Page 20 of So Long, Honey

“Get out,” I huffed, “what is wrong with you? You can’t just climb into people’s windows.”

“Yeah… yeah, I’ll go—I, uh, this was dumb.” He pushed to get up off the floor and that's when I saw it,the state of his face.

A large misshapen bruise painted his freckled face, a tiny gash splitting his once-perfect skin in a mixture of angry red and dark maroon dried blood. I stepped forward, my heart betraying my mind and squeezing tightly at the sight of him.

“What happened?” I asked.

He groaned with every step he took toward the open window, and I knew there were more bruises concealed on his torso with each ginger movement.

“It doesn’t matter,” he shook his head, strands of hair sticking to his cut cheek. “It’s obvious that you don’t want me here, I just—”

“You just what?” I said, setting the glass of water on my table and getting closer to him as he stepped away awkwardly.

“I started walking and ended up here." He confessed, turning around to meet my eyes. His eyes were red, and it only made the green of his irises brighter, almost painful in a way. The bruise on his cheek spread across the base of his eye, and a few broken vessels spidered across the white.

“Sit down,” I said, pointing to the chair at my desk.

Ryan hesitated for a moment, unsure of my change in tone, but when I snapped my fingers, he shuffled his way and slumped down into the chair. I left the bedroom and found the first aid kit under my bathroom sink, taking a short moment to catch my breath before running a cloth under some warm water and returning it to him.

“Did you mean this?” He asked, his shaky fingers holding onto one of the half-finished letters. I hadn’t meant for him to see those, and I cursed under my breath at my ignorance. I shook my head and wandered over to him, setting down the bag.

“Head up,” I tapped gently under his chin, and he listened. His eyes trained on me as I moved around and dug out some thingsfrom the kit. “This is going to sting,” I said, dabbing a warm cloth to his cheek to clean away the dried blood.

His hand clenched around the scattered papers on the desk, but he never closed his eyes, even as his body tensed and his jaw tightened. Ryan continued to watch me.

“Are you going to tell me what happened?” I asked him again.

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll leave when you’re done. I won’t bug you anymore.” He said in a string of careful, tight words.

“Ryan,” I said, but he stopped me, his fingers wrapping around my wrist, pushing my hand away from his face so he could stand up.

He hovered over me, his hands at his side and his eyes rolling over my face. “What did I do?”

The question caught me off guard. Maybe I had expected him to defend himself or make excuses, but even after reading the fragments of letters I never finished, he still didn’t know. Or maybe he just didn’t understand because I was wrong.

“I meant everything I said, Rae.” His bottom lip shook, and I noticed another small bruise forming around the corner. “I just don’t know what happened in between…”

The Ferris wheel and tonight.

“Alright, stop, just for a second.” I put my hands up, “I want to know what happened to you before anything else.”

Ryan ran a hand through his hair, followed by a strangled whimper as his body stretched awkwardly. I wanted to know how bad it was but wasn’t brave enough to ask. My eyes flickered back up to his, and he was still watching me nervously. And it was only when he looked away that confirmed there was more damage he was concealing.

“After you didn’t come out of the bathroom, I knew I had screwed something up, so I went and got drunk with Landry. It was stupid, but I was—” he stopped and shook his head, “I was sad.” He said. “I didn’t know what I did, but I knew you weremad at me. There’s no way you’d just vanish like that. And then I sat in the library all morning knowing you had a free period before lunch, but you never came in.”

“I stayed out sick,” I said quietly.

“I know," he said in a stuttered voice, "I know that now. I skipped my afternoon classes cause I was mad at you and myself for not trying harder. I was pissed off and confused, so I went home, and my Dad found out,” he said. “We got in a fight.”

“A fight?” I said, my brows coming together in disbelief, “or a beating?” I asked him.

He looked at me for a long moment, his eyes so dark I could barely tell they were green. “It doesn’t matter. I walked away, and I walked until I ended up on your lawn without thinking.”

“You were mad at me?” I scoffed.

“Yeah, I was, Rae!” Ryan said with conviction, “no matter what I do to show you I love you, you don’t believe me!” He argued.

“You can’t love someone after seven days, Ryan!” I said. “And because that’s true, it means you’re playing games with me! Everyone sees it! Cadence—”