The Weight //Shameron//

Two Sides of the Story

"Go." I sigh and start climbing. 

I put my foot in one of the foot holes and pull myself up. I continue this until I'm closer to the top, but as I was getting closer, my foot slipped and I tried to regain my balance by grabbing onto one of the little hole things. ( A/n I'm so sorry, I know nothing about hiking  as you can probably tell) But when I did, my hand scraped against a rock, and it started to sting so bad. 

"Shit." I breath out, trying to resist the urge to grab my now injured hand, knowing I would have nothing to grab anything to balance with. 

"What? What happened?" Matthew asked from a couple feet behind me.

I look up to see I only have a few feet left and that I'll just inspect it then. "Nothing." I push myself up harder and faster. 

Once I get to the top I look at my hands. My left hand has gnarly blisters threatening to bleed at any second. My right? Well that one looks like World War III broke out on my hand. It's bleeding so bad and it stings like hell. I squeeze my hand to keep it from bleeding out, but my hand was already being drained of the little color that it once had. 

Matthew finally made it to the top, and doubled over to catch his damn breath. He looks over and see's all the blood the is dripping down to my arm and rushes over,

"Damn it Shawn! What'd you do?!" I give him my best shut-the-hell-up look and tried to apply more pressure to my hand. 

The stinging went down but the bleeding increased. 

"How the hell are you still conscious looking at all that blood?"

I guess you can say I've had practice.

"It doesn't bother me. Is there a first aid kit?"

"No."

"You decide to go hiking, but don't bring a first aid kit?!"

"It was last minute okay?!" He snaps back. 

I sigh and squeeze my hand even harder. 

"Um, I think I have one in my car. I'll go get it." Matthew jumps off the ledge and runs to his car, which is probably a mile back, leaving me by myself.

I take a moment to enjoy the view. Since we were higher up, you had a view of the entire forest. You could see all the trees and a little creek. The crisp September air continued to blow in my face, the wind in my cut really hurt. But as soon as the pain subsided, I continued to look out into the distance, waiting for Matthew to return. 

I applied enough pressure for the blood to temporarily stop flowing. My entire right arm drenched in now dried blood. And it took all my strength not to gag. 

"I got it! I got it!" A breathless Matt came running through the foliage waving a first aid kit in his hands. 

"Finally." I mumble to no one in particular. "Throw it up!" I'm not about to loose more blood waiting for Matthew to climb back up here.

He tosses the first aid kid up and I instantly rip it open and bandage the deep gash running across my palm. I make sure to wrap the gauze very tightly and soon relax knowing that I'll be absolutely fine.

Matthew is now sitting by my side trying to catch his breath. "That was intense."

You don't know the half of it. 

Once he catches his breath, he stands and offers me his hands. "Let's keep moving."

Um... you can, I'm going to stay here. 

But knowing that no matter what I say, he's gonna make me keep moving, I take his hands and prop myself on my feet. I brush the dirt off my jeans and follow Matthew.