library hearts

21 | blood pt. 2

I stop thinking, stop breathing, my heart rushes like crazy in my chest and I get down onto the floor, screaming in her face without hearing my own voice.

"I'm okay!" she says, and her voice is shaking but at the same time confident. "I'm okay, Aspen, stop! It's not as it looks, I..."

But I can't see clearly. My vision blurs, tears streaming down my cheeks.

This was how she looked. This was how she fucking looked.

And I know. This isn't good for her, she's having a breakdown, and I shouldn't be crying, I should be the one comforting her. But this is exactly how she looked.

This is exactly how she fucking looked, when she laid there, unmoving, unliving, just like this, blood all over her face.

I wrap my arms around London and my body is shaking, but hers is shaking more, and after some minutes I stop crying and just hold her, but she doesn't, she continues her sobbing and wailing, and I hold her harder, because I'll never let go of her like I let go of Atlas.

"It's okay. Hush" I whisper next to her ear. "What happened? Where's the wound?"

She leans out of our hug, leaning against the wall with her arms around her knees. Slowly rocking her own body back and forth, she says:

"I don't know. It may be glass shards in my hair."

And then she starts crying again.

And I hold her still, while I search through her hair, and just as she said, a few splinters of clear glass are stuck in her curls, mostly forward around the face.

I find the source of the blood. It's just over her hairline; the blood has congealed on most parts; but from some spots, it's still open, fresh blood running in trickles down her face.

When I've calmed down, I realize it's not that much blood, after all. It's not like Atlas. It's far from Atlas.

I leave her for a couple of seconds, bringing a frozen pack of ice cubes to press onto the wound. When I come back, she's in the exact same position. I don't ask any questions, not yet, I just help her hold the ice over the wound. I'm not an expert, but I think she'll get a bump anyways.

It doesn't quite matter right now, though.

"Who did this?" I whisper, putting down the ice bag on the floor and embracing her again.

She sobs quietly on my shoulder, mumbles something into the fabric of my shirt.

"What?"

"Dad."

It isn't more than a whisper, but it shakes my whole world about.

"What?" I whisper. "Your dad did this... to you?"

She doesn't answer, and I realize this isn't the right time for questions. So I just hold her tight until the shaking slowly fades into the slow heaving of her shoulders, up and down.

I lead her to my bed, tuck her in a fluff up the pillow. Then, I climb up too and sit on the edge of it, just looking at her.

London breathes slowly, but only after a couple of seconds, she sits up again, the duvet falling her shoulders.

"I can't sleep" she says.

"It's okay" I say. "I'll sit here with you. Do you want to talk about it?"

"I don't know."

"You could try?" I ask, my voice still whispery. "And see how it's feeling? You don't have to finish."

I try to keep it soft, my inside my body, everything's burning as every puzzle piece seem to match, building a giant picture of her dad – Bale Kingswood. She never liked talking about her family. She got a strange mask when Viliam spoke about it. She almost got angry when I raged about my family not being there every time. And a thousand of other small things that just seemed a little odd at that time.