Page 61 of Fighting Words

“I took the bike out,” I offer.

“That was stupid,” he says with an admonishing tone.

Anger tears through me and I try to yank my hand away, but he doesn’t let me.

“I wanted to go into town.”

“Why?”

“I…I needed—” To escape you. “Tampons,” I lie.

I expect him to balk at the word like most men do.OH MY GOD, they say,BLEGH!

Nate doesn’t even care. Worse, I don’t think he believes me. I can’t confirm because I still refuse to look at him.

“I could have driven you into town.”

I sniff. “I figured you were still sleeping.”

He tilts my hand so he can see it in the light. “It’s not bad. Let me get a bowl and you can soak it for a minute. I won’t be able to tell how deep a few of these cuts are until we get your hand cleaned off.” He steps back a little, and out of the corner of my eye, I see him inspecting the rest of my body, my torn and muddy jeans. “Are you hurt anywhere else?”

I shake my head. The scrape on my ankle is nothing. I’ll worry about it later.

He tells me to sit, and when I argue that I’m dirty, he levels me with a glare.

Right.

Once I take a seat at the table, he brings over a bowl of warm soapy water, takes my hand, and stands beside me—too close—as he gently cleans off the dirt and debris. He smells so good from his shower. I probably smell like I feel: roadkill.

He lets the water do most of the heavy lifting, and after a few minutes, my hand looks much better. Without all the dirt, it’s clear there aren’t any deep cuts, nothing even requiring a bandage.

“I’d wash it off again in the shower,” he tells me, carrying the bowl to the sink to dump it out.

“Thanks.”

Then before the conversation can shift, I screech my chair back and head straight for the stairs.

In the bathroom, I take a long, restorative shower. The steam rises up, filling the room, and I linger there, letting the water beat down on me. It feels too good to get out, but the hot water doesn’t last forever. Eventually, I’m forced to yank the shower curtain aside and step out onto the rug. I wrap a towel around my middle and listen carefully. I always want to know where Nate is, but right now it’s imperative; I didn’t bring clothes in here with me.

Just as I’m about to step out into the hallway, Nate opens the door.

I startle and wrap the towel tighter around myself. “I’m almost done,” I say with a squeaky high voice.

He looks away, averting his eyes. “Sorry. I was coming up to get your jeans so I could try to mend them.”

“Oh.”

His kindness shatters something inside me, and I scurry past him, shut myself inside my room, sit down on the edge of my bed, and give in to big heavy tears. I don’t even really knowwhyI’m crying, only that it feels too good to stop.

I inhale deeply, trying to quell the torrential downpour, but more tears fall, and it’s like a valve releasing in my chest. It’s the tension from last night, the anxiety and adrenaline from the bike accident this morning, the worry about how things will go with Nate, my situation with my family, my future with Andrew—it all comes out with those tears, everything I’ve held behind lock and key for so long.

I can’t actually remember the last time I cried. But now, I hiccup and sniffle. I swipe at my face and then cry some more, slow tears slipping down my cheeks as I stare out the window at the snow. I don’t even care that by the time I eventually get dressed and head downstairs, my face is likely splotchy, my green eyes red-rimmed.

When I come down, Nate is sitting at the kitchen table, a piece of thread between his teeth as he bites off a knot.

True to his word, he has my jeans in his hands and he’s sewing up the hole I made when I fell. He’s mending them carefully, his brows tugged together in concentration.

When he notices me standing in the kitchen doorway, he doesn’t look up. “It won’t be perfect, sorry. My mom taught me years ago, back when I was a teenager. She was sick of my brother and me acting like we couldn’t possibly learn to do something as simple as thread a needle. I think she called it weaponized incompetence.”

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