“Get everyone out of here,” he called over his shoulder to Cal, who lurked behind him. “Party’s over. Tell her friends she’ll call them tomorrow. Tell them she threw up and went to bed early.”
Cal looked at me a second, and I could barely meet his concerned eyes. Then he was going.
Brody closed the damaged door behind him and crossed the room to me.
“Don’t touch me!” I managed to wheeze out. “I can’t have anyone touch me.”
He stopped then nodded. “Fine. I won’t touch you.”
He sank onto the floor beside me and leaned on the same wall. Close, but not touching.
“So, what are we doing here?”
I shook my head. Words wouldn’t come. The panic attack was still too close.
“I’m not going to let you bleed, Selena. I won’t allow it.”
His words pissed me off, as they were surely designed to do.
“Don’t tell me what to do,” I breathed, greedily dragging in a lungful of air. “You don’t understand—I need something—” I didn’t have enough air to keep talking.
Brody considered me a moment and then lifted his shirt. He pulled it off and tossed it aside.
“Okay, you need to cut something. Cut me.”
I jerked my eyes to his. He wasn’t joking. His face was somber.
“What?”
“I won’t let you cut yourself, so you can cut me. Every line you want to cut into your own skin, cut it into mine.”
“What? No!”
“Yes,” Brody said with an ironlike stubbornness. He took my wrist and jerked it toward him, forcing the razor I held to his arm.
“Stop! I’m not going to hurt you!” I panted, fighting against him.
“Seeing you destroy yourself hurts me more than any little cut could,” he growled, and raked the razor across his arm.
I fell back, dropping the razor. Blood welled on Brody’s forearm. A long, jagged cut appearing.
I looked at him. He watched me defiantly.
“If you want me to watch you hurt yourself, then you can watch me, too. See how you like it.”
I crawled to the counter and grabbed tissues, returning to press them over the cut. The panic in my chest had lessened from a scream to a dull roar. I could breathe again.
I dabbed at the cut. “This is deep.”
Brody shrugged. “It’ll heal.”
He was quiet as I cleaned it. The past sat like a dark specter over us, unspoken yet ever present.
“You’ve never asked me about what happened,” I muttered after a moment. “I know that you know something did.”
“You never volunteered to tell me,” Brody replied, calm.
“I guess you’ve already figured it out.” I wrapped my arms around my knees and leaned back on the wall again. “The term ‘damaged goods’ isn’t that ambiguous.”
