Page 60 of Catch the Sun

“Likely. But what am I supposed to say?” I counter, lifting my head and steepling my fingers to my chin. “My father assaulted me with a fucking table lamp? He’ll get arrested. Spend the night in a jail cell. I can’t do that to him.”

“Max, you need to—”

“Did you go to the cops after Sandwell tossed you in the lake?” I throw back at her. We both know that some battles aren’t worth pursuing.

The parallel registers in her eyes as she shakes her head. “No,” she whispers.

Through the magenta haze, I watch her focus slip to my mouth, settling on the still-healing cut on my lower lip. Jagged and scabbing. She stares at it, putting two and two together.

“You gave Andy those black eyes, didn’t you?”

I swallow. “He deserved worse.”

Ella looks away, marinating in the implication before she glances back at me.

Then her hand lifts to my face. Tentative. Trembling slightly. I stiffen with anticipation and hold my breath as her fingertips inch closer and graze along my bottom lip.

So light. Barely there.

My eyelids flutter closed. I’m still holding my breath, my hands clenched to stones in my lap, when I feel her fingers travel upward and gently brush aside my blood-slick bangs. It feels intimate, in a way. There’s a tenderness there, something unfamiliar yet strangely comforting and warm. Ella touches my temple, her careful fingers tracing the outline where my fresh wound pulses.

“I’ll be right back.”

The sound of her voice jars me back to reality. When I open my eyes, she’s already on her feet, moving across the carpet to her bedroom door and slipping out silently. She returns moments later with an armful of bandages and a small white first-aid kit. The items clank against the quiet backdrop as she places them on the desk, revealing her haul of ointments, gauze, and a wet cloth.

My eyes track her through the dim light while she sifts through the pile and returns to her position in front of me, settling on her knees between my spread legs.

“I’m far from a nurse, but I used to tend to the horses on our farm,” she tells me, reaching out to cleanse the wound with the moistened rag.

I wince at the contact but hold back a hiss.

“There was one horse, Phoenix, who loved getting into trouble. He was feisty, full of energy. He had this habit of scraping his flank against the barn wall and ended up with a nasty gash one day.”

Ella is propped up on her knees, her porcelain face inches from mine. While her eyes are focused on the task, her mind is far away, lost in the memories of a Nashville horse ranch. My hands unclench as my body loosens, the warmth of her proximity melting my walls.

Or…maybe I have no walls.

Not with her.

She continues, her gaze flicking to me briefly, then returning to the cut. “Ispent hours cleaning the wound. Dressing it. I put together this concoction of honey, fresh herbs, and bread to draw out any infection—a recipe Jonah gave me,” she explains. “Phoenix hated it, at first. He didn’t like people fussing over him. But eventually…he realized I was just trying to help. It’s silly, but there was a time when that stubborn horse felt like my best friend.” Soft melancholy infects her tone as she exchanges the burgundy rag for a tube of ointment. “The horses were more than animals to me. They were my family. When every god-awful human in that town shunned me, tormented me, ridiculed me, the horses were there. Phoenix never looked at me like I was a monster. I was just…Ella.”

I’m silent and unmoving as I drink in her words, her past, her torn-away dreams. She dabs the ointment to my temple and the cream cools the sting of the wound, adding to the lift I feel at uncovering another piece of her. Swallowing, I keep my attention on her profile, memorizing the furrow of her brow as she concentrates, the bow of her lips as warm breaths beat against my skin.

Comfort.

That’s what I’m feeling right now.

Sitting on this hard wooden chair without a shirt, bruised and battered, relying on this broken girl to fix me…

I feel remarkably at peace.

As she fiddles with a butterfly bandage, I inhale a breath and it’s dangerously shaky on the way out. “You must really miss the horses.”

She smiles. “I miss a lot of things.”

“Do you think you’ll ever ride again?”

“I hope so,” she murmurs, applying the adhesive wings of the bandage to my skin with two steady hands. Moving in closer, she pauses to assess the series of tiny bridges across the cut. “I want to move to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan after graduation. Save up for an RV and hit the road. I don’t need much. I’ll find a quiet place to lay roots, and eventually I’ll purchase a horse of my own. Maybe even my own horse farm. That would be my ultimate dream.” When the butterfly bandage is secured, Ella covers it with a piece of gauze for protection. “And then I’ll ride again.”

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