Page 12

For me, crying is a form of therapy.
A moment later, he wraps his hands around my waist and pulls me closer. One of his hands runs up and down my back, calming me.
He whispers softly in my ear, “I’m here,” and kisses my hair. I pull away from him, and my tears fall less often. I look at him and his shirt, which is completely soaked, and feel bad for him.
Austin takes my hand and leads me to his bed, then goes into the bathroom. He comes back without a shirt on and with a first aid kit in his hand. The best thing anyone could do to get their mind off things is to see Austin without a shirt.
I didn’t just say it.
“Who did it?” he asks, his voice rough and hard, as if he were talking about the cuts.
“Drop it, Austin,” he says, cutting me off.
“Don’t you tell me to ‘drop it’ again, Lyra. Have you seen the cuts? Do you really not care about your body? Why would you do this to yourself? I would have helped you if you had just told me what was going on.”
“Please don’t try to get me out of this. I can’t take the chance,” I say, and my voice breaks. His eyes soften a little.
He looks at my wrists. As he looks at them with suspicion, his soft look changes. I really hope he doesn’t see it.
Austin takes off the bracelet and lifts my hand. When he sees the bruise, he takes a deep breath. He does the same thing to my other hand, which also has a pretty big bruise.
He takes a deep breath to calm down.
“You should clean the cuts,” he says, and you can hear the anger in his voice when he says “cuts.” No, I shake my head. I haven’t looked at the new scars yet, and I don’t want to.
I can’t stand to look at them.
Austin gives me a stern look. I stand my ground and shake my head no again. He sighs in frustration and runs a hand through his hair.
“Bunny, they can get sick,” he tries to explain. I don’t care. Physical pain will numb my emotional pain, if anything.
“Lyra.”
“Austin,” I say in the same way.
“Why not?” he asks in a frustrated tone.
“Don’t want to look at them,” I mumble. His eyebrows go up.
He asks, “Do you want me to do it for you?” I look at him in surprise. What?
“Please, just get them cleaned,” he says, his ears turning a light pink colour. “I mean, if you trust me, I won’t look down.”
I let out a sigh.
“Are you sure they won’t make you sick? They’re ugly.”
“What?”
“Um…”
“No, bunny. They won’t make me sick.”
“Okay, but only after you put on a shirt or something,” I say softly, my cheeks getting hot. He laughs a little, then goes to his closet and comes back with a black shirt. Is there anything he has that isn’t grey?
When Austin says the next thing, I get a chill down my spine.
He says, “Let’s get you out of that shirt, bunny.”
I take a deep breath and start to unbutton my shirt.
When he looks at me, I get butterflies in my stomach. My shirt is unbuttoned and hanging loosely on my arms, showing off my navy bra.
He sits in front of me, dips a piece of cotton in alcohol, and lightly holds the side of my neck to keep me still. When the cotton touches the cuts, I wince. His eyes move to mine and stay there for a while before moving back to my shoulders.
“Ow,” I say again. He sighs as he looks at me again.
Does he look worried?
He says in a low voice, “If cleaning hurts you this much, God knows what you went through to get these in the first place.” Voice that scares me.
“Please tell me,” he says, looking me in the eye.
“No,” I say. I want to tell him so he can beat Zeke’s a*s, but I can’t take the chance.
He asks, “Is there something I can do?” and I look at the first aid box without saying anything. I don’t believe so.
He sighs and goes back to cleaning, which makes me wince over and over again and makes him look at me with concern over and over again. He puts some medicine on the cuts after he cleans them. I don’t look down because I’m afraid I’ll break down again.
“My voice is so weak,” I say in a whisper.
Austin says, rolling her eyes, “That’s coming from someone with more than a hundred fresh cuts on her skin.”
“More than a hundred?” I laugh and cry at the same time.
“Yeah, you’re anything but weak,” he says. I smile at him a little. We can understand each other without saying anything. Like he knows what I’m going through.
Maybe… He might be able to help me out. Zeke wouldn’t know that I told Austin, would he? But what if he did? What if he knows and sends the video to everyone at school?
Austin asks, “What’s going on in that pretty head of yours, bunny?” as he sits next to me. I see that the first aid kit is missing.
“Bunny sounds cringe, Austin,” I say with a laugh.
“Whatever, bunny.”
“I want to tell you, you know Austin? I do,” I say as I lean against the headboard of his bed.
He pulls me to him by my stomach and says, “I know.” His hands lightly touch my stomach skin. The little touch makes me shiver. I lean against his chest and let him mess with my hair. It feels strangely calming and soothing. I close my eyes and enjoy the warmth.
I hear soft snores after a while. I sit up straight, take his hand off my stomach, and look behind me to see that Austin is sleeping soundly.
His black hair is messy, which makes it look even better, and his lips are slightly open. I find him strangely interesting, but I don’t know anything about him. Skye said that the school doesn’t know anything either.
Even when he sleeps, I smile a little when he frowns. I cover him up and stand up with a soft sigh. I stretch a little after buttoning my shirt and then write him a note.
Same time tomorrow at the library. Thank you for everything, Austin.