Ready or Not

Chapter 2

When you get to your apartment right outside the campus proper, the campus police officer helps you off of the golf cart. You thank the police officer and make your way to your apartment. Your unit is on the  second floor of a four-story walk-up apartment building. You decide to lock your damaged bike to the radiator in the lobby and make your way upstairs. The bleeding had finally stopped, but every step you took felt a bit like your skin was being split open.

You finally make it into your apartment and close the door behind you. You kick off your shoes and make your way into your bathroom. Slowly peeling off your skinny jeans, you wince as you go past your torn up right knee. Once your jeans are completely off, you see that your right knee is covered in abrasions of varying degrees and there are couple of large bruises starting to form on your right shin and hip as well. Thinking, "Geez, that fall really did a number on me," you take off the rest of your clothes and turn on the shower.

As you wait for the water to come up to temperature, you decide to carefully remove the handkerchief that's been tied to your hand. The handkerchief is hopelessly stained with your blood, and you aren't sure if you are going to be able to get the stains out. Along with Namjoon's flannel, you put the bloodied handkerchief with the rest of your soiled clothes. When you try and move aside the pile of close with your foot, you feel something hard on your toe. You reach down into the pile of your clothes, you find that your cellphone is still in the back pocket of your jeans. Not wanting your phone to go through the washer, you pull it out and place it on the counter, next to the sink. As you reach into the tub to see if the water temperature is to your liking, your phone rings. You can see the call is coming from a number that you don't recognize. The only thing you can tell is that the number is local. Your phone didn't flag the call as spam, so you decide to take the call.

You pick up the phone and say, "Hello?" Because of the noises from the shower, you can barely hear the person on the other end of the call. You say, "Hang on one second." Then you step out of the bathroom away from the sound of shower spraying and say again, "Hello?"

There is an unfamiliar man's voice on the other end of the call. He says, "Hi. This is Namjoon. I crashed into you about an hour ago. I thought I would call and see if you got home okay. I'm sorry. Am I catching you at a bad time? I thought I heard water running."

You say, "Oh, Hi! Namjoon. That is very considerate of you. Yes. I got in just fine. I was about to get into the shower." Then you think, "Why the hell did I just say that out loud?" You continue, "Ha! Well, that's TMI."

In Namjoon's mind, there is a flash of your body as he saw you earlier today, but just without clothes. He shakes the image out of his mind and says, "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to.... Well, I'm glad you got in okay. I'll let you get back to your...um...shower then. Iwillcallyoutomorrowgoodbye." He says the last sentence as if it was a one long word and abruptly hangs up the phone.

You think, "I'm a goddamn idiot. Now, I am sure he is picturing me naked. Christ, almighty, I'll probably have to face him tomorrow. You know what? I can't think about that right now. Let me just get cleaned up first."

Finally, you get in the shower and very gingerly clean your wounds. When you get all of the debris out of the gashes on your knee and left palm, you very gently soap up the area before rinsing it off. Then you tackle the rest of the shower routine. Trying to shampoo and condition your hair with just your right hand is a task you didn't think would be this difficult. However, with some maneuvering, you are able to complete all that you need to do in the shower and step out. You wrap a towel around your hair and dry yourself off. Then you wrap a towel around your body. You look under the sink cabinet and grab your first aid kit. You bring out the kit to the living room and open up the red metal box. You dump the contents of it onto your coffee table and pick out the supplies that you'll need to bandage yourself up.