The Night I Spent with Aubrey Fisher by Christopher M. Tantillo

Author:Christopher M. Tantillo [Tantillo, Christopher M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Christopher M. Tantillo

After she pays with her wad of hidden cash, Aubrey leads me outside to sit on a curb in the parking lot. The light from a sodium arc lamp enables Aubrey to see what she’s doing. I can’t see my face, but there are a few scrapes on my arms and legs. She unscrews the bottle of peroxide and pours some liquid on a cotton ball. The bag of Band-Aids and the metal hangers rest by her boots. I dry-swallow a Tylenol for my throbbing head.

I watch her hands dab at the cuts, working almost methodically over the tiny scrapes. I feel the sting of the peroxide but will myself to stay cool for Aubrey. Luckily none of the cuts are deep, so the pain only lasts for a few seconds before it dissipates.

She does this for every cut she sees, even if it’s barely a break in the skin, and then she places a Spider-Man Band-Aid on each. When I take a deep breath, my ribs scream, and Aubrey makes me take my shirt off. I’m hesitant at first because I don’t want her to see the excess weight around my waist. But no one is around, and really, what will it matter after I’m dead? So I lift up my shirt so she can assess the damage.

And then I remember the self-inflicted bruise over my chest. But it’s too late to take it back, because she sees it too. I hope she doesn’t notice there’s a difference between the two.

“S-so you said you’ve seen worse wounds than this. Is one of your parents a doctor?”

Aubrey snaps her head up to glare at me, and then I realize what I just said.

Aubrey doesn’t have biological parents, at least, none alive… I think.

“Ohmygod. I’m sorry.”

She shakes her head and turns away. Without warning, ignoring my comment, she gently places a finger on my ribcage and traces the forming bruise from Kyle’s shoe. A few blood vessels have popped just beneath the skin, and signs of purple bruising form on the surface. She traces her fingers around and up to the self-inflected one I’ve been hitting all day. She circles it a few times, and I let her for some reason. But I don’t know why. Her finger on my skin causes my nerves to ping, but it doesn’t tickle. It doesn’t hurt. It’s familiar somehow. Like it’s been there before. Or that it belongs there.

Aubrey replaces her pointer finger with her thumb and rubs the bruise on my chest like a mark that won’t come off. She looks up at me, but her face is expressionless. I can’t read what she’s thinking. She rests her thumb and leaves it centered on the bruise, looks back down, and just remains still like that for a while.

She knows, Gray. She has to. Shitshitshit.

Aubrey releases air through her nose, and I feel it on my stomach. I shiver, and she snaps out of whatever daze she was in and lets go.

“You can lower your shirt,” she says under her breath, still looking at the ground.

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