Noah dives for me. He grabs me and instantly peels my hand away from my aching face, revealing a palm full of blood. “Shit, Spitfire,” he gasps with his heart on his sleeve, looking like he could be sick. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t see you behind me. I never would have…fuck.”
I cut him off, flinching away from his touch. “What the hell is wrong with you, Noah?” I demand with tears pouring down my face, though they’re not from my broken soul, they’re here purely from the pain coursing through my face. “I told you. I’m done with you. I don’t need you getting in the face of every guy who comes near me. I can handle myself.”
“But I…”
“No,” I snap. “You made your decision. We’re through.” I wave a hand in Spencer’s general direction. “Shit like this can’t be happening.”
“Come on,” he says, ignoring my ranting while trying to help me to my feet, still with that crazed animal look deep within his eyes. “Let me take you to the nurse.”
“I told you. I can handle myself,” I yell at him, pulling myself free with a hard yank. “I don’t need you.”
With that, I turn and walk away, leaving nothing but brokenness behind me with a shitload of whispers.
I take myself to the nurse and have to wait as she deems Spencer’s injuries to be worse, and honestly, so do I. Maybe I jinxed him with the whole ‘broken jaw’ thought because it sure as hell looks broken to me. He ends up being carted off in an ambulance so he can get his jaw x-rayed and that’s when the nurse finally pays attention to the massive cut and bruising rapidly spreading across my face.
A familiar dark-haired beauty sticks her head through the door as the nurse tends to my wound and prepares my face for stitches. “Oh shit,” she laughs, slapping a hand over her mouth for her inappropriate giggles. “He’s seriously going to hate himself for that.”
“He should,” I grunt as she comes in to get a better look. “It freaking hurts and it doesn’t help that she keeps touching it and making it sting like a fucking bitch,” I seethe glancing up at the nurse who presses her lips into a tight, unimpressed line, having dealt with much worse than me in this very room.
“I bet,” Tully says, trying to keep me calm. “I can’t say I’ve ever been on the receiving end of one of his punches, but I’ve sure seen him in action. The guy could be a fighter if he wanted.”
“I believe it. I mean, Spencer went straight down.” The nurse pokes at me and I suck in a pained breath. “Shit, that hurts.”
“Sorry, but if I don’t clean it up, you’ll end up with an infection.”
“What about a scar?” Tully asks. “Is her pretty face going to be all messed up?”
The nurse presses her lips together and shrugs. “It’s hard to tell, but if she doesn’t start sitting still, she’ll end up with something a little more than a scar.”
I scoff and roll my eyes before turning back to Tully. “I hardly think one little scar is going to mess up my face,” I tell her, knowing damn well that it’s not going to be a little scar, it’ll be pretty damn big, pink and ugly.
“No, but it’ll make you look like a hardened criminal and tear Noah apart every time he looks at you.”
“In that case, hit me again,” I tell her. “Make it look worse.”
“Don’t be stupid,” Tully says, always ready and prepared to defend her twin brother. “He feels bad enough as it is. You should see him. He’s fucking torn up. It was just an accident.”
“Well, maybe you should get Monica to make it all better,” I grumble under my breath before turning back to her. “It wouldn’t have happened if he had just left me the hell alone. You know he was only getting at Spencer because he found out it was him who gave me the hickeys, right?”
“Shit,” she laughs. “For Spencer’s sake, he better hope Noah never finds out what he did to me over the summer.”
I burst out laughing, making it that much harder for the nurse to finish up. “I can just imagine,” I tell her.
Tully sits with me until the nurse is done fixing up my face and I walk away with three little stitches just above my cheekbone and a phone call made to my father which is only just going to make him worry.
Tully hops off the bed and helps me up behind her before grabbing my phone and passing it to me. “You know there’s probably a few unread messages on that thing,” she warns me.
“I know,” I grumble, knowing that she’s referring to her more than guilt-ridden twin brother. “There are twelve to be exact. I’ve been counting them as they come in.”