Asher(14)

We sit side by side, our thighs pressed together. She holds her bag in her lap and stares outside at the shifting lights of the streets we pass. I take the opportunity to study her pixie nose, her small mouth, the fine arch of her brows, and the swell of her breasts.

She hasn’t buttoned up her coat since the attack at the campus, and the thought of those guys touching her makes me see red again. I clench my fists against my legs, feeling a sting for the first time. The knuckles of my right hand are busted and bleeding. I must’ve hit the guy’s teeth when I punched him. I’ve nothing to wrap my hand with, so I just go back to studying her, to take my mind off it.

I find her gaze locked on my hand, wide and horrified. “You’re hurt.”

I want to laugh at that, because to me that’s nothing compared to what “hurt” really means. But I don’t. She knows what pain feels like. I know she was badly hurt in the accident, that her clothes hide scars I’ve never seen. Scars I want to see and map with my hands and my mouth.

Oh shit. I put both my hands, bleeding or not, over my crotch, hoping to hide evidence of the direction in which my thoughts are wandering.

She doesn’t seem to notice. She reaches out and takes my hand, lifting it. “That’s a deep cut.”

“I’m okay.” But I don’t pull my hand away. “It’s nothing.”

She appears about to say something more, but then she glances outside and presses the button for her stop.

I get up and help her hobble to the exit. “Come up,” she says. “I’ll bandage that cut for you.”

I open my mouth and close it. She’s asking me up, to her apartment. I want to pinch myself; I must be dreaming. “All right.”

All right. The two little words are too small for such an event, one I wouldn’t have foreseen in a thousand years. But I’ll take it. Goddamn, I’ll take it. She’s finally talking to me, and maybe I’ll have a chance to explain, to apologize. If only I can find the right words...

She leans on me as we make our slow way to her building, and gasps but says nothing when I lift her to my chest once more and climb up the stairs. I love her weight in my arms, the way she curls her hand behind my neck. It’s taking everything I have not to kiss her. She’s letting me touch her, hold her, but all I can hope for right now is her friendship. She’s already let me much closer than I ever hoped.

I put her down so she can unlock her door, and help her inside. She turns on a light and it floods her living room. Cozy. Soft colors. Not the pink, flowery affair I expected.

Audrey’s is done in brown and gray, and her carpet is a lush red. I feel at ease here. Some drawings are spread over the dining table, but I barely glance at them as I lead her to the beige couch.

She sinks down with a sigh of relief. I kneel at her feet and take off her boot to check her ankle. She makes a small noise that has me glancing up, afraid I’ve overstepped some boundary, but she says nothing. Her green eyes are unreadable.

I clench my jaw and focus on the task at hand. Her ankle is a bit swollen, but not too bad. I have to ice it down.

“I’ll be right back,” I say and hurry to her kitchenette. I get a bag of frozen peas from her freezer and wrap it up in a towel.

When I return to the room, I find her studying her ankle, a crease between her brows. I see her every curve outlined under her sweater and pants, her pursed mouth, and desire hits me full force. I freeze, all my blood rushing south so fast I get light-headed.

“Ash?”

Her voice breaks through the trance and I make myself walk back to the couch. I go back down on my knees—where I want to be with her, and damn that’s a line of thinking I should stop right now—and lift her foot onto the couch, then place the wrapped bag on top of her ankle.

“Keep it there,” I say, aware my voice’s hoarse as if I’ve smoked a pack of cigarettes. “It should take down the swelling. It doesn’t look like a bad sprain.”

She reaches for my hand again and fuck, I’ve smeared blood on my clothes, her clothes, her towel and her couch.

“Shit, I’m sorry,” I mutter. “I’ll go wash it.”

“No, wait.” She looks at my hand, her brows knitting. I’m starting to dig her focused expression. It’s cute. “There’s a first aid kit under my sink in the bathroom. Would you get it?”

She’s really going to patch me up? I get to my feet and go to find the kit before she changes her mind and realizes who she’s been talking to. A good for nothing. A school dropout. Her father’s killer’s son.

I get the kit and when I return, she motions for me to sit beside her. I obey, a bit dazed, and she takes my hand again, examining my knuckles.