“Seriously,” I tell her, “I don’t care what you say. Just keep that shit away from me. I fucking hate that feeling.”
“It’s only for a second,” she says, and pulls a bag of cotton balls from the basket. “Now hold still. This will only take a minute.”
“You went from second to minute pretty quick, there,” I tell her.
“Oh, will you just shut up and let me take care of you?” she asks.
I’m still not looking forward to the sting that’s coming to me, but something in what she said hits me harder than Shane did.
I hold still and I hold my breath, waiting with absolute impatience for the pinprick of searing pain to be over.
“You’re going to need to stop squinting so hard,” she says. “You’re making it impossible for me to get to your cut.”
“Sorry,” I answer, and relax my face as much as I can. Emma’s laughing because that’s not a lot.
She gets some alcohol on a cotton ball, and before the thing’s even against my skin, I’m already wincing.
“You really need to relax,” she says.
“Sorry,” I repeat, and as soon as my muscles go lax, that cotton ball is on my skin and I can feel the sharp sting throughout my entire body.
“What is your deal?” she laughs. “You barely reacted when he hit you and now you’re all shriveled up because of a little alcohol?”
“My mom used to use it on me whenever I got the smallest scrape,” he says. “I always hated it.”
“You’ve never really talked about your parents,” she says.
“Yeah,” I answer. “They’ve been gone for a while.”
“I’m sorry,” she says, finally pulling the cotton ball away from my face. She puts a small bandage over the cut.
“Come on,” I smile. “I know you’re a closet Damian Jones fan. You must have already known that.”
“I did,” she admits. “What happened, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“They were killed in a mugging,” I tell her. “The guy was going to shoot my mom and my dad jumped in front of her, but the guy just shot them both anyway.”
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “That’s terrible.”
“Yeah,” I answer.
“I’m just going to grab some ice,” she says, and heads to the freezer.
“How are you feeling?” I ask.
“After getting punched in the face, I would think it should be me to ask that question,” she says.
“My eye’s not so bad,” I tell her.
“I’ve been better, obviously,” she says. “I think it’s going to be all right, though. It can’t really be worse than what I was already dealing with.”
Emma’s got a couple of blind spots.
This can absolutely get worse and it’s probably going to before this is all over.
“You should probably keep the television turned off for the next few days,” I tell her.
“Yeah, I really don’t want to spend all my time worrying about what people are saying about me,” she says. “I could do without the speculation.”