Sixteen Stitches
Posted: 18 Dec 2016, 12:58
”I swear you need a bodyguard, next time you might not be so lucky.”
His voice was gentle even in condemnation, the not-so-subtle accusation that this would not be the last time they found themselves here. He didn’t sound mad, he never got mad. The needle hooked through her skin with the deliberate precision of a well-practiced hand. She could smell the antiseptic, could feel it permeating her senses and knew she wouldn't shake it for days no matter how many hot showers scored her skin and left her feeling raw. It was a smell she'd grown accustomed to over the years. Bo was seriously lacking in the self-preservation department and paired with a natural clumsiness it lead to a lot of accidents.
Like a LOT of accidents.
For the past three years he'd been there to patch her up when she’d eventually stumbled through his door, or window; sterile and safe, barely bothering to try and voice complaint when she sparked up some fragrant pain relief to get her through the wound tending process.
Thread tugged into place, fascination winning out over disgust as it did every time and her eyes fastened onto the needle when it sunk back into her forearm. There was something remarkably satisfying about watching the skin pull together, sealing in the secrets of what made up her insides.
It was intimate, more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced. He told her he loved her on the sixteenth stitch and she made some pathetic jokes about Molly Ringwald and how “Sixteen Stitches” would’ve been a way better story than “Sixteen Candles”. That was how it often went, he smiled sweetly and said nice things, she got awkward and deflected. He wanted a white picket fence and two kids, Bo just wanted to decide which nail polish to wear and have the motivation to remove the chipped remnants that marred her hands. Not like her hands were overly pretty, not if you looked really closely. They wore many signs of her vagabond lifestyle of “rush headfirst, fall on your *** for it later”. Fine traceries of scars, marks of vague discolouration at times from burns or scrapes and almost always a bandaid with some ridiculous design. That day it was old school Mickey Mouse, his smiling face placed sporadically on a yellow background, wrapped around her thumb over a healing cut. Kitchen knife and liquid soap, no biggie but not her finest moment.
He said the scars were beautiful, for a med student he sure could talk pretty and it was probably why she often gave in to shutting him up with her mouth firmly pressed to his, teaching his tongue new ways to move. They rarely did finish a whole movie, even a classic like “Sixteen Candles”.
They were separated in age by five years, it could’ve been a major part of the difficulty in her drive to commit to anything beyond letting him fix her *** up when she fell and giving her a safe place to land. It could also have been that he was a second year and killing it at his workplace, he had a solid future ahead of him whereas Bo was currently on her third major with nothing but debt to show for it. She wasn’t dumb, she had smarts but most of it was life given and natural intellect rather than book smart. Reading was cool and all, but her capacity to concentrate for the hours required to get through one in the time necessary for most study was just non-existent. Another purpose would find her, she figured, not willing to stress the issue while she was only twenty. There were a hell of a lot more stitches in her future, and a lot more people who wanted to kiss her boo boo’s before she’d settle on one.
One, seemed a lonely number but two eternally was ******* petrifying. She’d chosen one, chosen herself.
A year later and she still wore the scar of those sixteen stitches, fingertips tracing them where she slumped on the couch of her newest night nurse. This one was fleeting, she felt it in her bones and along with it a great sense of relief. Nowhere near the skill or tenderness of the one she still thought of fondly, but a raw honesty that invoked genuine interest from the flighty fidget. Yeah, the girl whose head bowed over her, tutting over a scraped knee from her recent fall wouldn’t last long on Bodie’s wild ride but she sure as hell would try to leave her with something sweet. Bo was good at leaving an impression, a feeling that once you were loved by something too wild to hold onto, that you were a treasured friend and always would be even though she’d left you in the dust. In the dirt, really, but rarely did they not let her come back when she blew through town on a whim.
Sixteen stitches left only the faintest line of a scar to remember the time she very nearly gave in to normalcy and ambition. It was so close. One year and she could still smell the antiseptic, could taste the salt of the popcorn on his lips and the acrid smoke of well-rolled joint. It was time to return to her girls again, time to come back to them like she always had when she was done with her antics. Yeah, the girls would catch her, they’d touch her scars and tell her she was beautiful too. Anyone could make her feel special, she just had to give them a chance. Tomorrow she'd go home, tomorrow she'd find a new bed to call her own for a while.
Sixteen stitches, one year, one scar and not one iota closer to having a clue.
Life was good. She told herself that life was good.
His voice was gentle even in condemnation, the not-so-subtle accusation that this would not be the last time they found themselves here. He didn’t sound mad, he never got mad. The needle hooked through her skin with the deliberate precision of a well-practiced hand. She could smell the antiseptic, could feel it permeating her senses and knew she wouldn't shake it for days no matter how many hot showers scored her skin and left her feeling raw. It was a smell she'd grown accustomed to over the years. Bo was seriously lacking in the self-preservation department and paired with a natural clumsiness it lead to a lot of accidents.
Like a LOT of accidents.
For the past three years he'd been there to patch her up when she’d eventually stumbled through his door, or window; sterile and safe, barely bothering to try and voice complaint when she sparked up some fragrant pain relief to get her through the wound tending process.
Thread tugged into place, fascination winning out over disgust as it did every time and her eyes fastened onto the needle when it sunk back into her forearm. There was something remarkably satisfying about watching the skin pull together, sealing in the secrets of what made up her insides.
It was intimate, more intimate than anything she’d ever experienced. He told her he loved her on the sixteenth stitch and she made some pathetic jokes about Molly Ringwald and how “Sixteen Stitches” would’ve been a way better story than “Sixteen Candles”. That was how it often went, he smiled sweetly and said nice things, she got awkward and deflected. He wanted a white picket fence and two kids, Bo just wanted to decide which nail polish to wear and have the motivation to remove the chipped remnants that marred her hands. Not like her hands were overly pretty, not if you looked really closely. They wore many signs of her vagabond lifestyle of “rush headfirst, fall on your *** for it later”. Fine traceries of scars, marks of vague discolouration at times from burns or scrapes and almost always a bandaid with some ridiculous design. That day it was old school Mickey Mouse, his smiling face placed sporadically on a yellow background, wrapped around her thumb over a healing cut. Kitchen knife and liquid soap, no biggie but not her finest moment.
He said the scars were beautiful, for a med student he sure could talk pretty and it was probably why she often gave in to shutting him up with her mouth firmly pressed to his, teaching his tongue new ways to move. They rarely did finish a whole movie, even a classic like “Sixteen Candles”.
They were separated in age by five years, it could’ve been a major part of the difficulty in her drive to commit to anything beyond letting him fix her *** up when she fell and giving her a safe place to land. It could also have been that he was a second year and killing it at his workplace, he had a solid future ahead of him whereas Bo was currently on her third major with nothing but debt to show for it. She wasn’t dumb, she had smarts but most of it was life given and natural intellect rather than book smart. Reading was cool and all, but her capacity to concentrate for the hours required to get through one in the time necessary for most study was just non-existent. Another purpose would find her, she figured, not willing to stress the issue while she was only twenty. There were a hell of a lot more stitches in her future, and a lot more people who wanted to kiss her boo boo’s before she’d settle on one.
One, seemed a lonely number but two eternally was ******* petrifying. She’d chosen one, chosen herself.
A year later and she still wore the scar of those sixteen stitches, fingertips tracing them where she slumped on the couch of her newest night nurse. This one was fleeting, she felt it in her bones and along with it a great sense of relief. Nowhere near the skill or tenderness of the one she still thought of fondly, but a raw honesty that invoked genuine interest from the flighty fidget. Yeah, the girl whose head bowed over her, tutting over a scraped knee from her recent fall wouldn’t last long on Bodie’s wild ride but she sure as hell would try to leave her with something sweet. Bo was good at leaving an impression, a feeling that once you were loved by something too wild to hold onto, that you were a treasured friend and always would be even though she’d left you in the dust. In the dirt, really, but rarely did they not let her come back when she blew through town on a whim.
Sixteen stitches left only the faintest line of a scar to remember the time she very nearly gave in to normalcy and ambition. It was so close. One year and she could still smell the antiseptic, could taste the salt of the popcorn on his lips and the acrid smoke of well-rolled joint. It was time to return to her girls again, time to come back to them like she always had when she was done with her antics. Yeah, the girls would catch her, they’d touch her scars and tell her she was beautiful too. Anyone could make her feel special, she just had to give them a chance. Tomorrow she'd go home, tomorrow she'd find a new bed to call her own for a while.
Sixteen stitches, one year, one scar and not one iota closer to having a clue.
Life was good. She told herself that life was good.