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He nodded. “I used to go to town all the time, especially after I got my driver’s license. Despite being homeschooled, I had a large group of friends, and we would all hang out at the diner or do stupid teenage stuff together. Honestly, I was a lot like Cassidy before…” He paused, his eyes shifting towards the blanket white window beside the dining table. “Beforeithappened.”
Weston looked back at me, waiting to see if I understood. And I did. He was talking about whatever caused the scar that ran thick down his left cheek.
“Anyway, after that, the first time I went to town everything was different. Rumors had already started to spread about me being deformed and scary looking.” His voice trailed off once more. I watched as his eyes shifted to the piece of wood embedded in his arm, having pierced through thick layers. Despite what I assumed was probably some intense pain, he seemed pretty numb to it. But then again, maybe whatever had caused that scar was a pain so extreme, not much phased him anymore.
“I don’t think you’re scary looking,” I replied, and a half smile spread across his lips as his fingers wrapped around the piece of wood.
“Eh, it’s really no big deal what they say anyway.” Suddenly he tightened his grip, and I knew what he was about to do.
“STOP!” I shrieked and he paused. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“I’m home, and I want it out,” he nonchalantly replied.
I crossed my arms in front of my chest, reprimanding him, and he chuckled again. “And who’s going to stitch it up? It’s not like you’re a doctor so let’s bind it with—”
“No, but you are,” he cut me off and jerked on the wood, ripping it clean from his arm. Immediately, I slammed a hand over the wound as he dropped the chunk on top of the table. A large, calloused hand draped upon mine, adding more pressure to the wound that was slowly seeping blood.
His hand.
Weston’s palm practically swallowed mine, and I stared at it. Veins ran thick through his wrists and towards his fingers. Wings brushed against my stomach wall as my heart raced in my chest. It had been a long time since I’d touched a man’s hand. Since I’d had a man touch my own. Even if this man was simply a friend.
Time resumed as the palm of my hand became damp from the blood. “Weston, I am a doctor of animals, not people. I don’t think I can sew it up all nice and pretty. It will leave a nasty scar.”
“Wouldn’t be the first one.” He winked at me as he softened his voice. “You’ve got this.”
He gazed at me with those intense blue eyes, as if he was saying he trusted me. My shoulders sagged as I closed my eyes. It was either let it bleed out and become infected, or sew it up. There were no other options. Weston slowly lifted his hand from mine, the warmth of his touch leaving a cold emptiness in its wake. We shuffled towards the bar stools. I sat down, opening my medical bag as he pulled off his last layers of warm clothes, leaving him in nothing but a dark blue, long-sleeved T-shirt like me.
“You can ask me anything you want, you know. It won’t bother me,” he said, laying his right arm onto the kitchen island and sliding up the sleeve. I swung to face him, shaking my head at how unsterile this environment was.
Stitches. On his kitchen counter.
Drumming his fingers against the countertop, the muscles danced across his thick forearm while I pulled my legs under my bum to make myself taller. Humor sparkled in his eyes as he bent his elbow to expose the outside of his arm where the wound was in my direction.
Blood dripped onto the counter as I searched through my bag for some gauze and disinfectant. “Why don’t you tell people who you are when you hear them talking about you? You could have a social life again,” I asked, beginning to clean up around the wound so I could start stitching him up.
“That’s really what you want to ask? Not how it happened? Or find out if the stories are true?” He didn’t even flinch as the needle made its first pass through his skin. I wished I had something to numb him with.
“I mean, I am curious if you want to share, but you don’t have to.” Obviously, I wanted to know what happened, but I was more confused why he didn’t care about being so alone.
Loneliness was terrifying to me. Something that I dreaded, knowing it was coming sooner rather than later. Once my father was gone, it would only be a matter of time before my mom also eventually died. She and him were like yin and yang, so close that the moment this cancer takes him, she will die of a broken heart within a matter of months. Leaving me absolutely alone.
I could feel his gaze burning into me as I tied off another stitch.
And another.
“I don’t get you,” he finally muttered.
“Why not?” I replied and continued to slowly stitch up the wound. Luckily, all of his clothing had made it so the wood hadn’t been able to pierce too deeply into his arm. Just the first few layers of skin were all, despite the amount of blood that I had cleaned up.
“When people have figured out who I am, that’s always the first thing they want to know. But not you.”
I tied off the last suture and taped a bandage on top. “Now, do I also need to give the patient a cone, or will he remember to not lick at it?”
A mischievous smile erupted on his face as I looked up from his arm. Weston tugged his sleeve back down to his wrist and shook his head. “This wound is not something on my list of things I’d like to lick.”
“That’s what she said,” I snorted out, while cleaning up my equipment and then froze halfway zipping up the bag. It was deathly silent between him and I, and embarrassment didn’t come close to describing what I was feeling. Unable to look at Weston beside me, unable to move. That immature joke that dated me hung stiff into the air.
Weston suddenly sucked in his bottom lip and a chuckle escaped his chest. That same, deep laughter that sounded so delightful danced through the air. Slowly, I finally allowed myself to breathe, though my cheeks flamed red-hot with embarrassment. The laughter that rumbled deep in his chest washed a little of that embarrassment away as I finally finished putting everything back in its rightful place.
