Page 83 of Distortion
‘Stand up.’
Another hesitation, but then she gets up jerkily.
‘Turn around.’
I step closer, intending to unclasp her ill-fitting gray bra, when I see the bruises.
Mottled. Black and purple. There’s a massive one on her shoulder and several others in a line down her back over her vertebrae.
‘What the fuck happened?’ I explode, louder than I wanted to.
She whirls around, her hands going over her ears, looking shocked at my outburst.
‘What?’ she asks, eyes wide.
‘Your back.’
She shakes her head and moves a little so she can see herself in my long mirror.
‘Oh,’ she says, studying the injuries with a puzzled look on her face. ‘The fall in the river?’
‘Jesus, Daisy.’ I reach out and touch one gently and she hisses and pulls away. ‘What did you hit?’
She shrugs. ‘It happened so fast. I remember hitting the water ... maybe something else afterward, but I can’t be sure.’
A rock or submerged tree, I muse. Could be any number of things. Hell, I even found a ’79 Chevy bumper close to where we put the boat in one time.
I look closer, making sure the skin isn’t broken anywhere, otherwise I’ll have to take her to the medical center for a Tetanus shot.
‘Then I grabbed for the raft and got the handle,’ she continues.
‘You could have died, you idiot,’ I mutter.
‘So I was told,’ she says stiffly.
I drape the towel over her shoulders and she looks surprised. ‘You aren’t going to ...’
‘Let’s just have some pizza,’ I suggest, not sure why I’m turning into Blake, the gentleman, with this girl.
She brightens at once. ‘Okay.’
It’s such a sudden change in her demeanor that the grin I give her is real for once. ‘It’s a good thing I’m not sensitive.’
She just gives me a blank look as I open the box.
‘Ooh,’ she says, her eyes lighting up as she grabs a slice.
We munch in silence for a few minutes and I watch her. Now that she’s not thinking about why I told her to come in here, she’s much more relaxed.
‘Those bruises are pretty bad.’ I say, gauging her reaction as I talk. ‘You didn’t notice? Don’t they hurt?’
She considers my words and moves around a little underthe towel. ‘Yeah, I guess they do.’ She shrugs. ‘Sometimes I don’t notice stuff like that, and that day ...’
She trails off.
‘That day what?’ I prompt.
‘Well,’ her voice gets quieter. ‘There were a lot of things ... I was cold, hungry, tired. I had a headache. It was just another thing, so I didn’t really ... my back hurt, but I didn’t really think of it.’ She shrugs again. ‘What does it matter anyway? Nothing’s broken. They’ll fade in a few days.’
