Page 8 of All In Good Time

“This is my business now.”

He didn’t respond, and she reached up with her white fuzzy sleeve and wiped away the almost-dried blood under his nose. She didn’t care about stains at the moment.

His nose wrinkled at the feel of the fake fur brushing against it.

“Do you have any bandages?” she asked. “Or water or something? You should really clean these.”

“I know what to do.”

She didn’t like to think about what that insinuated, so she ignored him and continued trying to catch his eye for an answer.

He sighed and relented. “In my car. Passenger side.”

Becca pulled him with her to his car and told him to wait right outside the passenger side. He unlocked the car for her and leaned against the hood of the Monte Carlo, looking up at the sky like before.

She found a few fast-food napkins in the compartment, along with a half-empty water bottle. She wet the napkins and walked back over to him. His attention turned to her, following her every movement as she got to work patting the injuries. His nose was easy to wipe up. There wasn’t much she could do about his bruises, but there were a few cuts on his jaw that needed cleaning. He was lucky nothing was broken, which she checked by prodding around at his face.

When she was done, she wadded up the dirty napkins and threw them in the cupholder to be taken out later.

His eyes didn’t leave her the entire time.

She closed the car door, and they once again basked in the silence and darkness of the forest road. Him leaning against his car, her standing there, unsure of what to do now.

“How does it feel?”

“Like hell.”

She shrugged. “I guess that makes sense.”

Silence.

A million thoughts kept it from being too quiet, and she wondered what she should say. Should she just give up on getting a ride at all? Maybe just walk away? Should she ask for a ride? Instead, she settled on something different.

“What happened?”

He didn’t answer. She realized maybe that was the wrong question and backtracked.

“I mean, you don’t have to—”

“My dad.”

She frowned, surprised. “What?”

“He’s an asshole.”

It clicked in her head, and her breath caught. “Yourdaddid this?”

His gaze finally left her. No longer studying her, he stared at his feet, which she just realized were bare. The sight of him, bruised and beaten and lightly clothed…it stung her heart more than she cared to admit.

Hisdad.She hadn’t seen her deadbeat dad in nearly ten years since he left her and her mom behind without a word. Horrible as he was for that, the little of him she does remember would never have done something like this to her.

“Jesus. Why would he do that?”

“Came home late, didn’t like that. Was drunk, didn’t like that either.”

“That’s it? He did…thisbecause of something like that?”

“He’s an asshole.”

---