~Marshall's P.O.V~
My fist is landing into the side door of my car before I can stop it. The metal conforms to the shape of my knuckles, leaving a sizable dent in the side. My nostrils flare up with anger and I dig my nails into the back of the photos, causing the ink to bleed and destroy them. I chuck them in the gutter, they'll wash away with the rain that's supposed to come tomorrow.
"Fuck!" I yell, feeling as though I might be able to flip my entire SUV over.
My fist pulses from the impact of the first blow and I feel it start to ache. I look around on the ground for some more things to destroy but there's nothing but grass and Rachel's mailbox. I grunt in frustration and my eyes fall on a tree. I need to hit something.
I walk over to it and put my fists up like its one of my opponents. Then I lay into it, throwing every trick I have. The bark tears open my knuckles, leaving traces of blood on the tree. I grunt again in anger and pain, taking out my rage on a tree feels a lot less satisfying than I thought it would. I stop when I can't feel my knuckles anymore, and I glance down at them. Even in the dark I can see that they're bruised, bloody, and splintered.
I take a couple minutes to myself just to breathe, studying my blood on the tree. Jack won't get away with this, he can't. I feel a brand new surge of rage coming, only this time manifesting itself as sadness. I close my eyes and take a second to catch my breath, exhaling slowly.
Out of nowhere I feel hand rest on my shoulder. I turn around quickly, grabbing the wrist before realizing that it's Rachel. I release her immediately, leaving an incomplete bloody handprint around her wrist. Her hair is damp from the shower, she must've heard me from her window. She looks into my eyes for only a second and then glances down at her wrist. She gasps lightly and I let her take my hands in hers, allowing her to observe the damage.
"Oh baby..." She says, beginning to cry. "What did you do?"
I can't talk, I can't even look at her. People are trying to hurt her and I can't stop it. My heart heaves and I think I'm going to throw up. The light from the street lamp flickers in the reflection of her tears and I wouldn't know what to say even if I could speak.
"Come on." She says quietly, crying to herself.
It breaks my heart to see her cry, but there's nothing I can do about it this time. I let her take me back inside the house, closing the front door after us. Now that we're in the light I can see how bad my hands are. They're busted open pretty well, splinters sticking out from a few of them. They're bruised a dark purple already and I can't feel a thing. I'm numb.
"Sit down." She says, wiping a tear off her cheek.
I obey her command, sitting on a chair she pulled from the kitchen table. I can't believe this is the third time I'm doing this. Sitting in a kitchen, fucked up, waiting for her to come and fix me. It's pathetic.
She gets some towels out of a drawer and some water, the usual stuff. This time she grabs some tweezers and hydrogen peroxide, probably for the splinters. She lays a towel down on the table and places my hands on it, spreading out my finger so she can further assess the severity of the injuries. I watch her work, this is all instinctual, she'll be a good mom.
Occasionally she brushes some of her newest tears away with the back of her wrist. I can't help but stare at her. I wish I knew what to do, I want her to stop crying. She picks up the tweezers and quickly plucks out the splinters in my left hand. Gently, she lifts my hand and puts it knuckles down in a small bowl of hydrogen peroxide. I notice the ring on her finger and it almost kills me to see it. I love her more than anything in the world.
When she removes my hand after a good thirty seconds, I see that the cuts aren't large they're actually pretty small just large in number. She then takes a roll of gauze wrap I didn't see her get and begins to cover my disinfected knuckles. She wraps me up like a pro, and I remember how she used to tape my hands before fights.
I rip my eyes away, looking at the bloody heap of towels on the table. She finishes wrapping my left hand and starts the whole process over again on the right. She hasn't said a word to me since I was told to sit down. I can't help but feel like she's angry with me. This worries me now, and I try to get her attention but I know she feels me staring and she won't look. So I wait patiently until she's done wrapping my other hand.
She tries to get up and start washing the towels and emptying the bowls and such, but I stop her. I put my bandaged hands on her thighs and she looks down at them, a couple more tears wedging their way out of her eyes. I sigh and take one of the non bloody towels, using it to quickly scrub my bloody handprint off of her wrist. And after that I lean forward, standing up from my chair. She pops up too, for a second in fear that I may go. But then she looks up at me finally, locking eyes with me and then crying as she was before. Her arms wrap around my torso gently and I exhale a breath of relief.
