She caught me staring at the bed, and her eyes flit to the bed too before quickly moving back to me as she pulled the sweatpants from the drawer. She handed them to me as she passed me. She grabbed a towel from the linen closet in the hall, and set it on the bathroom counter, and I stepped into the small room standing behind her at the bathroom sink.
The suit she’d been wearing the first night of class was hanging on the back of the bathroom door, and as it caught my sight, I reached over and closed the bathroom door. I fingered the material as she turned and faced me.
“You looked beautiful in this—so smart, so confident, so mature and accomplished.”
Her focus settled on my chest, and her face slackened. “I don’t feel like I’m any of those things most days.” Her voice was distant and quiet.
I nodded. “You were so much stronger than me.” My voice sounded hoarse, and I had to clear my throat as it tightened around my vocal chords. “You coped—”
“Coped?” She sounded incredulous. “Coped?” Her face was pinched and angry, and her eyes were suddenly swimming in tears as if they’d been waiting for any excuse at all to fall. “This is all I have,” she said. “I … I don’t have friends, I don’t have a life. I have an education I can’t stop pursuing, regardless of how tired…” her voice broke as a tear ran down her cheek. “…how tired I am, because I can’t seem to handle what happens in my head when I stop thinking, studying, pursuing, working toward something, anything…”
I nodded. “Not so different from me.” I smiled, but it was humorless. “You’re coping mechanisms just have a better end result.”
“So this is you now? You like to fight, you … like to get drunk?” She paused. She wasn’t really waiting for an answer though. “Is there anything you like to do that’s worthwhile?”
I swallowed over a lump in my throat. “No,” I said quietly. “Sorry.”
The disappointment wasn’t something she could hide from me, and her lips pursed as her eyes avoided mine. She walked out then, closing the door behind her.
I stripped out of my clothes and left them, as she asked, just outside the door. By the time I’d showered, tossed on the sweatpants she’d left me, and made it back out to the living room, she’d made a bed up on the living room sofa for me, moved all her books and her laptop, and left a first aid kit on the coffee table.
I wandered down the hall toward the bedroom, and when I peeked in, she was sitting at the head of the bed with her laptop on the bed in front of her. She had a few books spread out beside her, and she’d changed into a pair of cotton shorts and a tank top. Her hair was up in a high pony tail, and she was wearing black rimmed reading glasses. She looked adorable; she looked young; she looked so fucking innocent. How the hell had she managed to keep hers and I hadn’t?
She glanced up at me, pushing the glasses up her nose, and she inhaled and exhaled deeply. “I’ll … uh … help you with the…” She pointed distractedly at her cheek.
She crawled from bed, and I walked back out toward the living room. I sat on the sofa, and she sat across from me on the coffee table. She opened a packet of antibiotic ointment, squeezing a small amount on her fingertip. I scooted forward, parting my knees around hers, and she glanced down nervously for a second.
She dabbed the ointment on the abrasion just below and outside of my eye socket. It instantly burned, and I flinched. She looked at me, pausing.
“Why fighting?” she asked as she reached for a Band-Aid.
“It feels good.”
She just stared at me for a moment. “This feels good?” She searched my eyes. I could tell she was trying to figure it out. She didn’t seem to know how to respond, and she shook her head in confusion. “I don’t understand you,” she finally said, her voice quiet. “Why—”
“Can we please not do this?” I asked.
Her eyes focused on mine for a second before slowly moving down from my face to my chest and then lower to my stomach. I was shirtless, and her attention zoned in on the scar on my abdomen.
“It’s just…” I continued. “…every time we talk things seem to disintegrate into a pool of tears or a twisted up mess of anger. I don’t want it to be that way.”
She inhaled sharply, and she nodded. When she reached for my arm, she lifted it, looking at my elbow. She did the same with the other, and when she was finished, she finally looked at my face again. “Anything else falling apart?” she asked, her lips tugging up in a small smile.
I nodded even as I chuckled. “Yeah, but I don’t think there’s anything in that first aid kit that can help my bruised testicles.”
She laughed quietly. And when she stood, it was too soon, and I wasn’t ready to let go of that small ounce of closeness.
“I have…” She cocked her thumb over her shoulder. “…a lot of work to do yet. If you’re hungry, help yourself to anything in the kitchen. You can watch T.V. too … if you’re bored.”
“Thanks, Hell. I appreciate it.”
“Why do you insist on calling me that?” Her smile was sweet though, and her tone was light.
“Because no one else in all the world would dare to think it was an appropriate nickname…”