Page 48 of Travis
She found the shears in the med kit before I could reach for my collar. “Don’t move your shoulder.”
She cut the shirt from hem to neck in one clean line and peeled it away from the wound, and I sat under the lights of my own control room while eighteen months of hiding came off with it.
I didn’t need a mirror to know what she saw. The scar along my left rib cage from a knife four months in. The raised line across my right forearm from the eleven stitches I’d done over the bathroom sink. Smaller scars across my shoulders and back from impacts and falls and the accumulated damage of dozens of operations conducted alone in the dark.
And the hives. Still blooming across my chest and arms, red and raised and angry.
“Those look really bad,” she said.
“They’ll fade in a couple of hours. They always do.”
“You get them every time you go out?”
“Every time.”
She stared at the welts across my chest. Then at the scar along my ribs. Then at the shoulder wound, still bleeding sluggishly.
“I’ve never stitched anyone up.”
“I’ll walk you through it. Curved needle in the kit, already threaded. Suture pack, blue wrapper.”
She found it. Her hands were shaking now. Mine weren’t, and I watched that difference register on her face. “You normally do this yourself?”
“Yeah. I’m sure my stitching leaves a lot to be desired, but I’ve managed.”
“What if you’d gotten hurt more than you can patch up yourself? Broken a bone? Gotten shot?”
It had always been a risk. At some point it had probably slid more into statistical probability territory. But so far, I’d gotten lucky. “I would’ve dealt with it.”
“Right.” She looked like she wanted to punch me but that was just going to add to my injuries. “Tell me how to do this.”
“Clean the area first. Gauze pad, saline solution. The brown bottle.”
She cleaned the wound. I gritted my teeth through the sting of the saline and the careful pressure of her fingers on my skin. I had done my own sutures dozens of times, and it had never felt like anything except maintenance. This didn’t feel like maintenance.
“The needle goes in about a quarter inch from the edge. Perpendicular to the skin. Even bites on both sides.”
“Even bites.”
“Equal distance from the wound edge on each side. Push through, loop, tie. I’ll tell you when the tension is right.”
“Don’t you need something for the pain?”
“I’m okay.”
She was staring at my shoulder, hands still shaky. “Are you sure?”
I reached up with my other hand and squeezed her arm. “I promise, I’m okay. Having you do this is much easier on me than having to do it myself.”
She squeezed my fingers and nodded. That seemed to be enough to reassure her.
She pushed the needle through, and I held still. The pain was familiar. Hurt like shit, but bearable. She pulled the suture through and looked at me.
“Good. That’s right. Now the other side, same distance.”
She worked slowly. Each stitch deliberate, her lower lip caught between her teeth in concentration. I could feel her breath against my shoulder. Her fingers steadier now than when she’d started.
“How did this start?” she asked on the third stitch, not looking up from the wound.
