Work Text:
There’s something strangely beautiful in the sight of your own blood. You see the fragility of existence, but also the power in it. Lose too much, you disappear. But with enough of it, your body becomes a strong force of incomprehensible science.
My shirt clung to my skin, sticky and lukewarm as the cold air dried the blood that had gushed so freely from my self-inflicted wound. For a moment, I imagined seeing my own reflection in the full-length mirror back in my old apartment in Brookline, deep red in stark contrast to the clean cream of the freshly painted wall behind me. I would terrify myself if I could go back, haunt my own past like a fork in the road. What had led her there, I would wonder, and how could I stop it?
I’d lived a synthetic, sterile life in ways I hadn’t understood then and am only just starting to understand now. Crisp bedsheets, an eyelash curler, a two thousand dollar wardrobe, an attractive man who would give up a marriage for me… And I could hide his wife's barely conceptualized body in the same grave where my future self would have been laid to rest. It didn’t really exist if I couldn’t see it, if I closed my eyes tightly.
Nick reappeared from the other side of his car, and I blinked at him as he took in the sight of me, of what I’d done. I watched a flash of confused panic cross his beautifully solemn features until his gaze followed the thick path of my own blood up to my left ear. His throat moved noticeably as he swallowed, and then he was walking back to the car, fishing for something in the trunk as I pulled my now-viscous undershirt away from my skin with a cold, squelching sound.
Wordlessly, he returned with a towel and a canteen, no hesitation as he stepped up close to me. He stared into my eyes, and I saw the question he didn’t voice, nodding my consent. I exhaled slowly as he helped me remove my ruined clothing, until I was standing naked in the cool air, bloodstained and shivering.
He was never afraid of ugliness, of facing and embracing it. I had envied that, clung to it, let myself dissolve into it - giving myself up to it with utter relief. I was still me, inside the sometimes unrecognizable person I had become, because it was only the tunnel vision of my past that had allowed me to ignore the parts that didn’t fit with a happy-go-lucky life, that threatened the false security of the image I’d crafted.
Nick was the welcoming guard at an open door to the dangerous, thunderous, tumultuous rawness of my own survival. I was her - in high heels and blonde curls - and I was her - naked and blood-soaked, watching my lover push my stained clothing into the incinerator I’d ignited, without flinching.
He returned his gaze to me with his own open dichotomy of tenderness, rage at our world, and fierce acknowledgement, gently brushing his hand over my cheek to clean it, but smearing blood onto his own skin in the process. My eyelids fluttered momentarily, taken in by the offering of comfort, a throbbing heartbeat in my open wound to contrast it.
He opened the canteen, licked his bottom lip.
“Sorry,” he rasped, “this’ll be cold.”
I nodded, staring into his dark eyes for a moment longer before he tipped the water to wash over my body, a stream of fire-lit, diluted blood sloughing off my icy skin to pool on the concrete at my feet. Again, a second wave of renewal, coming clean apart from those places where it had dried more quickly.
He set the almost empty canteen down by my feet with a clink of metal on stone, then used the towel to scrub and dry me. I stood still, without helping him, trusting his hands more than my own. And when he reached for my hair, the welcome roughness to cleanse me turned almost porcelain-like in gentleness. He squeezed bloody water from my newly shortened waves, then tucked my hair back on the left, inspecting my wound with no signs of uneasiness as I tilted my head to the side to give him a better view.
“There’s a first aid kit in the car. Come warm up,” he said endearingly, the silky chocolate of his voice replacing the lost blood in my veins.
I wrapped the towel around my body and followed him, barefoot, waiting for a moment as he opened the front door and turned the engine on, blasting the heat before ushering me into the backseat. I reached for his hand and pulled him inside with me, closing the door behind us and huddling together in the middle, hungry for the vents he’d aimed back towards us.
He reached under the seat for the first aid kit I’d never seen before, and I marveled at all the things he’d thought to bring for me to prepare for this moment, whatever might happen. As he opened the plastic lid, I tucked my hair behind my ear to give him clear access, and he worked with calculated swiftness and precision, a whispered apology before applying a cotton pad of stinging alcohol, and a whiff of army training in how he carefully bandaged me.
“Did you burn it?” he asked calmly, and I knew he meant the tag I’d removed. I nodded, he nodded back, and we turned to look at each other, work finished, warmth finally seeping into my bones.
He abandoned the supplies on the floor and wrapped his right arm securely around me, my left shoulder tucking safely into his armpit.
“How long do you have?” I asked, wishing I hadn’t voiced the question the moment the words had escaped me.
The tip of my nose touched his as he swallowed. He shook his head once, and I knew his wordless confession was that he’d run out of time long ago, if he’d ever had any to begin with - that he was borrowing something he couldn’t repay and might be jeopardized for beyond recovery. And yet he wasn’t moving.
I reached for his hand, linked my fingers through his, staring at a soft, red stain, the ghost of my own dried blood on his skin.
“Go,” I whispered, sliding my thumb along his joints. “Please, be safe.”
Nothing about this was safe, so my choice of words was nearly offensive to my own ears, but he nodded with reverent attentiveness, maybe knowing that giving me this would keep me alive as much as the food and clothing he’d brought for me, the temptation of newfound freedom.
His arm slid forward from around my shoulders so he could touch my neck, his thumb pressing tantalizingly into my pulse, then ascending to my jaw. The slightest tilt of my head aligned our mouths, noses rubbing past one another as I kissed him, tasting the urgency of an open cage, a chance to slip momentarily out through the cracks before returning to wait, locking ourselves in with ironic defiance, before they could do it for us.