Chapter Twelve
“Do you need me to tell you why you’re an idiot, or have you gotten that speech enough times already tonight?”
Micah is staring at me hard. Because of course he’s working tonight, and of course as soon as he saw me he swapped cases with the nurse I’d been originally assigned to.
We’re not like, good friends. But we’ve met a bunch of times now, and his ex-stepbrother/current boyfriend works at the Feral Possum where I hang out a lot, and I think he’s possibly the only real friend Tristan has other than me—and by extension Silas—in this town.
It’s a small town, and when you have enough connections with someone you end up being friends by default.
Which means he feels entitled to skip even the pretense of a bedside manner.
He did get me seen by the doctor pretty quickly, and then rushed me around pulling strings to get me through x-ray and everything else about as fast as this hospital ever can.
But now everyone else has done their part, and he’s the only one left to finish bandaging me up before I get turfed back to the world.
My hand isn’t broken, but it is sprained.
It’s wrapped in a rigid brace with an ice pack on top.
I got a stitch in my eyebrow, because it reopened after I got in the car with Silas and wouldn’t stop bleeding, and I got a strangulation work up that made me burn with embarrassment, because there was no way for them to distinguish between the bruises from Silas and the bruises from my dad, and I sure as hell wasn’t going to tell them the details.
They can think Dad strangled me if they want. It’s not like I’m pressing charges.
It’s not like I didn’t start the fight.
“I’ve been lectured enough, thank you. I’m fine.” My voice is almost completely gone at this point, sounding like air rushing through empty space, because I’ve been talking for hours and it wasn’t in great shape even before the fight.
Silas snorts softly, but doesn’t say anything. He hasn’t said anything the whole time, just stood there like a sentry, watching me with careful eyes and exhaustion clear in his face.
I feel terrible for having put him through this whole shitfest. And for managing to make it worse at every turn, even though I still don’t really understand why he was so upset before.
Was it stupid to try to exorcise my guilt by fucking? Sure. But my head was loud and busy and everything hurt in the bad way. I knew he was angry at me. I knew I deserved it.
I thought maybe we could hate fuck and get it all out of our systems.
Apparently, that’s not something we do.
I don’t have the brain-space to work out the implications of any of it right now. All I want to do is let the tramadol kick in, try not to puke, and go the fuck to sleep.
I will still be a walking disaster in the morning—well, now it’s the morning, but later in the morning—and we can talk about it then.
Or never.
Never is an excellent option.
“You’re so far from fine, boy,” Micah says as he moves around me, cleaning up and bandaging the smaller cuts and scrapes that have been ignored until now.
I bristle, having to focus on tamping down my anger at the word. Micah doesn’t say it like my dad says it. Micah almost said it like he was about to call me “girl” but pivoted at the last second, like I might get offended.
Which I don’t, but like I said, we don’t know each other that well.
The memory of my dad threatening to wash my mouth out with soap comes back to me and I have to suppress a shudder.
Micah takes a step back and stares at me, hands on hips and a critical eye checking out his own work.
After a minute, he clearly decides he’s done, and then he softens with a sigh. When he sits down in the chair next to the bed I’m perched on, putting us eye to eye, I know I’m getting a lecture anyway.
“Nobody wins when you do that. You know that, right? No matter how much the other person deserved it. You both end up fucked up, and you’re never going to change the part of them that made them deserve it in the first place. You can’t beat someone into being something they’re not. Trust me.”
Yeah, but it feels hella good in the moment.
I don’t say it out loud, because I know it wouldn’t be well received. Instead, I stay silent.
Micah huffs after a minute and stands up again. He goes through my discharge instructions quickly, mostly for Silas’s benefit, and hands him a plastic bag with my meds, before adding the part of the instructions that I’m sure most patients don’t get.
“Do not think you’re a fucking badass and know your limits, and start playing fast and loose with the tramadol dosages, or mixing it with booze or other painkillers.
It’s a weak opioid, but it’s still an opioid.
Your body is fucked up, whether you want to admit it or not.
You can overdose. You can become dependent very fucking quickly, and ruin your life.
And you can also give yourself a bleeding gastric ulcer. So take as fucking directed.”
“Sir, yes, sir,” I say, saluting lazily with my splinted hand, earning myself an eye roll.
“Your work note is also not optional. If you use that hand too soon, you could do more damage. Take this time to rest. Maybe take an anger management class with all this free time. Or get a therapist. And no, blowjobs do not count as therapy, no matter how transcendent it seems in the moment. Bitching to Tristan also doesn’t count.
Please unburden yourself to a professional.
Self-reflection is strongly encouraged.”
I stare at him, because that was a lot for the wee hours when I’m already starting to feel the effects of my painkillers.
There’s a moment of tension between us, and I can almost feel the intensity of how much he cares. It’s surprising, but makes me feel weird. Embarrassed, almost. I guess I’m not used to this kind of unabashed care, except from Silas. Who is less talkative about it, obviously.
“Therapy beats a jail sentence, I promise,” he continues. “Plus, you’re a good EMT. I’d hate to lose you if you got fired for catching a felony charge.”
I push back on the urge to snark, and nod at him.
“Okay, Micah. Thank you.”
He gives me a sharp nod back.
“Good. I don’t want to see you in here until you’re back at work. And I don’t want to see you at that fucking bar for a while, either.”
Silas saves me, walking over to help me stand up, taking most of my weight for the millionth time tonight.
I look at him, our faces too close together, and for a second I feel the overwhelming urge to start bawling like a little kid.
“Can we go?” I say instead, my voice tight.
“Yeah, baby,” he says, kissing me softly on the side of my head, even though I’m sweaty and smudged with iodine. “Let’s go.”
I shiver, and allow myself the luxury of burrowing deeper into his arms. Let people see me leaning on him, I don’t give a fuck. I’m too fucking tired to walk by myself.
I haven’t done much but sleep since we got home. Silas woke me up after about eight hours to make sure I was alright and forced me to drink some water, but when I told him I was still tired he turned out all the lights and ran his fingers through my hair until I fell back asleep.
Now that I open my eyes again, I think it’s late. I can’t tell for sure, because a little while after I moved in, Silas rigged up an amazing blackout window situation to help when I’m working nights. It could technically still be light outside and I wouldn’t know.
I just… feel it. It’s probably like 10 p.m..
When I hear whispered voices ghosting through the closed bedroom door, I realized what woke me up. Maddi and Sky were supposed to come back tonight. Fuck, I totally forgot. I’m such a shitty brother sometimes.
I cut off that train of thought before it threatens to consume me. Everything inside me feels fragile right now, in a way I don’t particularly fucking care for. And I don’t even have a good excuse for it.
Dad’s not the one who started the fight, I was. Even though he obviously deserved it. And it’s not exactly the first time we’ve gotten rough with each other.
I’m an adult now, he’s not wailing on a kid. It shouldn’t feel any different than getting into a fight with some random guy at the bar.
Right?
I can’t do this right now. I need the distraction, and I can tell from the tone of the voices that the girls are worried and Silas is trying to calm them down. They don’t need to freak out over something that’s already over with.
It takes more effort than I expect to throw off the covers and pull myself out of bed.
God, I feel like one big bruise. I’ve put my body through a lot of punishment in my life—motocross is not a gentle sport, even when you only do it as an occasional thing—but this shit hurts.
Everything throbs in a diffuse, numbing kind of pain, while specific points spark a bright hurt every time I move.
I’m in my underwear, and I decide it’s worth the discomfort of pulling on clothes to make sure the girls see as little as possible of the bruising.
I find a pair of Silas’s grey sweats in the hamper that look realistically too clean to wash.
I pull them on, where they hang low on my hips.
They’re actually not that loose, which makes me think they’re probably way too tight on Silas and he’s bearing the discomfort for the sake of not having to cave and buy new clothes. Again.
I get a clean black Possum Hollow EMS hoody out of the drawer, and putting my arms up to slip it on is the thing that hurt the most so far. Fuck, I think my ribs are bruised. Did they tell me that at the ER? I can’t remember the details, it was all kind of a blur of shame and exhaustion.