“Stay there. Keep that foot elevated. I’ll be right back.”
It feels like I’ve bled through his shirt. The cotton is clingy and wet. While I wait for Armani to return, I measure my breathing to keep myself calm.
“Here we go,” he says.
Looking over, my heart flutters when I see the medical kit in his hand. It’s a big kit, a lot bigger than a normal household first aid box. There’s obviously more than Band-Aids and Neosporin in there.
“Are—are you sure I don’t need a doctor?” I ask, panicked.
“I am the doctor.” He meets my gaze. “The closest medical help is the mainland, and it’ll take us hours to get you there. You’re going to have to trust me, Candi. Okay?”
Cracking open the kit, he takes out supplies and lines them up on the island. Then he finds a basin and a pitcher. He fills the pitcher with bottled water and squirts some brown liquid into it.
“What is that?” I ask.
“An antiseptic.”
After that, he places my foot inside the basin and then fills a big syringe with the mixture. Luckily, there isn’t a needle on the syringe, or I might have passed out.
“I need to flush the wound now,” he tells me. “It’s going to sting. I’m sorry.”
He removes the shirt from my foot.
“Armani, wait—”
The warm water offends the laceration. Yelping in pain, I shove my fist into my mouth and squeeze my eyes shut. It takes all my effort not to kick Armani in the face.
Ignoring my twitching and my groans, he works confidently, deftly, calmly…as if he’s done this a million times before. After a few rounds of flushing, my foot doesn’t sting as much.
“How’s it feeling?” he asks.
“Surprisingly better already,” I admit.
“That’s because I gave you a lidocaine injection.”
“Seriously? I never even felt it.”
Maybe all I need now is some gauze and a bit of medical tape, and I’ll be good to go? I start to relax. Until Armani grabs a suture needle and thread.
“What the hell is that for? Are you giving me stitches?”
“Yes. That’s why I gave you the local anesthetic. But believe me, you’ll barely feel it.”
My stomach drops. “I don’t want to. I don’t like this.”
“Hey,” he says, his voice going soft. “It’s just a few stitches. Little ones. I promise you’re going to be fine. You can do this. Okay?”
I nod and then cover my eyes. The first suture feels more like a tug than anything else. I feel a quick stab of pain on the next stitch, then nothing, then more tugging. He does this a few more times, and once I realize that it’s actually not that bad, I move my hand away from my eyes and look at him.
His dark head is bent low, his concentration unwavering, his hands deftly working.
“You’re really good at this,” I whisper. “How come?”
“I was a really advanced Boy Scout.”
“Is that a thing?”
He makes a sound something like a laugh right before he stabs my foot again. For a moment, he goes still and I think he might be done, but then he resumes the slow pull of the thread, the odd tugging.
