Page 60 of Last Letters to Ara
I look over to Theo, who’s sporting the widest grin I’ve ever seen on him. He bursts into laughter, wrapping his arm around my shoulder and pulling me in to kiss me on the cheek. “You are my fucking hero.”
Blake is too busy trying to stop the bleeding to form any real response.
With that, Theo turns us away, but before we get very far, Theo turns back around to face Blake. “Thanks for messing everything up so that I could meet the love of my life.”
I need to remind myself that this is pretend, but my heart refuses to listen as it sticks to Theo’s words with every beat.
“Theo…” I whisper, just in case Blake is still within earshot, as another bolt of pain runs through my hand. “I think I might have broken my hand.”
“Shit, are you serious?”
“I heard a crunch, and it was either my hand or Blake’s nose.”
“Let’s get around the corner and I’ll check it out.” He keeps his arm around my shoulder and our walk casual. “But my bet is on it being Blake’s nose, you threw that punch like a badass.”
I shrug. “It was time I fought back.”
“I’m glad you did.”
We turn the corner, and it seems there is a guardian angel watching over me as we spot a twenty-four-hour CVS directly on our right. We hurry across the road, and once we’re in the light, Theo’s fingers are gentle as they grip my wrist to hold up my hand for inspection. There is some slight bruising starting to form across my knuckles, but nowhere else.
Theo gently squeezes around my palm, lightly at first, and increasing pressure as he goes. Thankfully, it doesn’t hurt, and he does the same to each of my fingers. Theyaresore, but the sharp pain from the initial contact has seemed to ebb.
“Can you try to bend your fingers for me?” Theo asks in that calm, reassuring voice that doctors use with their patients.
I go through and bend each one without too much difficulty, knowing it’s a good sign from when I broke my finger playing dodgeball as a kid and I couldn’t bend it at all.
“Okay, that’s good. Can you move them all together?”
I bend them all together in a slow clench of my fist, the movement a bit more tender, but without too much trouble or pain.
“Okay, that’s also good. I don’t think you broke anything, but the only way to be sureis to go get an X-ray.”
I look at the clock on the wall, which tells me that it’s too late to go anywhere besides the emergency room. I shake my head. “No, thanks. I’m not paying an ER bill for something that’s most likely not broken.”
“Fair enough, but we should at least wrap it up for the night to make sure you don’t injure it further. If it gets worse by the morning, you should get it looked at.”
“Thanks, Dr. Theo, will do,” I say with a smirk.
He smiles. “Come on, let’s get what we need to wrap it up.”
Theo places his arm around my shoulders once again, but I don’t have it in me to tell him that we don’t have to pretend anymore.
• • •
I boost myself up onto my kitchen counter with my good hand and get comfortable. Theo insisted on being the one to wrap my hand, even though I told him I could manage it on my own. Admittedly, I probablycouldn’tmanage it on my own, but I was just worried about having more time for him to bring up certain subjects. Such as fake kisses and what friends do after such things.
Theo comes to stand in front of me, and I have to part my legs for him to get a good angle. Always the gentleman, he turns to the side so his hip lines up with my lady parts, rather than anything else. I’m not sure if I appreciate it or want to throttle him.
Why thehelldid I pick the counter!? This is like thehottestsurface…
Theo slowly removes the tiny bag of ice (manufactured from a CVS bag and stray cubes that escaped the big bags in the ice chest) which he had taped around my hand for the car ride. My hand is so numb that I wouldn’t be able to tell whether it’s gotten better or worse, but the swelling is still very minimal, which is another good sign.
Theo takes the elastic bandage and begins methodically wrapping my hand, starting with the palm.
“So, Dr. Theo, how did you learn to wrap a hand?”
He grins. “YouTube. I punched a few things as an angsty teenager.”
