Page 52 of Hold On

“Shed,” is all he manages. I’m beyond confused until I turn around in emotional turmoil and see that there’s a detached shed in his backyard. It looks like a fucking tool shed. With spiders and a lawnmower and shovels and probably a rat or two…

“Like, at the end of your yard by the fence?” I ask shakily, looking into the dark corner of the yard where the shed is sitting ominously.

“Mmm.Mmmhmm,” he manages. It’s all I need to say fuck it and run into the abyss. For him, I’d run to the ends of the earth. One of two doors is cracked when I approach it. I open it carefully, not sure exactly where he is. I’m glad I was mindful, as he’s not very far in and he’s semi-lodged behind one of the doors.

“Bash?!” I whisper-scream as I crouch to go to him and see that he’s lying face down in the dirt. He’s covered in blood and breathing shallowly. “Holy fucking shit! Bash!!!”

I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to make things worse. I pull my sweatshirt off and use it to try and stop the bleeding on his brow. He winces as I apply pressure. His eyes look far off, but he recognizes me when he looks up finally.

“Lina,” he says quietly. I nod my head, doing my best not to hyperventilate in my anxiety. I pet his face softly and cry. But I say nothing, not just yet. He just needs someone to be here for him. Not make things worse. After about five minutes, his hand snakes up onto my thigh and I whimper, the warmth so fucking precious to me from his fingers. He’s lying here severely injured and he’s comforting me?

I grab his hand and kiss it repeatedly, it being the most special hand that’s ever existed to me. I lift up my sweatshirt to see how his wound is doing but it’s still bleeding. I sigh, knowing I’m going to need more than this to help get it under control. I find my phone by my feet somewhere and text my brother, knowing he’s at his best friend’s house this weekend. He usuallyspends every weekend there if he doesn’t have a game. I ask him for a first-aid kit and extra gauze. He texts back quickly, sarcastically asking me what I broke this time. I tell him it’s an emergency and that I’ll explain later. He agrees to meet me on the next street over and to text me when he gets there.

“Hold on, baby,” I say with a trembling voice as I stroke Bash’s face. “I’m going to take care of all of this. I promise.” Tears leak out of his eye as he looks up at me from the ground. His other eye is bruised and swollen shut. His lip is also busted.

I text my brother again and ask for water bottles too. He sends me a thumbs up emoji. I roll my eyes.

“So… sorry,” Bash manages to get out. I fall over his body, kissing his face as I hold him against me.

“No, no, no. I’m sorry! I never should’ve left you, Bash,” I sob as I bury my face in his neck. His hand comes up to hold me lightly before it falls. His strength is nonexistent, and it makes me feel so powerless. I don’t know how to help him. I know I can’t make it better right now, but it would be so much easier if I could.

“Shhhh, Lina… Girl,” he whispers softly. I nuzzle his nose. Something suddenly scurries over my leg in the dark. I shriek to myself, repressing it because of his dad, as I fling a spider off of me. Bash pulls me into him as I shake, using my cell phone light to make sure others aren’t anywhere close to us. I do my best to forget about it though, turning back to dote on Bash.

He still seems too out of it to talk about what happened, so I just softly pet his head while I wait for my brother to arrive with the supplies. When he finally texts me that he’s here, I let Bash know I have to pee outside, and that I’ll be right back. I’m afraid that if he knows someone else is coming to help, he’ll get emotional and embarrassed, working himself up too much. I just need him to relax and start healing.

It feels creepy walking by the darkened house. I fling my middle finger up to it as I do, hoping his dad feels my giantfuckyoufrom out here. I can’t believe Bash is out in their shed, bleeding profusely while he fucks his wife upstairs and abuses her too. I’m appalled. And now it suddenly makes sense to me why he’s been staying with me the last week. I wonder how long the abuse has been going on.

“Hey slut!” my brother says happily as I finally walk up to him, tiredly smiling. I give him a side hug as he hands me a bag before stepping back and looking me over. “What’s that?” He points to my face. I wipe at it and Bash’s blood smears over my cheek and mouth. I lick my bottom lip nervously, tasting the sharp copper as I try to come up with a lie. But I can’t think of any quick enough. I’m too traumatized to think on my feet.

“Uhm,” I fumble stupidly. He cocks a brow as his best friend furrows his own in the driver’s seat of the car.

“Yeah, why you covered in blood? You ok?” Cody, his bestie, asks suspiciously.

“Alina,” my brother says with force as I fucking scramble for an excuse.

“I’m fine, seriously!! I promise!! Look, honestly… I’m with a guy,” I start. My brother makes a face, as his friend whistles. They both react in different ways but end up laughing hysterically together.

“I don’t want to hear this,” my brother says as he turns away like I was hoping he would. “Unless you’re hurt. Are you fucking ok, Lina?” He stops, looking me up and down seriously. Even though he’s my younger brother, he’s still got a protective streak for his older sister. We’ve got each other’s backs.

“I’mfine!It’s not even my blood!” I assure them both.

“That doesn’t make it any better,” my brother says, but I shoo him away, feeling grateful for his help.

“Thank you for this!!” We all awkwardly exchange looks as he gets back in the car and Cody starts it up. They drive away quickly, their speakers blasting Taj-He-Spitz as I run as fast as I can back to the backyard and towards the shed Bash is in.

He’s sleeping when I get there, so I wake him up. I use some of the water to clean him off and hold it up so he can drink from it. He does so in small gulps. I lie him back down and use my sweatshirt to prop him up, this time lying the bloody side in the dirt. Using gauze and medical tape from the first-aid kit, I finally get Bash patched up enough to feel like he’s going to be ok. I hold the cold water bottle to his eye, hoping it’ll help with the swelling and pain. He curls up in my lap. I cradle his fragile head, stroking him softly with my fingers. I wake him up every hour. Each time I do, he seems a little more coherent. At around three in the morning, he’s able to have an actual conversation.

Sebastian:

I cough, my throat feeling like sandpaper as I come to. She’s right there, opening a water bottle and handing it to me, holding it up to my lips. She pours a little down my throat, helping me to sip it slowly. We repeat this for a few minutes. It feels like I’ll never get enough water, but I’m suddenly ok as I look up into the most gorgeous pair of green eyes I’ve ever seen in my entire life.

“Alina fucking Timber,” I breathe as she collapses on me. I groan. Partially from arousal, even in this state, and partially from pain. “Baby,ouch,” I say softly as she apologizes and releases me from under her body weight.

“Bash! Holy fucking shit! What happened to you, baby?!” She’s shaking. She looks like she’s been through hell, and she’s covered in my blood. She’s also freezing, dirty and looks exhausted. My heart drops into my stomach, my shame spreading throughout my entire body.

“How long have you been here?” I ask her quietly as she shrugs.

“I don’t know. I could probably figure it out from whenever you called me, but all night,” she replies. She cowers, thinking I’m mad at her. I’m not. How could I be? She saved me. She just knows my secret now. And it’s a lot to process with a concussion.

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