He doesn’t answer, just drives until we come to a twenty-four-hour gas station. He orders me to stay put. Which I do. It’s not as though I want to get out. I let go of the handlebar and concentrate on a sticker glued to the inside of my helmet. I manage the extraordinary feat of peeling it off just as my door opens.
“Show me your leg, Angie.”
I gape at Ten.
He agitates a bottle of disinfectant in front of my face. “Your knee.” He nods toward my leg.
Slowly, I slide my injured leg out of the car. He pours rubbing alcohol over my wound, and I grind my teeth. He keeps pouring until the cold antiseptic trickles clear down my leg.
He gives me the bottle, then rips open a pack of Band-Aids and sticks one against my skin, the pressure and heat of his fingertips making me forget all about the vicious sting.
“Were they out of princess Band-Aids?”
He snorts but flashes me a lopsided grin. Plucking the bottle of rubbing alcohol from my fingers, he wets a handful of cotton balls and lifts it to my face.
Horrified, I feel for blood on my cheeks and forehead. “Did I cut up my face?”
“Just your chin.”
I touch it, then hold my fingers in front of my eyes. I have too many fingers, and most of them are coated in blood.
Ten presses my hands down and dabs the cotton against the underside of my chin.
I gasp from the burn. He blows against it, and the sting is replaced with another burn, a slower burn not located anywhere near my injury.
Ten peels the back off a smaller Band-Aid. As he pastes it against my chin, I stare at his long lashes. I’m afraid to speak with his face this close to mine.
Afraid he’ll smell my rancid breath.
Afraid I’ll say something stupid.
I wait until he packs everything back into the bag and gets in the driver’s seat before whispering, “Thank you for… taking care of me.” I grip my bike’s handlebar again.
He shrugs, as though he’s done nothing to deserve my gratitude, then takes out a granola bar and a bottle of Tylenol, and shakes out two pills into my palm. I swallow them without water. He gives me the granola bar, but I lay it inside my helmet, since I’m pretty sure anything I put in my stomach will find its way out.
As he backs out of the parking spot, he says, “You should eat that.”
“I really can’t.”
He turns the radio on. It’s one of those late-night club beats that all sound the same. The pounding from the speakers travels down to my navel. A wave of queasiness slams into me. I rip my hand off my bike’s handlebar, and even though the car is moving, I fling the passenger door wide just in time to retch outside.
Ten hits the brakes so hard I flail. Another surge of vomit sprays out of my mouth. My pulse intensifies like the music, drumming so wildly spots swim before my eyes. I close them.
Ten’s hand wraps around my loose hair. Tears of humiliation drip out of my clenched lids. A third acid wave swells up my throat and shoots out of my mouth. I clamp my lips shut, hoping that will be enough to calm the spasms, but it doesn’t. My stomach contracts, then eases. Nothing comes out this time. It contracts again. And again it eases.
I’m empty.
Empty of vodka but full of shame.
Sweat beads on my throbbing forehead.
Ten releases my hair. I can’t bear turning back toward him, so I close the door and stare at the power window switch. It comes in and out of focus. I swipe my hand discreetly over my eyes, and even though I’m cold, I power the window down.
“I’m never drinking again,” I whisper.
“That’s what we all say.”
“It’s happened to you?”
