I stare at Alana with my heart swelling in my chest. There’s blood on her shirt and in her hair, and soon some will probably be on her fingers. But she doesn’t care. She barely seems to notice. She’s just worried about me. And that’s when I realize, no woman has ever loved me the way she does. Not even my mother.
“Tell me if it hurts.” She plucks out a shard, and I wince.
“Not a bit,” I lie as I crack the ice pack and put it to my lip.
She frowns as she begins carefully pulling out all the little splinters.
“I’m sorry,” she comforts.
“For what?”
“For whatever happened to you. And for hurting you.”
“You didn’t hurt me,” I contradict just as she removes a larger piece. “Grrrr... ’Kay, right then you did. Fuck.”
“Sorry!” She pulls away.
I take a deep breath. “It’s okay, keep going.”
“You only have one more.” She delicately puts the tweezers to my skin as I squeeze the shit out of the ice pack.
“Done.” She holds a rather large piece of glass in front of my face, and we both examine it.
“You didn’t hurt me,” glancing past her hand, I reiterate. “I just jumped to conclusions.”
“Well, the next time you want to jump to conclusions, can you talk to me first? Because it really sucked thinking I did something wrong.”
“I promise.” I pull her closer to me. “I’m sorry.”
“I forgive you.”
“So easily?”
“You look like you’ve been punished enough.”
I love this girl.
I drop my head onto her shoulder and breathe calmly for the first time in three days. Alana just kisses my cheek softly and lets me be. It feels like a load has been lifted off my chest.
I lift my head to meet her eyes and reluctantly admit, “It was my mother.”
Alana is silent, but her eyes are compassionate.
“She was drunk. It got ugly.” That’s about all I want to disclose. I once said I wanted to tell Alana everything about my life, even the painful parts. But that’s proving harder to do than I originally thought.
“I need to disinfect the cuts,” she states as she reaches for a wipe.
“I’m sure the wounds are already pretty clean from the alcohol.”
Alana rolls her eyes. “That’s not funny. What did she do anyway, throw a glass at your head?”
I stare up at her intently. “A bottle.”
“She threw the bottle at you?”Alana exclaims.
“It’s not the worst thing she’s done.”
“Jesus, Ryan.” Her voice is laced with emotion.