Sydney
Hurrying out of the sunroom, I went upstairs. It was much cooler up there in the hall and in my bedroom. Darkness was settling in, even though it was only late afternoon. I went into the bathroom, pushing the door closed behind me. Enough light came in from the window above the shower for me to see what was going on.
Standing in front of the mirror, I slowly unwrapped my sweater and winced when I got a good look at myself.
My poor boobs!
Tiny, angry red cuts were dangerously close to my nipples—like this could’ve been a hell of a lot more painful than it was kind of close. There were smudges of blood on my breasts and my upper stomach. I ran my hand over my stomach and winced. Just above my belly button, there was a small piece of glass embedded in my skin. Nothing requiring major surgery or stitches, but blood made me squeamish. Pain was even worse. I had no tolerance, having never broken a bone or experienced anything major in my life.
I hobbled from one foot to the other, freezing my nips off as my fingers hovered on the shard of glass. I could do this. All I had to do was pull it out. That’s it. Nothing major. But I couldn’t even pull out a splinter without asking Andrea or my mom to do it.
I reached for it, and then winced, pulling my hand back. I did that over and over for at least five minutes, until I tipped my head back and let out a loud, frustrated groan.
“Syd? You in there?”
Jumping at the sound of Kyler’s voice, I banged my hip into the edge of the sink. “Shit!”
The door swung open, narrowly avoiding a head-on collision with me. I yelped, crossing my arms over my chest—not sure what the point was in that, considering he’d been all up on it ten minutes ago—as he stormed into the bathroom, looking like he was ready to take on a rabid grizzly bear.
His dark brown eyes searched every exposed inch of me. Then he was right in front of me, grasping my shoulders. “You’re bleeding.”
He sounded pissed.
Kyler’s eyes narrowed as a muscle popped in his jaw. “You told me you were okay.”
“I am,” I said in a tiny voice.
“When someone is bleeding, that usually means they are not, in fact, okay.” He shook his head as he let go of my shoulders. “Jesus. Sit down and let me take care of you.”
“I can’t sit down.” I winced.
He lowered his head so that he was almost eye level with me. Up close, I couldn’t make out the difference between his pupils and his irises. “Why can’t you sit down?”
I shuffled from one foot to the other, feeling incredibly vulnerable being that I had no shirt on and all. “There’s this piece of glass stuck in my skin, and I think sitting down is going to make it worse.”
“What?” he shouted, and I flinched. “Why in the hell didn’t you say something downstairs?”
“Because I didn’t know it was stuck in my skin, and it really isn’t a big deal, but—”
“But you don’t even like splinters. Jesus, Syd….where is it?”
I pointed to where the tiny speck of glass was.
Kyler went down on his knees, and my eyes went wide. All kinds of dirty thoughts exploded in my head, totally inappropriate at that moment, but the button on my jeans was still undone and, well…“I can’t see it,” he said. “You’re going to have to come downstairs where there’s more light.”
“I’m—”
“You are not okay and you are not going to argue with me over this.” Jaw set in a determined line, he reached around me and grabbed a towel off the rack. He tucked it over my shoulders, folding it across my hands. “Come on.”
Realizing there was a good chance that he’d just drag me downstairs, I followed him out of the bedroom and into the hall. He told me to wait there while he disappeared into the hallway bathroom and returned with peroxide and a little first aid kit in his hand.
I sighed. This was going to suck. Could be worse, I knew that. He could be plucking out buckshot.
We ended up in the kitchen, much to my dismay. There were a lot of windows in there, but we really didn’t have much of a choice.
Kyler positioned me so I was just below the window, but close enough that he could see. Going down on his knees once more, he parted the edges of the towel with a frown. “Damn, that’s a piece of glass.”
“Told you.”
His head bent and several strands of hair fell across his forehead as he dug around in the little box with a red cross. “You can’t leave it in your skin, Syd. It will get infected.”
“I wasn’t suggesting that. I was just sort of hoping my skin would quickly and naturally reject it.”
He laughed as he pulled out a pair of tweezers, causing me to swallow hard. Images of me running screaming from my mom as a child whenever she’d wielded those tiny instruments of pain assaulted me. He held them in his elegant fingers as he looked up. “You’re going a little green, Syd.”
“I don’t like tweezers,” I whined.
A small grin appeared. “It’s not going to hurt.”
“That’s what everyone says, but I know it’s not true. It is going to hurt, because you’re going to start digging around and—”
“I’m not going to dig around. I’ll be in and out before you know what I’m doing. Promise.”
I wanted to run from the room, but I forced myself to stand there like an adult. “Okay.”
“You sound pitiful,” he remarked as he tucked the edges of the towel into the back of my jeans, exposing all of my stomach. He placed his fingers on either side of the glass splinter and pulled the skin taut.
The tweezers hovered over my skin, and I cringed away.
“You big baby, stop moving.”
“Shut up.”