how to make a mixtape :: mgc (fin.)

16. black beauty & i need you

"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Calum, that alcohol thing really isn't helping."

I glare up at him, but he keeps dabbing at my split forehead with the soaked tissue. His eyebrows are furrowed and he grips the back of the chair I'm sitting on to balance himself in front of me. I sigh, glancing at the clock above Luke and Calum's TV. It's been half an hour since I flashed the knife into the attacker's thigh and she shot our kitchen light. At least the four of us stopped shaking as hard as we were before.

"You're lucky I'm taking a course in medicine. Tilt your head down for me." His thumb presses my chin until I do as he tells me to. Adjusting his glasses, he cleans around the cut, throwing the tissue in the small hospital-like bin. I look at Michael, who's sitting rigid on the loveseat and has his hands folded in his lap. I stare at Calum while he rips off his latex gloves. "You're not gonna need stitches, thank God."

"Yeah. Thank God." I bite my bottom lip and rake my hair back. It's black and wirey, like muddled cables. I play with the chain of my crucifix. "How's Luke and Alejandro?"

"Luke's okay. He's baking, now, so he should be fine." Calum sets some gauze over the still pulsating cut and tapes it in place. I can't help but feel like a school art project, minus the mess of blood on my face. "Alejandro? He's pacing."

"He always does that when he's nervous," I mumble, toying with my new bandage. I glance back at Michael, and his fingers are knotted in his shirt, white and strained. I quiet down. "And him?" I jut my chin to the lilac-haired boy. "Is he okay?"

Calum scans him quickly. "Hey Mike? You okay?"

"Mhm." He nods mechanically, his Adam's apple bobbing. I look at Calum with the most questioning eyes I can offer.

He bends down, so he can take my freezing hands and rub them softly. "Icing people out is Michael's way of coping with things."

I brush the L.R.H inked on Calum's ring finger in calligraphy. "Why?"

"Why does Alejandro pace?"

"So if anything comes to hurt him, he can run away faster." Calum cocks a brow and I look up at him. "Didn't you only get to know Michael, like, last month, or so?"

"A lot has happened this past month while you weren't here. Time will fly by for you, too." He pats my hands, standing up and packing up his first aid kit.

I watch as he leaves the living room and into his kitchen, opening a cupboard and setting the box in. I exhale, wiping my palms along my thighs before drifting in front of the short stooped bookshelf. There's not much, save Luke's thick cook books and Calum's comic books. A couple classics are kept messily amongst everything else. I pick out Black Beauty, though I recall having to read it when I was learning English in Colombia. Flicking through the pages, I move by the mauve loveseat.

"Can I sit?" I unfold any corners Luke must've dog-eared.

"Nobody's stopping you," Michael murmurs, not looking away from the television. I glance back at it to see a documentary on lion reproduction. With a suspire, I curl myself into the edge of the seat, clutching Black Beauty tightly.

I pretend to read for a few minutes, just as long as Michael pretends to be engaged by lion porn. "Have you learnt anything from this programme?" I ask.

"Lionesses are the queens of feminism," he deadpans.

"Michael, I'm not sure that's--"

"Yes it is."

I shake my head, averting my attention back to the book. This was Ashton's favourite classic, I think, running my hands over the cream pages. He would carry it around with him everywhere, when Alejandro and I first opened the shop. Any time he'd babysit, he brought it to read to the younger children, or to discuss with me. We would sit in his treehouse with maybe a few sandwiches between us, and talk about how Beauty remained strong after being snatched away from so much. I'd observe Ashton's lips so closely -- until he finally kissed me. I grip the book firmer as tears stroke my eyes. Don't be surprised if you go back to see police tape around his house and watching him being carried away in a cadaver bag, I say to myself, gulping and pushing my nose further into the pages.