Erica lays the recliner back, and I tilt my head back on it. The skin around my swollen eye feels hot and tight, the swelling pulsing in its own rhythm.
Erica digs in the kit again, pulls out a cold pack this time, and pauses. “Tell me if it’s too much,” she says.
She cups the cold gently against the swollen lid, careful not to press hard, like she’s handling something fragile. Then she places the warm compress back on my jaw.
“Don’t move,” she says, then she moves onto the rest of my injuries.
My knuckles seem to be the worst of the rest of my injuries because she spends a good while on them—cleaning, dabbing ointment, then wrapping them.
I just breathe through the ache and let her do it, because fighting her right now would take more effort than I have. The rest of my injuries from the neck down are mostly bruises.
Even with her focused on my hands, I can feel her eyes tracking down my torso, cataloging every dark mark she can see, like she’s trying to decide what’s just bruising and what’s something worse and potentially emergent.
“It’s going to look worse tomorrow,” she murmurs, finishing the wrap and smoothing the last strip down.
“Lucky me,” I say, and it comes out like gravel. My whole body is hurting, and my headache has gone from throbbing to pounding. “Pills.”
Erica’s eyes flick down to the open kit; the unlabeled bottle of pills tucked inside of it.
She picks them up. “These?” she asks.
I nod once, jaw tight, and close my eyes again.
She opens the bottle, and I don’t hear any more sound. I open my good eye again to see her looking at the pills suspiciously.
There’s no way she knows what they are.
“Pills,” I repeat.
But when she looks up, I see that she does, in fact, know what they are. Her eyes narrow.
Then her gaze flicks up to mine.
“My dad had these,” she says quietly. “After surgery. For a few days. They took him off them as soon as they could.” She looks back down at the pills like they might bite. “Where did you get them?”
I hold her gaze.
“You really don’t want to know.”
“Nico—”
“Erica,” I say, and it comes out low.
I see the second she realizes. Obviously, it’s not something we talk about, but she’s well aware of who my family is.
And that getting an unlabeled bottle of pills wouldn’t be difficult.
Her fingers curl tighter around the bottle.
“Nico,” she says, and her voice goes stubborn in that way I’ve learned means she’s about to dig her heels in. “I don’t think you should take these.”
“Erica,” I rasp, and I can’t keep the edge out of it because my skull feels like it’s splitting. “Sweetheart. My head is pounding. My whole body is pounding.”
“These are highly addictive,” she says, eyes flashing as she holds the bottle up. Like she’s going to save me from myself.
Something in my chest loosens.
I manage a small smile, amused at her. “I’m not going to get addicted to pills, baby.”
