He grabbed my hand anyway and I winced at the pain that shot up my arm. I would have pulled it out of his grasp, but it hurt so bad. It hurt to move my fingers, it hurt to flex my palm.
I should have gotten stitches. At the very least on my right hand, but most likely, I should have gotten them for everything. All of it.
He sat down on a chair I hadn’t noticed him bring over from my vanity, and started to carefully unwrap the dirty bandages on my right hand.
I had changed them twice before I gave up. What was the point? If I lost my hand, maybe they would go easier on me in prison.
If I lost my hand, I wouldn’t be itching to go write anymore.
I never wanted to write again.
I continued to glare at the wall, wincing and instinctively pulling at my hand whenever it hurt too much, but he held firm. Firm but gentle at the same time.
He tossed the bandages in the trash by the toilet and pulled over a bottle of scotch I had hidden in the cabinet with a bottle of wine for the nights I needed a bath and drink.
How did he know about that?
I watched out of the corner of my eye as he pulled the cork out with his teeth and spit it to the floor before tipping the alcohol onto my cut.
It burned.
I gasped, jerking my hand out of his and pulling it close to my chest, watching as it turned bright red right before my eyes.
I frowned, glaring at it, worry coating my skin. I hadn’t looked too closely at it in two days. It looked a little green, pussy. A kind of red that made me wonder if I was ever going to regain full function of all five of my fingers.
His hand appeared in my line of sight again and I looked at it for a long time before turning back to my hand and studying it. I would lose my hand. I would die of infection.
I had to let him help me, I really didn’t have a choice.
I swallowed and slowly placed my hand back in his, turning my eyes back to the wall.
I should repaint. Pale blue? Who painted their bathroom pale blue? That was an accent color, not a main paint.
I felt him gently dab something onto the center of my palm and then I felt something cool line the cut.
I glanced over again, my curiosity getting the best of me. He was putting some sort of medicine on it. He set the tube down and lifted my hand closer to his face, gently spreading my fingers and tilting my hand back and forth, running his fingers from the base of mine to the tip. Each one. Thumb, index, middle, ring, and finally my pinky.
His eyes were studious, his hands careful.
When he found, or didn’t find, whatever it was he was looking for, he lowered it and reached for the gauze, his eyes flicking up.
I quickly looked away, glaring at the wall. I wasn’t looking athim. I wanted to see how badly my decisions fucked me over.
He wrapped my hand in gauze easily and let me take it back before moving onto my face, repeating the process.
It was harder to hold the glare while watching him take care of the long cuts on either side of my mouth. Steven had sliced up from the corners of my mouth, up towards my temples, only making it to the bottom of my cheekbones on each side. They had been shallow, like Evelyn said, and I didn’t think they would leave too terrible a scar, but there would certainly be a scar.
People would start calling me ‘Joker’. I’d have to get some Syfy makeup or something to make them disappear during signing events. Because now with the collar and the scars, people would surely make connections.
Even so, his eyes were so cool, focused on the task and nothing but the task. He looked angry, simmering, but still focused.
I wondered how he did that. How he controlled it so well. I wanted to learn how to do that. How to have that much control over my emotions, because as it was, I sucked at controlling anything at all.
He taped new bandages along each cut and finally stood, picking up after himself and quickly tossing away the old bandages.
I glared at him before turning my attention to my hand and inspecting it, studying how clean the gauze looked, how professional the wrap looked, and my glare only deepened. You didn’t have to be someonespecialto wrap up a hand. It wasn’t impressive.
He caught my chin and lifted it, causing me to reel back only for him to grab it again and pull my head forward.
