tried to smile. "I'm always weird."
He chuckled, then winced. "Fair."
I almost told him then. Almost asked him what I meant to him, what I ever meant, but the words felt thick in my throat. So I said nothing. I just pulled the blanket over him and brushed my fingers once against his jaw before turning away.
...We were in the middle of a street fair, loud music blaring, sun hot on the back of my neck.
Arlo had his arm around my waist like it belonged there, and I remember thinking God, he's never this affectionate in public.
But that day he was. Kissing my temple. Tucking my hair behind my ear.
Whispering dumb jokes into my shoulder like we were the only two people alive.
I'd laughed so hard I spilled ice cream on my shirt. He wiped it off with a napkin and kissed the spot just above my heart.
"Dramatic," I teased.
"You love it."
I did. I really, really did.
The next few hours passed in a blur. I told Arlo I was going to the store. I parked in the lot, sat there for a full five minutes, and finally made myself go inside. My list was short—bandages, painkillers, juice, bread, toothpaste.
"She's good. But she's not you."
I shuddered. I picked up a can of soup and stared at it for so long a woman asked me if I was okay. I smiled. Said yes.
Lied again.
When I got home, I dropped the bags on the kitchen counter, made sure Arlo took his painkillers and then left once he went back to sleep. I didn't tell him where I was going. Just grabbed my helmet and slipped out the door like a shadow.
The sun was setting when I got on my bike. My hands were stiff on the handlebars. I didn't even know where I was going. I just needed to move, to hear the wind scream against my helmet, to chase some kind of silence. I rode hard for thirty minutes.
Then I stopped.
Pulled off on the side of a quiet road, overlooking the edge of a field that smelled like wet earth and spring. My chest was tight. The world too loud and too still. I couldn't breathe. I felt like I was unraveling one word at a time.
"She doesn't break my heart just by walking into a room."
I sat on the side of the road and buried my face in my gloves. I cried quietly and messily, my sobs leaving my nose running and my ribs aching. My face burned and stung from the tears, and the grief shook me to my very core.
And then I called March.
"Yo," she answered, casual like she wasn't about to save me.
"I read the letters," I said. My voice cracked. "They were for her. All of them. Even the ones after we got together."
There was a pause.
"Feb..."
"I think I'm going crazy."
"You're not," she said instantly, firm like a life raft.
"I can't stop hearing them. The words. They're just in me. Like I swallowed them."
"Where are you?"
"Pulled over somewhere. I needed to ride. I needed—fuck, I don't even know what I needed."
"You want me to come get you?"
I shook my head even though she couldn't see me. "No. I just... I wanted to hear your voice."
"You can stay with me, whenever you want. You know that, right?"
"I don't know what I'm doing."
"You're doing what love makes us do. That doesn't make you weak."
I wiped my face on my sleeve. "I feel stupid."
"You're not stupid. You're in love and you almost lost him. That does something to people."
I didn't say anything.
"You don't have to make any decisions tonight," March said gently. "You just have to get through tonight, I love you, Feb."
"Love you too."
I hung up and sat in the quiet, the wind brushing my cheeks like a goodbye I hadn't spoken yet. I thought: I'll help him heal. Then maybe I'll learn how to heal too.