Relapse (Phan)

THIRTEEN

"What're you doing here?" Paloma laughed as I entered the shop that Saturday morning, my coat soaked through from the freezing rain, my hair a mess from sleeping on Stace's couch, the bags under my eyes a particularly dark shade of grey. "I thought you needed the day off," she questioned me, "hanging out with a friend or something,"

"Yeah," I mumbled, trying to ignore the throbbing in my head and ringing in my ears as I hung up my coat, "Slight change of plans."

"Are you alright?" she asked. She could always tell when I wasn't which was rather inconvenient and annoying when I was trying to lie to her.

"Yeah, fine," I replied simply, keeping my head down as I walked past her. She caught my arm though, whipping me around to face her.

"Seriously, what's—" Our eyes met. "What the hell happened to you?" she asked, a horrified look on her face.

"You look nice too," I said sarcastically, rolling my eyes and yanking my arm away.

"Phil, what the fuck?" she asked, angrily stomping her foot to get my attention as I walked away from her. "What the hell happened to your eye?"

"It doesn't matter," I said, trying to wave it off, but Paloma was not having it.

"Why are you being like this?" she asked, a sharp edge in her voice.

"I got in a fight!" I snapped.

"At the party?"

"Yeah."

"Are you okay?" she asked, approaching me again, slowly.

"'M fine," I insisted, not meeting her gaze.

"Who did you fight?" she asked timidly.

I felt my entire body tense. It crossed my mind, only for a second, that I should tell her what happened. My boyfriend had hit me. I mean, I supposed he was still my boyfriend, though everything felt very different now, after this morning.

I'd woken up in Stace's living room on the sofa, my head throbbing, memories flooding my mind in a wave that didn't completely make sense. She'd brought me a bag of ice and insisted I keep it on my eye, though that wasn't what was bothering me.

"Phil, you need to keep the ice on or it's just going to swell," Stace insisted, holding the bag on ice in my hand onto my eye.

"It doesn't even hurt," I argued, attempting to wiggle out of her grasp.

"That's the high talking and we both know it," she said, giving me a knowing look as she let go of my hand. I held the ice to my face even though it really didn't hurt because she was probably right.

"What happened?" I asked after a long moment of silence. She sighed, staring at the floor.

"You really don't remember?"

"Not very well," I shrugged.

"You were talking about Dan," she said, giving me a look I couldn't quite read. "And Jason snapped." She took a deep breath. "He hit you."

I didn't say anything. What was I supposed to say?

"He isn't a bad person," Stace sighed, staring at the floor. "I really don't think he is. The way he talks about you, I—I've never known him to do anything violent like that before."