Mateo
When I open my eyes my head pounds with the force of a million bulls charging inside my skull. I struggle to get up off the ground, my bad leg is stiff and I feel immediately that I twisted my knee again. This fucking leg is never going to heal right. I pull myself up on the bathroom sink and notice the knot on my forehead and the blood that dripped from the cut just above my right eyebrow and down along the side of my face. It's still wet so I must not have been out for very long.
I rinse off my face and grab the first aid kit out from under the sink. I dab some hydrogen peroxide on the wound and then close it the best I can with the little butterfly Band-Aids. I open the medicine cabinet and pour a few Advil in my hand. I toss them back and scoop some water from the faucet to wash them down. They might help my headache, but they are going to do nothing for the pain I feel in my chest. I hurt Ashlyn and for that I will suffer all night.
I don't bother with a shower because I don't trust myself to stay on my feet long enough to finish it. I limp to my room and peel off my shirt. I'd take off my pants too if I thought I could do it without falling down and making this night even worse. I pull back my covers and climb inside them. Looking up at the ceiling in the quiet dark, I come the closest to crying as I've been since the night Pines was taken from us. I'm a fucked up mess and I let it push Ashlyn away. I have no idea how to fix it.
I reach for my phone on the nightstand and dial her number. It only rings once before going to voicemail. I laugh without humor because I know that means she saw my number and sent me straight to her messages. Damn it. I open up the message window and watch the curser blink while I try to figure out what I could say that might explain my crazy behavior. We are getting to know each other, but we are not to a place where I can spill my guts to her about why I really hate that part of my body. I'm piss at myself that her hands on me got my head spinning and my stomach lurching up my throat.
Me: Sunshine I'm so sorry.
I wait for her response, my stomach jumping with anxiety and heavy with dread. Maybe I freaked her out. Maybe she ran out of here scared of me and has no plans to ever talk to me again. I hate to admit it, but that would break me. I might not be in love with her, but I know I need her.
Me: You didn't do anything wrong. I can't look at that part of my body. Scars are ugly reminders. Just looking at it makes me sick.
I pull at the hair on the tip of my head, frustrated when she doesn't answer that text either. Do I keep explaining or just let her go?
Me: Sunshine please talk to me.
When she doesn't respond to that, I leave my phone on my nightstand and shut off the small lamp. She wouldn't understand and I don't have the words to explain it. In the darkness I admit to myself something I have been trying to avoid for months. My scars remind me of the day I watched my friend die. It's less about the ugly skin and missing muscle beneath than it is about me living while he died. The bullets fired from his killer hit him in the head, and then the rest of the magazine was emptied into my leg. It should have been all me.
I roll over and bend the pillow around the back of my head so that I can use it cover my ears. My own thoughts are so loud I can't escape them, but the outside sounds I can drown out. I listen to my pulse pounding in my head, the throb from where I must have hit the bathtub is still beating away on my forehead. I feel tired quickly, like I've been drugged and I close my eyes trying to push out the thoughts of Pines and all the blood. I remember they way ours mixed together as I cradled his head on my lap. The last place he rested was on my mangled thigh and now I'll never be able to see it as anything else besides the place where he laid to die.
****Who wants to give Mateo a hug? I'm giving you the detail of Pines' story a little at a time in each of his best friends' stories. I want him to be with them forever in their memory. Please remember to vote, comment and share.