Pain

There were two cuts, one across his back, just beneath his shoulder blades, and another on the back of his left thigh. They were red, looking quite angry against his pale flesh, and Claire’s hand was shaking as she struggled not to drop the brown bottle of peroxide. He had refused to go to the hospital, though Claire thought he probably ought to, and she wondered again if peroxide and a few bandages would be enough.

She felt very much like crying as she straddled the back of his knees and began to clean the cuts with paper towels soaked in peroxide. In the end, she knew that John Bender was a terrible liar, and she also knew that his tale about a street fight gone wrong was nothing else than bullshit. He had avoided her gaze completely when he had climbed through her window, at two o’clock in the morning, his shirt mostly soaked in blood. It wasn’t unusual for him to climb through her window at odd hours of the night, looking for a place to crash and a bed to sleep in. But never before had he been hurt to the point of collapsing. Claire felt a fresh bubbling of anger at the thought that it had been his father to inflict the wounds she was currently cleaning.  She wondered why and how they had occurred, but she knew he’d be angry if she asked.

John hissed, as the peroxide stung, and clutched her sheets in tightly clenched fists.

“Fuck,” he muttered, burying his face into her pillow and groaning as she dabbed and cleaned.

Soon, the paper towels were red with blood, and she knew that she had done all she could with the peroxide.

“I think I need you to stand up,” she murmured, grabbing the roll of bandage and standing up, so that he could struggle out of bed.

Claire caught the impassive look on his face as he got to his knees and crawled off her bed, the cut on his thigh stretching painfully as he stood. He was unabashedly naked (he sort of had to be, in order to have his thigh cleaned) and she felt her face color a little, though it wasn’t anything she hadn’t seen before; but before it had been sexual. This weakness, along with nakedness, oddly enough made her want to cry. She pushed back the tears and began to wrap his thigh tightly, using just enough bandage to get the job done, because she still had to do his back. She taped the bandage, then started again.

He lifted his arms a little as she walked around him, leading the roll of bandage around and around, covering the long cut completely. She taped again and stepped back to make sure the bandages wouldn’t move around too much, but would still be flexible enough. He avoided her gaze at all costs and stared down at his toes.

She gathered up the bloody paper towels and his clothes and threw them all in her waste basket.

“What am I supposed to wear when I have to leave in the morning?” he asked, none of his normal cockiness in his voice. In fact, it was rather dead pan.

“We’ll smuggle some of my dad’s stuff.”

He nodded and crawled into her bed, pulling the blanket over himself and turning his face away from her. She sighed and ran her hand down her face. She slipped her soiled nightgown over her head and walked over to her dresser to get another.

She crawled into bed, next to him, and switched off the light, wondering if he was already asleep. His breathing was even and slow, and she thought that he might be. She was glad he was asleep, because it allowed her to think for awhile, to mull over what had happened. She wished he would go to the police, or at least get out of there, because she worried about him when she didn’t see him for a few days. She let the tears fall quietly, not wanting to wake him.

It had been two months since she first met him, and at every turn he surprised her. John was more than anything she had ever expected, and, in the end she had shared with him more than she ever had before. They weren’t romantic, that wasn’t who he was and would probably never be.

That night, having him avoid her and not look at her had hurt more than anything, ever. He was often moody and dark, and he could be a jerk in many circumstances, but she knew his bad boy, bad-ass exterior was just an act. Did he really think that he could pass off the cuts as the results of a fight? That was what hurt the most, that he would even try to lie to her. Didn’t even know her better than that by now?

Suddenly she felt him moving, turning so that he was facing her, and then his arm was around her and he was drawing her close. She took a deep breath and let herself sob openly as he whispered things into her neck, things she could barely hear but she understood perfectly.

“I’m sorry,” he murmured over and over again, scooting closer to her body. “It’s fine, doesn’t hurt that much, it’ll be fine.”

Would it ever be fine? She knew they were all fucked up in their own way, but John was a special kind of fucked up. Andy, herself, Allison, and Brian could hide it to a certain extent, because their parents were just assholes; they had never felt the sharp sting of a backhand across the face, the cut of a knife wielded drunkenly, or the burn of a cigarette on bare flesh. Claire was so very scared of what might happen to him, not just the physical pain of abuse, but the emotional part of it, too. Sometimes she saw him happy, when they were together, just being themselves, and she worried that there would come a time where all the happiness would be gone.

Her sobs quieted, but neither of them moved. Seeming to know what she was thinking, he started to talk, stripped of all the layers, until he was just who he was, for real, beneath the pain and the anger.

“I turn eighteen in a month, then I don’t have to deal with this shit anymore. With his help, Brian thinks I might be able to graduate, if I pass my English final. Andy says he’s going to ISU after he graduates, and that he’s planning to rent his own place; he asked me if I wanted to be his roommate. I haven’t said yes yet, but I think I will. I’ll get a job somewhere and I’ll work until everything is behind me, and I don’t have to think about it anymore. Everything will be fine,” he finished, trying to convince himself just as much as her.

Claire nodded against him, surprised at his previously unspoken goals. She never knew that he cared whether he graduated or not, but her heart lifted a little when she heard that he was moving in with Andy. At least he wouldn’t be on the streets, fending off God only knows what.

She felt him kiss her lightly on the shoulder and rest his forehead against her neck, before he finally fell asleep, for real this time. Slowly she did too, lulled by his warmth pressed against her and his arm holding her possessively.