Page 38

Chapter 38

Nat

“How long’s he been like this?” I stare down at the bed where Avery Bennett lies in a crusted pool of his own blood.

He looks bad.

Swelling on the left side of his face has sealed his eye shut, turned his skin to black and red beneath crusted blood. His lower lip’s split open, more blood. Breath wheezes out from between those blood-covered lips, and his chest rises and falls in shallow gasps, like he’s cracked or broken a rib.

Hard to tell exactly what the damage is, with blood everywhere.

“I . . . I don’t know.” Sydney hovers beside me, shoulders hunched, cheeks streaked with tears. “He was like this when I got here.”

Her hair’s yanked back in a messy tail, some of the strands escaped to frame her face in tangled brown hanks. I want to put an arm around her, pull her in close, comfort her. Tell her that, as someone who’s both taken and given a lot of beatings in my life, it’s probably not as bad as it looks.

I don’t.

“Avery.” I nudge onto the bed next to him, and he flinches slightly. Good. Conscious. “Can you hear me?”

His uninjured eye opens to glare up at me, blue in a sea of red—more good. He knows who I am and why I’m here. “Go away. ”

“Yeah, not likely.” I reach out to gently pry away pieces of blond hair that have crusted into the blood on his forehead and cheeks. “Want to tell me what happened?”

“No.” His eye flutters closed again. He’s still wheezing, breath too shallow. Clearly in pain.

“Okay, well, I think it’s time to go to the hospital.”

“No,” he snarls, his eye popping back open. He half lifts himself onto his elbows, his cracked lips pulled back in a snarl that reveals teeth splattered red. “I’m fine. I don’t need a doctor.”

“All right, all right.” I set a hand on his shoulder to nudge him back down. “Don’t hurt yourself more.”

“He keeps saying that,” Syd murmurs. “But he won’t get up or clean off.”

“Where’s Mary?”

Syd shakes her head. “Out of town with Brenda at that stupid beauty expo.”

Right. Fuck.

Which means this is on me and only me. It means I’m the adult and they’re the kids and I’m the one calling the shots.

Avery’s lying back again, breathing that same shallow rasp. Probably something bruised or broken. With how much blood’s around his head, I should probably check for a concussion too.

One thing at a time.

“Syd.” I turn back towards her, because I need her out of the room for a bit. “Want to get me some water? And maybe . . . check for a first-aid kit or something? Or at least paper towels.”

“Yeah.” She straightens with a snap, clearly glad to be given something useful to do. Without another word, she scurries out of the room.

Leaving me and Avery. “Be straight with me, kid. What happened?”

His eye flutters open again. Glaring again. “Not your business.”

“Maybe not.” I keep talking, so maybe he’s not paying as much attention as I slowly slip his T-shirt up. “But it’s Syd’s business, as your girlfriend. And Syd’s my business. So, transitive property, it’s my business.”

“That’s bullshit.”

“Sure is.” I get the shirt up high enough to note the sea of bruises across his abdomen and chest. Shit. “But what can you really do about it? You need help , and it looks like I’m the one here.”

Don’t see any jutting bones or blood or anything crazy, but I’m not a doctor.

“I don’t need—”

“Shut up, Avery.” I tug his shirt back down, then lean down a little closer so he has no choice but to look me in the eyes. “Stop bullshitting me, and I’ll stop bullshitting you. Did your dad do this?”

His eye flicks sideways. “No.”

“That’s why you don’t want to go to a doctor.”

“I said no—”

“So you were at the Ice Out, then?”

“No.” He snarls like a feral dog again, lips pulled back, eye squinted. “Just leave me the fuck alone—”

“No can do, kid. ’Cause if something happens to you, that’s on me.” I tug another hank of dirty hair off his cheek. “Let me at least get you cleaned up, okay? We can assess the damage.”

“No.”

“It’s either that or I just pick you the fuck up and put you in my car.” I set a hand on his shoulder, anticipating his retaliatory twitch. “And before you try and fight me, remember who I am.”

I’m a whole lot of things, aren’t I? I’m Jesse Taylor’s pathetic little brother who died in the shadow of his greatness. I’m a blue-collar guy just trying to make a better life for his family. I’m the Dingoes’ lucky skate sharpener. I’m Syd’s dad and Brenda’s son and the pathetic punching bag of once-legend Rey Taylor.

“I’m Number Forty-Seven,” I say, because I’m that too. “I don’t think you want to try me right now. ”

Avery’s blue eye stares back up at me, unblinking. But slowly, slowly, his tensed muscles relax under my hand and he eases back against the bed. Like the fight’s gone out of him.

“I know what it’s like to want something so bad you’ll do anything to get it,” I murmur, sweeping more hair off his face. “And I know what it’s like to live in a family that doesn’t recognize your dream.”

He stares at me. Stares and stares and it feels like an eternity, but it can’t have been that long, because Syd still hasn’t returned.

“I went to the Ice Out,” Avery says finally, his voice so low I barely catch the words. “I got an invite, and I couldn’t say no.”

The words catch painfully in my chest, but I don’t interrupt.

“My dad found out this morning.”

We stare at each other, Avery and I, in a shared moment that feels like so much more. I’ve always thought he was just like me, that I saw so much of myself in him. But I think maybe I’m wrong—or at least off.

It’s not myself I see in him. It’s Day River that I see in both of us. As much as I am the representation of this town , as Olli said, so is Avery.

And that is what makes us the same.

“I found a first-aid kit.” Syd slips back into the room, to my side.

“Good.” I take the kit from Syd’s hands, but my eyes never leave Avery. “Let’s get you cleaned up, kid. After that, we’re going to urgent care.”

It’s time to do for Avery what I never had the balls to do for myself.