I hear a groan, and I push Kylie toward the building. “Let’s go in. I’m fine.”
She grabs my arm and drags me toward the car. “No, you need to see a doctor.”
I pull away. “I said I’m fine.”
“You were shot. Your leg—”
My leg does hurt, so I glance at it. Didn’t go through; it looks like just a graze. I limp toward the door, not waiting for her. “It’s not bad. I’m going in. You should go home.”
She follows, though, shutting her car off and locking it. It’ll be a miracle if it’s intact when she leaves, but I can’t worry about that. I’m adrenaline-crashing and in pain and shaking with the onset of fear, now that it’s over. I slam the front door of my apartment closed, lock it, and lurch awkwardly into the kitchen. Pull a length of paper towel from the roll and press it to my leg. Hiss at the pressure and the pain. I feel dizzy. My head aches. My cheek hurts. That glancing blow hurt worse than I’d thought. I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of the microwave; my face is a mask of blood. Kylie is pressed against the wall near the fridge, shaking, staring at me, horrified and terrified and about to collapse.
I gesture at the hand towel hanging off the handle of the oven. “Hand me that.” She does, and I replace the now-sodden paper towel with the cotton one, tossing the blood-soaked wad into the sink. “Kylie, relax. I’m fine. I’ve been hurt worse. This is no big deal.”
She shakes her head. “There were—there were three of them. They shot you. They could’ve killed you. Because of me.” She shudders, wraps her arms around herself. “You’re a bloody mess. You’re hurt.”
“C’mere.” I hold out my arm, and she rushes to me. Judging by the twinge of pain in my side when she slams into me, I’ve got a bruised rib. I ignore it, breathe through it, and hold her against me. “It was worth it, as long as you’re okay. They didn’t hurt you, did they?”
She shakes her head. “No. Just scared me. They…he was telling me what he wanted to—to do to me. It was so awful. And he was going to. I couldn’t get away. And I knew he was going to—”
“But he didn’t.” I rub her back. “Breathe, sweetness. Just breathe. Everything’s fine now.”
She pulls away. “Um, no. You’re hurt.”
I wipe my forearm along my chin, smearing the dripping blood away to keep it off her. “Cuts to the head or face bleed a lot. It’s just a split cheek. For real, I’ll be fine. Like I said, I’ve had worse.”
She tugs me by the hand, and I follow her reluctantly, limping behind her. She leads me to the couch, helps me sit. Brings back a few dampened squares of paper towel and wipes gingerly at my face, folding the paper towel over and over until it’s a pink-red wet wad. This goes on for several minutes, until the bleeding finally stops. She touches my cheek, and then my forehead, which I realize belatedly stings, too.
“You’ve got two cuts.” She touches near each of them. “Here, and here. They don’t look deep, though.”
“Like I said, I’m fine.” I’m dizzy, though, and reeling. Aching, hurting. Shit, it hurts.
Kylie leans over me and oh-so-gently pries at the edges of the cut to my thigh. “This is pretty bad. It needs stitches.”
“Not happening.”
She looks up at me, confused. “Why not?”
“Don’t have the money, don’t want the attention. It’ll heal.” I point at the bathroom. “There’s a roll of bandages and some Neosporin in the medicine cabinet. Can you grab it for me?” She nods and gets up, and it’s not until she’s back that I realize I can’t bandage it with my jeans on. I struggle to my feet. “Need to change into shorts. I’ll be right back.”
“Oz, you should go the ER. I’ll pay for it.”
“The f**k you will.” I shouldn’t be so harsh, but I’m in pain and frustrated and confused. Why’d she come here? This complicates things. She’s gonna feel like she owes me something now.
“Then let me help you. Please. You can barely walk.” She’s behind me, following my slow progress to my room. I can barely move my leg for the deep throbbing ache that seems to originate in the bones of my thigh.
I make it, and fall back onto my bed. “What, you’re gonna take my pants off me?”
She blushes, but enters, sinks to her knees by my feet. “Yes.” She’s tugging on the laces of my boots, slipping them off my feet.
Resistance is futile. Shut up, yes, I did just make a Star Trek joke. But seriously, I don’t know how to stop her, because it hurts and I’ve never had anyone take care of me. Mom’s not the cuddly, huggy, baby-me type of mom. She’s more my friend than anything else. So this is new, and I don’t know how to deal with it, especially because pushing Kylie away earlier today was seriously f**king painfully difficult, the diametric opposite of what I wanted. I let her take off my shoes, and my socks. The sock on my wounded leg is sopping wet with my blood, and she makes a face as she peels it off me. She looks around for somewhere to put it.
“Garbage in the kitchen,” I tell her.
She leaves, and I fumble with the button and zipper of my jeans, fight to get them off, but shitfuckdamn it hurts so bad, the edges of the denim stick to my skin and to the open wound, the blood clotting now. I’ve only got my jeans halfway off before she comes back.
“Goddamn it, Oz. You stubborn ass**le.”
“Finally got something figured out,” I say, relinquishing my pride and letting her finish tugging the jeans off my legs.
I’m wearing boxers, thank god. I do sometimes go commando, if it’s been awhile since I’ve done any laundry.
My side aches, throbs. The rib is definitely bruised at the least, possibly cracked. That was a good hard hit he got in. And my head, god, my head is throbbing from the head butt, on top of the two punches I took. Public service announcement for you, kids: Head-butting someone hurts you, too. Don’t be fooled by the movies.
“Holy f**k, Oz, this is really bad. Please, please let me take you to the hospital.” She’s near tears, and looking pale, like she might puke.
I sit forward and give my leg a good look. It is pretty deep. Not to the bone, but it’s a pretty harsh gash on the outside of my thigh. It’ll heal on its own. I know this from experience. Not from a gunshot wound, but from similar injuries. I shake my head. “It looks worse than it is, Kylie. It’s just a cut. Gimme the gauze.”