Messy

Jake

I really wanna hold his hand. I really, really want to. I'm afraid that if I stop paying attention to what my hands are doing, I'm going to reach for Jeremy's hand. That, obviously, can't happen.

So, I keep my fists clenched as tight as is humanly possible.

"Ah." I take my nails out of my palms. I'm bleeding. I mean, not the worst I've had happen, but pretty bad. I slowly make a move to wipe my hands on my pants, hoping nobody will notice, but...

"Jake, ohmygosh, you're bleeding! What happened?" Jeremy notices my bloody palms. Very unfortunate. Of all the people to notice. He grabs my wrist, attempting to not hurt my hands, and pulls me out of the room and to the bathroom.

"We're gonna clean this." He says. "One useful thing my mom taught me before she ran off to have a 'better life' or something."

He reaches under the sink for a wash cloth. He gets it wet with warm water and presses it to my left hand.

"Ow, oh gosh, ouch." I bite down on my lip to keep from yelling.

"Sorry." Jeremy says. "I'll try and be quick. It only hurts for a minute, I promise."

He moves the cloth from my left hand to my right hand. The fiery pain comes back.

"Holy-"

Jeremy presses his free hand over my mouth. "No swearing." He says with a smile.

"I wasn't- ah. I was going to say 'cow.'"

"Okay. I've got you cleaned up. This next part is the worst. It's gonna hurt really, really bad."

"Is it possible for anything to hurt worse than what you just did?"

"Oh, that was nothing compared to this."

I should probably just tell him I'm fine and leave. But I stay.

Bad idea.

He digs around in a drawer for a moment and finds the Ultimate Mom Remedy.

You know, that weird cream stuff?

Thirty seconds after that, he brings out a box of Band-Aides.

"This is not going to feel good. Please don't hit me." Jeremy says with a laugh.

"You say that like it's happened before."

"Yeah. Michael. But mostly I'm worried because you're really strong and I don't need to know what it feels like to get slapped by you."

I laugh. Jeremy takes the chance to put me through even more pain.

"HOLY ZEUS THAT STINGS." I pull my hand out of Jeremy's.

"I told you." He says with a smug smile. A little bit of guilt, but not a ton.

Once he's finished putting the sting-y stuff on my hands, he opens the box of Band-Aides.

"I can't believe you did that to me." I say jokingly.

"You did that to yourself." Jeremy says with the same lighthearted tone.

"Not true." I defend myself. Technically, Jeremy was the reason I was clenching my fists.