Jade Awakening

Blood

"Look at that, you made it all the way back to your home without fainting on me."

"Technically, I'm not inside the RV yet. A lot can happen in three steps."

"If you actually pass out right here in your parents' backyard, after we just walked all this way, I'm leaving you where you fall and at the mercy of the wild animals."

We had just reached the door of his RV, but of course it was still locked, and Beck needed to retrieve his keys to unlock it. With his good hand, he fetched them from his back pocket.

"I'm hurt that you would let me get eaten by raccoons. If it were the other way around, I would at least knock on your parent's door so they could drag you inside themselves."

"No, leave me outside. I'd want to know if raccoons like the taste of my flesh."

"Of course you would," he laughed at my absurdity while struggling with his keys. It was painful to watch.

"Give me those," I snatched them from his hand. "The blood must be falling from your brain – your fine motor skills are worse than a toddler's."

"Not nice! I'm just not used to using my right hand."

"You're left-handed? I guess I never noticed," I said as I successfully turned the key in the slot of his front door. Still holding on to his cut hand, we stepped into the RV. The familiar scent immediately felt like a welcome. "You know, in some ancient cultures, left-handedness was a sign of wickedness or evil."

"Ancient? Who's to say I'm not evil now?"

"Ha!" I scoff, "If anyone in this room is evil, it'd probably be me. Maybe you have a little wickedness in you, but I doubt it. Now, do you have a bathroom in here? We need to clean this cut and put a real bandage on it."

"Yeah, here in the back."

He led us to the end of the RV. Through a door next to his futon and fish tank, there was a very compact bathroom that housed a tiny shower, toilet, and sink. It was a tight squeeze for both of us to be in there, so I chose to put the lid down on the toilet and sit on it.

The sink was immediately adjacent to me, so I could easily reach over to run lukewarm water.

"Do I need to do this for you?" I asked.

"The blood is dry now, so I could probably – oh never mind – oh my god, that's terrible, why did I look at it?"

His skin turned pale from the sight of the dark streaks on his forearm. I couldn't help but to laugh at the way his face twisted into something unpleasant.

"Fine, I'll wash it off. Do you have some rubbing alcohol or something in here?"

From the cabinet beneath his sink, he retrieved a dark brown bottle that was labeled "hydrogen peroxide" and set it on the edge until I was ready for it. With care, I untied and unraveled his necktie from his wound. The part that was closest to his palm was soaked in blood, but it was hard to tell since the fabric was already black to begin with.

Without asking for permission, I took a hand towel, dampened it under the running water, and used it to help wipe away the dry streaks that ran down past his wrist. With gentle pressure, the old blood was absorbed into the terrycloth. When it came to the wound on his palm, though, I figured the fabric would be too rough.

I set the hand towel aside and, with the help of the steady stream of water, used my own hands to gently wipe away the remaining blood around the gash. A small thrill rushed through me to be touching his hand in this way. To study it so close. I was transfixed by the look of the maroon becoming diluted into a softer red before running off the edge of his palm in tiny streams, revealing his golden skin.