Page 28 of Wall

“Did she come on to you before?”

Quiet. The clock ticks. The neighbor’s dog barks.

“Yeah.”

“You never mentioned it.”

He shakes his head. “You were so torn up about—”

I raise my hand.

“Stop.”

My heart’s thudding in my chest. I can’t breathe, but that’s crazy. This isnothurting as bad as I feel like it is. I’m fine. It happened a long time ago.

But my body thinks it’s happening now. Like every time I get my period, and I see the first red smear on the toilet paper, and I panic, even though there’s no reason.

“I wasn’t ‘torn up.’ I wasgrieving.”

He closes his eyes. Like maybe I landed a blow that time.

“Why?” I ask. “Why did you do it?”

He’s silent again, and it’s painful, mocking. I’m a noisy, sobbing mess, and he’s a statue.

“Why?”

“Anything I say is gonna make you feel worse.”

“I deserve to know!”

He pushes up from the table, hands fisted, legs braced. “Goddamn it, Mona, I ain’t sayin’ nothin’ that’s gonna make you cry any more!”

“You…you…asshole!” My forearm flies across the table, sending the plate crashing into the wall. The wine glass falls to the floor, shattering on impact.

I stare down at the mess. John stares at me.

I drop to my knees.

“Wait!” he barks, but he’s too late. I land right on a shard of glass, sharp enough to pierce the denim of my jeans. I cry out in pain.

“Don’t move!” He lunges for me.

Ow, ow, ow. How big a shard did I land on? I swear, I can feel it scraping against my patella.

I raise my arms to grab the table and hoist myself up, but instead, there’s John, lifting me, cradling me against his massive chest, and my arms wind around his neck.

“Stay still, baby. We’ll check it out. It’ll be okay.”

There’s blood blossoming through my jeans, the sliver of glass sticking out. Oh, gross. My head swims.

I’m fine around other people’s bodily fluids, but my own…it’s not good.

John sets me on the kitchen counter next to the sink. He raises my chin with a nudge of his knuckle. “Don’t look. You’ll throw up.”

He snags the first aid kit from the corner cabinet, and then he washes his hands. “I’ll take the glass out, and then we’ll see if you need to go to the hospital.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital. I can fix myself up.” I say it, but I don’t know if push came to shove that I could give myself stitches. I’d need another glass of wine first, definitely.

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