Page 114 of Truck Me

“Who are you?” His tone is harsh.

“I live next door. I heard a disturbance and came to make sure everything was okay.”

“No, everything is not okay.” He sounds agitated and scared. “There are strangers in my house.”

“I’ll take care of them,” I say as calmly as possible. “Why don’t you come into the kitchen with me?”

Jim stares at me for a moment, his brows furrowed and a deep frown on his face. “But I don’t know you.”

“I’m your next-door neighbor. We’ve met before, but it’s been a while.”

He contemplates that for a minute before he finally takes a step toward me. As he gets closer, that’s when I see the blood on his hand. My eyes quickly dart to Charlotte. Her cheek is red, but I don’t see any blood.

Once Jim is out of earshot, I ask, “Are you two okay?”

Even though she doesn’t look okay, Charlotte nods. “He broke a picture frame and cut his hand on the glass. He won’t let me look at it.”

“I’ll see if he’ll let me. Call 9-1-1.”

I don’t wait to see if she does it. Instead, I head to the kitchen to check on Jim.

I find him sitting at the table, staring at the space in front of him. He looks sad and defeated.

“Jim. Can I look at your hand? It’s bleeding.”

His eyes snap closed before he looks down at his hand in surprise. It’s as if he hadn’t even noticed he’d hurt it. Then he looks up at me and frowns. “Paul. When did you get here?”

I cringe at the sound of my dad’s name. I look a lot like dad when he was my age—we all do—but considering our rocky relationship, it stings.

“A few minutes ago.” I decide not to correct him and point at his hand. “I’m going to look at that now, okay?”

I grab a few paper towels, and he rests his hand on the table. As soon as he opens up his fist, blood gushes out. I quickly dab it with the towel. I feel the broken glass stuck in it before I see it.

“I need to get a pair of tweezers. Can you hold this on here to control the bleeding?”

He nods and replaces his hand with mine. I head into the living room just as Charlotte hangs up the phone.

Her eyes meet mine. “They’re on their way.”

“Good.” I walk up to her and place a finger under her chin. Thankfully, she doesn’t pull away as I gently lift her face so I can study it. My gut wrenches at the sight of the bruise forming under her left eye. “You should put some ice on that. I need a pair of tweezers to get the glass out of your dad’s hand, then we’ll take care of that eye.”

She diverts her eyes from mine and nods. “I’ll get you the tweezers.”

She disappears upstairs while I check on her mom.

“Lois. You okay?”

She looks up at me. Her eyes filled with tears. “He didn’t know who we were. He just flipped out. He didn’t mean any of it.”

“I know.” I kneel next to her. “Rayne said he hit you too. Where?”

“Just my arm.” She waves me off as if it wasn’t a big deal. “I’m fine. I think the hit to Char’s face is worse.”

“When the EMT gets here, you’re going to let them look at it. No arguing.”

She nods. “Just make sure Jim’s okay first. I’m afraid he lost too much blood.”

“He’ll be fine. I’ll make sure of it.” I go to stand, and she grabs my arm.