Page 17 of Broken King

“Everyone else here is nice. What’s wrong with you to make you so curmudgeonly?”

Jesus, is she here to make my day even worse?

“I’m a little young to be curmudgeonly,” I answer. “Now can you move so I can sit down and put another goddamned Band-Aid on?”

“I’ll make you a deal. If you promise to be nice, I’ll help you this time too. If not, then you’re just going to have to bleed out here because I’m not budging.”

Her words make me wish I’d never gotten out of bed today. “Who are you?”

That makes her smile, and as I’m noticing how much her brown eyes light up when she’s happy, she takes the box of Band-Aids out of my hand. “Sabrina. Nice to meet you. And you are?”

I don’t know why I don’t push her out of my bathroom and slam the door shut, but I answer her question, if only to get things moving so she’ll leave me the hell alone. “Ronan.”

“Nice to meet you, Ronan. Now sit down on the tub, and we’ll clean this one up too. By the way, walking around in bare feet when there’s glass around isn’t a smart idea. You might get really hurt.”

As I sit down again, I mumble, “I’ve already been really hurt.”

She crouches down in front of me and shakes her head. “This isn’t that bad. I’ll have this cleaned up and bandaged in no time.”

I hold my right arm up for her to see. “That’s not what I meant.”

While she repeats on the side of my foot what she just finished on the top a couple minutes ago, she hums. “I’m guessing you weren’t born like that by the way you said you were already hurt.”

Shaking my head, I stare at where my hand should be. “No.”

When she finishes with the second cut on my foot, she stands up with the wrapper and the washcloth stained with my blood. Looking at me, she says, “Good thing you have another one.”

“Another one?” I ask, confused as to what she means.

She points at my left hand. “Another hand. You had two, and now you have one.”

“That’s not how it works.”

“I think it is.”

I can’t decide if this person is merely frustrating my efforts to be miserable or seriously is trying to be an asshole about my lost hand. Who the hell says that kind of thing to someone who’s lost a fucking part of their body?

Once more, I push past her and walk back out into my room, but this time I make sure to stay far away from the broken glass from the picture frame. “Exactly what is your reason for beingin my house? It’s quite clear you’re not a nurse. You have no bedside manner at all.”

Behind me, she laughs, and I turn around to see her sweeping up the last of the glass into the dustpan. “What was funny about that? If you are a nurse, you suck at it.”

Finished with cleaning up, she stands to her full height, which can’t be more than five and a half feet tall. Jutting her hip out, she’s full of attitude when she snaps back at me, “I never said I was a nurse. I’m here to help Ava with those beautiful little babies. I was just trying to be nice to someone who looked like they needed it. I get you’re all about being miserable, or better yet, curmudgeonly, but maybe you could be thankful for the help.”

Maybe she can go fuck herself with that thankful bullshit. I didn’t ask for her help. I could have gotten that Band-Aid on quite nicely myself. And if she hadn’t been in the way, I never would have cut my foot a second time.

I consider telling her all of that as I sit back down on my bed, but I don’t bother.

“Nice meeting you, Ronan. Let’s hope our next time chatting is nicer,” she says as she walks out of my room.

“I’ve got a better idea. How about we never talk again? That means stay away from me. Got it?”

She doesn’t answer me. That’s okay. I don’t need to talk to her anymore anyway.

At dinnertime,Eleanor brings me a tray with food and a glass of Coke like every night. I pretend to be asleep so I don’t have to talk to her, but when I hear the door close, I quickly sit up and inspect what she brought me to eat.

A pork chop, her homemade stuffing, and green beans with a side of applesauce.

Memories of her making this for all of us when I was a little boy flood my mind, particularly the one time that sticks out among all the others. It was right around when we all found out my mother was sick. The entire house felt like a funeral home, but my mother didn’t want us to be mourning her while she was still alive, so she pulled herself out of bed and made her way down to the kitchen to help Eleanor make dinner.

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