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“You should start going to the nurse.”
“They’re probably sick of me. I’m sure of it. I’m sure everyone’s sick of me.”
“I’m not.”
Sparrow winced. Cedar immediately softened her grip on his hand.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you,” she whispered.
Sparrow’s head dipped down, his jaw resting on his hand.
Sparrow had always had anger issues—that’s why he picked up music. The waves of sound that surrounded him when he played made him almost forget everything, and all that remained was him and his hands, plucking fried chords out in an abandoned warehouse. After calls with his dad, or failing yet another crownculus test, or having to sit across from Grimm and take his umpteenth lecture of the semester, Sparrow would sneak out to that warehouse, climb in through the broken window, and play.
But there are some issues that can’t be resolved with music. Which is why Cedar was bandaging his knuckles for the second time this month.
“Hunter’s an asshole, okay? I—I didn’t mean to do it. He was pissing me off, and he’d been pissing me off for weeks, and I—“
“I believe you, Sparrow.” Cedar didn’t look up. She set the ointment aside and took a roll of bandages from the kit beside them. “You don’t have to explain yourself. I believe you.”
It was routine to her at this point. Sparrow got into fights and she’d tend to his wounds—literally and figuratively. But she didn’t mind.
Suddenly, Sparrow’s eyes were full of tears, and the linoleum floor was too cold against his skin, and Cedar’s hands were rough on his cuts, and the room was spinning. He jerked his hand away from Cedar.
Sparrow held his hands close to his chest. “I’m sorry.” He felt so fucking vulnerable. He hated it.
“Why?”
“I—I…No one’s ever believed me.”
“Why wouldn’t I believe you? I have no reason to distrust you.”
His tears spilled over. He could think of a million reasons why people could distrust him. He’s always been a troublemaker, he’s loud, he skips class, he fails tests, he’s in the Headmaster’s office once a week and arguing with his dad twice a week—
Cedar sees through that, though, he realized. Cedar doesn’t see me as just a D student with a record. She sees—someone else. Someone I can be.
Sparrow’s demeanor softened. His shoulders relaxed and he held his injured hand back out to Cedar. She took it and carefully began wrapping the bandage.
“I want to know what happened.” Cedar’s face was mainly stone-still, but there was a little bit of shock in her eyes after she blurted the statement.
“A lot of things.” His knuckles stung from the gel and the pressure, but he kept them as still as possible.
“Start from the beginning, then.”
Sparrow sighed. “I was in class, and Hunter kept looking at me. And…and I punched him in the hallway. Charming had to pull me away from him. I almost won, though.”
“He was…looking at you?”
“Like—like asshole looks. I could tell, he was thinking asshole thoughts,” Sparrow said nervously.
Cedar was silent. Nothing escaped her lips as she carefully snipped the bandages and put her supplies in the cabinet underneath the sink. She had bought those supplies special for him; he kept coming to her after incidents, be it fights or taking his anger out on a wall, for first aid. Cedar, being made of wood, only had wood glue and string on hand, so she bought a kit in Book End. Now, the kit lived in her bathroom, hiding beneath extra towels and hair products.
“Sparrow, I love you. But you have issues,” Cedar finally spat, taking Sparrow’s injured hand in her two wooden ones. The first part she meant to say—the second seemed to escape at the last minute, before her lips closed. Her hands flew to her mouth, making a slight clacking sound—a habit that she’d never been able to get rid of.
Sparrow laughed. He laughed at the comedy of the statement. He laughed at the absurdity of his reasoning. Sparrow laughed. He took Cedar’s hollow hands in his again.
Without saying anything, the two curled up together on the bathroom floor in a comforting embrace, Cedar’s head on Sparrow’s chest. She still held tight to his hand.