Chapter Text
“I wanna ask you something, Waheed. But I’m afraid you’ll call me weird.”
“You’re not weird, Shirley. I’ll never call you that.”
Ever since I got hurt, Shirley has been extra vulnerable. I’ve never seen her like this, not even when we were kids. She’s so much more protective of me in day-to-day tasks. I only have to reach for something heavy and she's there carrying it for me. She's taken over all the household chores and will barely let me lift a finger to do anything; but for all she’s protective of me physically, I'm the one who protects her bruised psyche. What happened to us has shaken her. The cool confidence which characterizes Shirley, which I have always loved about her, is fractured and damaged; I consider it my duty to build her up again to a place where she has the confidence I admire so much, the self-assurance I know and love.
Now, in the middle of taking care of my injury as she insisted on doing, she looks down at my arm, her face flushed. I know her tears are a little way from falling, and it feels so weird to have Shirley cry. And it does something squiggly to my heart to know she’s crying over me. “You can do whatever you want, Shirley,” I tell her. “Please don't feel like you have to ask permission.”
She bows her head very low and murmurs softly. I bring my own head closer to her own, not forcing her to raise her head, just bringing my ear as close as I can so I can hear what she has to say. “Can you say that again, Shirley?” I say gently.
I can hear the hitch in her voice as she says, “I want to kiss it better.” She’s blushing fiercely, looking down at the floor.
“Do you mean my arm?” I ask. It’s a little surprising, but given that we've known each other since we were kids, maybe seeing me hurt might have made her regress a little, going back to the patterns that gave her comfort when she was very young. “Sure,” I tell her, “go right ahead.”
The bandages are still unwrapped. I think my arm looks gross, completely black and purple with bruises and a number of large scabs where the rubber hose stripped the skin off and it hasn’t grown back yet. But it's to these that Shirley bends her head. Her hair tickles my arm before her lips touch my scabs, and then they do, and I can't help shivering all over with the tenderness of her touch. “Does this hurt?” she whispers.
“No, not at all,” I breathe. “It helps. It feels... nice.” And it does. It makes me shiver in a good way, like a massage or a heating pad. Therapeutic. Like it's helping with the numbness, coaxing the nerves and tendons back to life.
“Okay,” she says on a breath. One of her hands is gently cupping my upper arm and the other is holding my wrist in a gentle, light grasp. Her lips feather up and down the bruises and scars and it feels like the soft kisses are healing me. Little prickles of energy run up and down my nerves with each kiss, and with every brush of her lips, my arm feels better and more sensitive, the danger of nerve damage pushed out of the picture. We never had this tradition in our own home – it’s not a Pakistani thing – but it's easy to see on TV, and it’s something I’m sure other kids and other households might have had.
I feel a tiny drop of wetness on my arm and I realize that Shirley is crying. Over me. “Oh, Shirley,” I say to her. I bring my right arm around to stroke her hair, trying to rub her scalp and comfort her a little bit, as much as I can reach. “I'm okay,” I tell her. “I'm okay, I'm fine, I'm gonna be fine. Please don't hurt, meri muhabbat, please don't hurt, Shirley. I'm here. I'm safe. I'm okay. I am fine, I'm gonna be fine. I'm gonna be okay, and so are you.” I give the crown of her head a gentle kiss of my own. I hesitate a long time before saying, “I love you, Shirley.” She mutters something, still crying. I kiss the top of her head again, and again. “I love you and I never want you to be hurt. I never want you to be sad, do you hear me? Please don't be sad, Shirley. I could just as easily have gotten hurt playing basketball or any other sport. It’s just bad luck that made me get hurt this time on a case.”
“It was because of me,” Shirley sniffles.
“It wasn’t your fault, Shirley. And it won't always be like this. It'll be okay.” I try to stroke her hair as much as I can, feeling her tears fall on my injured arm. “Please don't be sad, Shirley. I love you so much, I care about you so much. I never want you to hurt.”
“I never want you to hurt either.” Shirley keeps looking down, unable to meet my eyes. “And I was the reason you got hurt.”
I take a second to think how I’d feel if I had to watch Shirley being tied down and beaten in front of me, and I’m surprised at the shocked protectiveness that surges in my chest. I’d be freaking devastated to watch Shirley being battered. And yeah… yeah, it would be worse than being the one beaten. I’m honest enough to admit that.
I press my face to the top of her head and try to make my tone comforting, authoritative. “I know I was the one who got hit,” I tell her, “but you were hurt too.”
“I wasn’t hurt,” she says to my arm and the floor.
“That’s where you’re wrong,” I tell her, rubbing my cheek against her hair. “And I’ll be right here till you’re better, okay?”
This time she sniffles and concedes. “Okay.” She swallows. “I—I’ll be h-here till you’re better too.”
“I know,” I smile, kissing the crown of her head over and over. “I know.”
When she’s recovered, she gives my arm more kisses and then creams and bandages it carefully. After dinner, where Shirley does all the work, we spend the evening watching a basketball game where I explain stuff to her, and then a crime show where she points out the inaccuracies to me, and we go to bed, at least for tonight, feeling much better. That’s how healing will go, I imagine: one step at a time.