Page 27 of We Could Be So Good
The building door is wedged open, which the woman on the third floor insists on doing when her kids are out playing and she doesn’t want them to bother her to come open the door. But it’s long past ten now, and even in this neighborhood there aren’t any children out in the streets anymore.
He climbs the stairs—four flights are as grueling as they were a week earlier—and sees that Nick’s door is ajar. He immediately pushes it open, ignoring the flicker of worry that he might be interrupting burglars. “Nick?” he calls. No answer. “Nick!”
Nick emerges from the bathroom, half his body lit from the too-bright bathroom light and the other half in shadow. He’s holding something to his face. His white shirt has a dark stain running from the collar to the waist.
And Andy must be tired or something, because the first thing he thinks of is meeting his mother at the airport and seeing a fresh scar on her temple, a scant inch from her eye, and being immediately, irrationally furious that she thought it was all right to be anywhere near shrapnel or bullets or whatever the hell had hurt her this time. Couldn’t she just be safe? Couldn’t the only person he loved try to take care of herself, for Andy’s sake if not for her own?
It was a useless thought then, and it’s a useless thought now, so he grits his teeth and hopes Nick has a first aid kit.
***
“Hey,” Nick says, his voice a little slurred.
Andy drops the newspaper and crosses the room in two strides. “What happened to you?” This close, he can see that Nick’s lip is split. He pushes Nick’s hand away and sees a nasty gash and the beginnings of a bruise running from his temple to his jaw.
“Kids,” Nick says.
“Street gang?” There are bands of teenagers all over Lower Manhattan who like to fight one another, but what kind of lunatic kids would go after someone like Nick?
“Something like that.”
Well, that’s a deeply unsatisfactory and unconvincing answer, and Andy will get to the bottom of it, but not while Nick is bleeding all over himself.
“Sit,” he says, as firmly as he knows how, pointing to the kitchen table.
To his surprise, Nick sits. Andy takes off his coat, then washes his hands, wets a dish towel, and pulls the chain to turn on the kitchen light. Up close, he can see that what at first looked like a gash also includes a scrape, as if Nick hit his face on something rougher than a fist. Andy carefully dabs at the scrape to clean it as best as he can. The cloth comes away discolored with blood and dirt. He folds the cloth and keeps dabbing with clean sections until he thinks that at least Nick doesn’t have any pieces of the sidewalk left in his face.
“Do you have any bandages? Peroxide?” Andy asks.
“Medicine cabinet,” Nick says.
It isn’t until Andy’s unscrewing the cap off the peroxide that he realizes his hands are shaking. And so with unsteady hands he pours some of the liquid onto a washcloth and carefully applies it to Nick’s face. Nick winces, and Andy remembers the last time—the only time—he’s ever done this for anyone, nearly a year ago in the newsroom. It feels much longer ago than that, as if it happened on the other side of a divide, because then he was helping a friend, and now he’s helping—he’s helping Nick, and he doesn’t know what that means. He doesn’t want to know.
“Sit still,” Andy whispers.
“Sorry.” Nick makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “I hate this.”
“Nobody likes it, you dummy.” But Andy doesn’t think Nick’s referring to the burn of the peroxide or even the fact of having gotten mugged.
These cuts seem—they seem bad, and Andy doesn’t know if that’s because they’re dangerous, or because Andy is inclined to worry about everything, or because they’re on Nick. But he thinksthat maybe peroxide isn’t enough, so he goes back to the medicine cabinet. When he returns, he begins to paint bright orange Mercurochrome onto the worst of the wounds.
Nick hisses, his fingers digging into his thighs.
“Who knew you were such a big baby,” Andy murmurs, perversely mad at Nick for having let himself get hurt. But he takes one of Nick’s hands and puts it on his own arm. He lets himself believe that he’s siphoning off some of Nick’s discomfort as Nick squeezes him.
The kitchen light casts an unforgiving light, Nick’s cuts and bruises standing out stark and lurid, every hair in his five-o’clock shadow dark against his skin. Nick sits on the edge of the table, and in order to get close enough to be any use, Andy has to stand between his legs. He feels like he’s never been so close to anyone.
Andy peels the paper off a couple of Band-Aids and does his best to cover the gash without the adhesive touching any broken skin.
“I think you might have needed stitches,” Andy says when he’s done.
“Yeah, well, that wasn’t going to happen.” Nick is still holding Andy’s arm and Andy feels disinclined to mention this.
“You should take that shirt off so we can soak it.”
When Nick takes his hand off Andy’s arm, he leaves behind a smear of bright red blood. Andy grabs Nick’s hand and turns it palm up. It’s worse than his face had been. He checks the other hand, and it’s better but still scratched up. It’s only the palms, as if Nick landed on them when he fell, but not the knuckles. Andy wonders if this means Nick didn’t fight back or if he didn’t get a chance to.
“I’m sorry,” Nick says.
