Only If She Stayed

15. Stop & Smell the Roses

A S H T O N ' S    P . O . V .

GINGERLY, I PUT THE Band-Aid into Rose's hands. She teetered, on one foot and then the other, as she unwrapped it and avoided every opportunity to meet her brown eyes with mine. I sought this as the best chance to attentive study her body language while her mind was on a separate duty.

I unknowingly caught myself smiling.

The smiling stopped as fast as it had started when something grabbed my attention.

The left portion of her right hand, marked up with scratches, threw me off into a flurry of confusion. Not taking a moment to ask her if I could bring attention to this wound, I carefully flipped her hand over and saw that it was larger than I first preserved it to be.

A blueish bruise was on her wrist and so were  nail marks, deeply dug into her skin.

"Did you get that at the party?" I nosily asked. I wanted to say: Did Edgar inflict those wounds on you? But I didn't go there.

Yet.

"No." She backpaddled from me. "It happened at dance practice."

"You're a dancer?" She had the petite body frame of a dancer, so I wasn't entirely shocked by this revelation.

"Yeah." She said, breathlessly, holding both of her hands behind her back and out from my line of vision. "I'm the team captain of the West Vista High Dance Team."

"Impressive."

"You don't think that," she rolled her eyes. "You're probably thinking I'm prissy, air-head deep down inside. Don't worry, most of the school assumes that too until they get to know me."

"I wasn't going to say that." I announced and meant it. "Matter of fact, I was going to say that takes dedication to rise to the top and be a captain."

"It did take a lot." She puffed, returning her hands back to her sides. The bruise was back in view. "I sacrifice a lot of my free time for the team."

"I'd imagine," I mused and geared the focus back on the wound. "How exactly did you get the bruise?"

If Edgar caused it, this wasn't going to be the end of him. I knew what tactics guys like Edgar resorted to whenever they lost control of whoever they were manipulating.

They will do whatever they can to regain control and pull that person back into the relationship. I witnessed my step father so the same thing with my mum.

When Rose said nothing, I asked again, "How did you get them?"

"I told you." Her back stiffened and her stern tone shifted into a tone that lacked emotion and convention in her voice. "I got it from practice. We were doing a tricky move and it backfired. It's not that important. It'll heal itself up before the end of this week."

For some reason, I was not falling for that lie; it was a coverup story. I decided to play along –to an extent. Rose and I weren't necessarily buddies at this point. I couldn't jump to senseless conclusions without hearing the full story.

I may be an open book, but that didn't mean I expected for everyone to be like that, too. I had to respect her choice. If I was meant to know, then she would've spoken truthfully.

"What's this?" She inched in, tracing the tip of her thumb on the only part of my body that was inked. I got it on the two year anniversary of my dad's death.

I was currently eighteen; I was a minor when I got it though. I found a dodgy place to get it done illegally without my parents' consent. My mum didn't know about the existence of this tattoo on my body. She'd feed me to the wolves if she knew about it.