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I shook my head rapidly. “No. No hospital. Please.” My words came out short and clipped as I winced from the stinging pain in my hand.
“You might need stitches. You should go to the hospital,” he pleaded.
“I’m not going.” I pulled my hand away from his hold and cradled it once more.
He sighed, reaching up to run his fingers through his hair and then wincing from the pain in his shoulder.
“Fine,” he relinquished, “but at least let me clean you up.”
After thinking it over for a moment, I nodded in agreement. “Okay.”
He grasped my arms and hauled me up. He eyed the mess on the floor and then my hand. “What were you thinking?”
That I hated myself.
“I don’t know,” I said instead.
He wrapped one arm around my shoulders and helped me stumble out of the bathroom. My legs were shaky from the leftover adrenaline.
We made our way slowly up the steps and some guests lingering in the hall and foyer eyed us with curiosity.
Once in his bedroom he pointed at the bed. “Sit.” The tone of his voice told me not to argue with him.
He shrugged off his tuxedo jacket and tossed it on a chair in the corner, then proceeded to undo the first three buttons on his crisp white shirt. He eyed my hand, which had stopped bleeding, and a frown marred his face. He muttered something under his breath and strode into his bathroom.
I heard him rummaging through a drawer and when he found what he was looking for he came back into the room, kneeling in front of me. He opened the first aid kit, pulling out a set of tweezers, and laying a towel to the side.
“I need to get the shards out of your skin before I clean it,” he murmured, holding my hand up and twisting it in the light so he could search for the small pieces.
I winced as he began to pick them out. My skin was raw and tender and the metal points of the tweezers hurt as they pinched at the debris.
“I don’t understand,” he whispered.
“You don’t understand what?” I asked, my voice hoarse as if I had been crying.
“Why you would do this,” he answered.
I looked down, letting the stray hairs that had fallen loose from my up-do hide my face. “I guess you don’t know me as well as you think you do.”
A muscle in his jaw ticked. “Why do I feel like I’m losing you?” His eyes flicked up to meet mine and those pretty baby blues rooted me to the spot.
“Can you lose something if you never really have it?”
His teeth smashed together. “Don’t say that.”
“It’s true,” I whispered as he lay the tweezers aside. He picked up the rubbing alcohol and dabbed it on a cotton ball before cleaning my knuckles. I winced from the burning sensation.
“Why are you so fucking scared of us?” He pointed at his chest and then me. “We’re good together, we’re happy. Why would you run from that?”
I’d been scared the night I left the tent, but that wasn’t my reason for running now.
“I’m not running, Trent,” I shook my head as he cleaned the blood from my hand.
“That’s exactly what you’re doing,” he spat, reaching for the gauze to tape around my wound.
With my hand that wasn’t injured, I reached for his face, rubbing my fingers against the slight stubble on his cheek. “I’m not running,” I repeated. “I’m protecting you.”
“Protecting me?” He laughed, but there was no humor in it. “From what?”
