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And the worst one.
But I didn’t want to tell her that.
I just waited for her to suck in another deep breath, then grabbed it and pulled as quickly as I could, getting some resistance from the wound.
A cry escaped her as she jolted forward, her head pressed into my shoulder as she kept exhaling hard over and over, trying to breathe through it.
“It’s alright,” I told her, dropping the tweezers so I could grab the back of her neck, holding her against me. “It’s over. That’s going to pass.”
I knew that pain.
It was sharp and throbbing somehow at the same time. But it got more tolerable after a minute or two.
And I wasn’t exactly complaining about having her so close while she let the pain subside.
In that silence, I got the strangest fucking thought.
A man could get used to this.
The fuck?
Maybe other men could. Many did. But I wasn’t that kind of man. And, by my age, I’d like to think I knew what I did or didn’t want out of life.
I’d long-since decided I wasn’t the father type. Or the husband type.
I liked my life focused on work and Family and my family. I liked having my time to do with what I wanted. I liked good meals. And thought variety was the spice of life. That went for women too.
I didn’t commit.
I didn’t envision holding women or cuddling them or any of that kind of shit.
That wasn’t me.
Yet, there I was. Holding a woman and thinking about how nice it would be to be able to do so again in the future.
The fuck was that about?
“Okay. Alright,” she said, sucking in a deep breath as she pulled back. “I’m okay. Sorry. I know I’m dramatic about this kind of thing.”
“It’s not dramatic if it hurts,” I said, moving away because the moment was gone, and I needed to get my fucking head together. I couldn’t do that while standing between her thighs and thinking about pulling her to my chest again. “You got the shit under here to clean…” I started, squatting down to look under her sink. “There is too much of this left,” I said, coming back with the little saline tubes. “This should have all been gone. You weren’t cleaning it enough.”
“I know,” she said, shaking her head. “I just… work was exhausting before getting shot. But then after, everything was ten times harder. I could barely shuffle down the hall to my bed before I passed out every night. I know I should have been better about it.”
“Not doing yourself any favors beating yourself up about it,” I said, shrugging. “Shit happens. Wounds get infected. Even if you are doing all the shit you’re supposed to. We’ll fix it. But I’m gonna want to keep a closer eye on this for the next week. Wounds can get bad fast. You don’t want to have it weeping.”
Not only was she bad about pain, but just the mention of a leaky wound made her go an impressive shade of green.
“I’ll clean it, I swear,” she said, damn near looking ready to cry at the possible consequences of not doing so.
“I’ll be keeping an eye to make sure,” I said, twisting the top off the saline tube, then pouring it over the wound. “Does that sting at all?”
“No. Just cold.”
“Good. Alright, we’ll give that a second then put some antibiotic cream on it,” I said, finding what I was looking for, then twisting off the cap. “I’m going to put some gauze on this so we can see if there is any oozing on the bandage,” I said, watching her go a deeper shade of green as I brought it up again. “Better to know,” I reminded her.
“Okay,” she agreed. “I can’t guarantee I won’t throw up all over myself if I pull it off and find something on the gauze, but okay.”
A low chuckle escaped me at that. “Well, we can’t have that, can we? I’ll change it.”
