ʟɪɢʜᴛ ꜱᴘᴇᴇᴅ | 𝙚𝙧𝙚𝙣 𝙟𝙖𝙚𝙜𝙚𝙧

𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙔

015, 𝙎𝙏𝘼𝙔

.⋆𐙚 🍒

BLOOD IS EVERYTHING. 

It carries what we need and what we lose. It stains. It remembers. It pools in silence after screams, marks the place where pain entered, or tried to leave. It holds heat even after the skin goes cold. It speaks in pulses. It keeps score.

And when it leaves you—fast, frantic, flooding through fingers—it takes something with it. Strength, yes. But also silence. Time. Dignity.

I learned that the hard way when I was thirteen.

We'd been on the blacktop behind the gym. A boy two years older thought he could spit something idiotic without facing any consequences. Thought I wouldn't swing. So of course I did exactly that. My fist cracked into the bridge of his nose with the dullest, most satisfying crunch I'd ever heard. There was blood, bright and sudden. Then he shoved me hard enough that I hit the pavement sideways.

I didn't cry. Not from the fall. Not when I looked down and saw the blood pouring from my thigh, dark and thick, trailing from a gash I hadn't even felt split open. I think that's the strangest part of pain—how sometimes it arrives late. How the shock makes everything quiet at first, like your body's too polite to interrupt the adrenaline.

But when it hit—it hit. All at once. Raw. White-hot.

The bleeding wouldn't stop.

By the time my mother pulled me through the front door, the blood had soaked through the thick material of my jeans and dripped down long enough for my white socks to turn red. I remember the way her eyes narrowed—not in fear, but calculation. She didn't panic. She told me to breathe. Told me to sit.

Then she stitched me up in the kitchen.

No numbing cream. No anesthetic. Nothing to soften the bite of the needle tearing through my skin.

"Pay attention," she'd said, voice steady as her hands moved. "You'll need to know how to do this someday."

It hurt more than anything I'd ever felt. I bit down so hard on a dishtowel I tasted fabric for hours. I shook. I hated her for it—for the coldness, for the control, for the way she didn't flinch even when I did. But I watched.

And when it was over, she handed me the needle.

She taught me how to suture on gauze and orange peels. Showed me how to pinch the skin together and push through with confidence. How hesitation would make it worse. How pain is easier to endure when you're the one holding the needle.

After that, I stopped asking for help when I got hurt.

I started keeping a suture kit in my desk drawer. Alcohol wipes all over my room and in the pockets of most of my clothes. I learned how to thread the needle in the dark, how to clean my wounds without screaming in pain. I learned that the worst kind of bleeding isn't the kind that stains your clothes—it's the kind you hide. The kind that sits under your ribs and seeps out slow, in the quiet hours, when no one's watching.

And tonight, looking at Eren, I feel that same sting return.

That same panic curling at the base of my spine.

The blood on his shirt isn't dried yet. His breathing's uneven. His hand's still pressed to his abdomen like he's afraid he'll come undone if he lets go.

Something in me drops.

I step closer, wrapping one arm around Eren's waist. He's heavier than I expect, all muscle and dead weight, like whatever was holding him upright finally gave out. His arm falls over my shoulders without protest, and he leans in—head bowed, breathing uneven. I can feel the heat of him through the fabric, the sweat on his neck, the tremble beneath his ribs.