Selfish Souls (Phan)

Why shouldn't I be? : 6

We walk to a bathroom, and I finally get the chance to see the mirror. A large bruise, that's almost so dark it's black. It covers the upper right part of my jaw. An extended cut comes through my eyebrow that's somehow still bleeding, and I have one to match on my lip. I sigh, I look like I got hit by a train. I kind of wish I had 'cause then I'd be dead instead of having to deal with this shit.

Phil takes some paper towels and gets them wet, wiping off the blood from my eyebrow that's almost made its way to my eye. "Hold that," he says as he presses it the actual cut. I do as told and Phil grabs another one and does the same for my lip. He hesitates but it's so quick I'm pretty sure I imagined it.

"Is your stomach hurt?" He asks. "No," I say a little too quickly. "You told me you'd let me help," he says giving me a sad look that I can't say no to. "Only a little bit," I say. "Let me see," he says. He grabs the paper towels and throws them away before helping me out of my shirt which hurts like a bitch. [It autocorrected bitch to British lol]

He gasps when we finally get it off. I look in the mirror and see a particularly long cut on five of my ribs. My chest and stomach that were once skin coloured are now covered in black, grey, blue, and purple bruises. I don't even look human anymore and it just as bad on my back. Tiny cuts and bruises covering everything.

"Who did this to you?" He asks quietly. I look at him, trying not to cry, "If I told you, you'd only end up looking like me." He understands that I'm not going to inform him and instead of asking me again gets to cleaning the rest of my wounds.

"If we go over to my house, I could do this better," he says as I wince when the water hits a cut.  "I'm not letting you skip school for me; I can deal until after," I say. He sighs. "Fine but as soon as the last bell rings find me, okay? I'll walk you to my house, and I'll clean these better and give you some bandages," he says.

"I could do that myself," I say stubbornly. "You can't get your back," Phil says raising an eyebrow as if daring me to argue. "Fine, you win," I say. He smirks and washes off the rest of the injuries.

"I should really take you to hospital. But you won't let me will you?" He says looking up at his handy work. I shake my head no. He sigh and look at my shirt that's one the counter, covered in blood and dirt. "I don't want that stuff on your open wounds, they might get infected. Let me go to my locker, I have an extra shirt for you wear," he says. "I guess," I say, unsure if I should take his shirt. "Wait here," he says as if I have anywhere to go. When he comes back I'm sitting on the counter, head against the mirror and eyes closed. I could so fall asleep like this.

"Come on sleepy, just a few more hours, and you can take a nap he says before bringing my down form the surface. He helps me slip on his shirt which is easier to get into than mine since it's slightly larger. It smells like him, and I can already tell I'm going to be able to focus for the rest of the day.

The bell that signals lunch as over finally rings. He grabs my shirt of the counter and hands it to me. "I'll see you after school, try not to hurt yourself," he says sending me a gentle smile. "Phil," I say before he walks out. "Hm?" He asks, looking back. "Thank you," I say, shyly glancing at him. "Anytime," he says before leaving. I put my shirt in my locker and go to the next class, once again late and once again no one asks questions.

I almost fall asleep in all my classes, but right before I can, some loud noise always seems to happen and by the end of the day I'm annoyed with every noise and the entire world in general. I want nothing more than go home and sleep for a couple of years but then remember that I have plans to meet up with Phil.

I look over the crowd of rushing students, which isn't hard since I'm a foot taller than most of them, trying to find someone taller than me with pitch black hair. You'd think it'd be easy, but I can't find him anywhere.

People push past me, carelessly knocking into my shoulders and hitting my chest. Why are these people so violent? After being shoved around someone finally grabs my elbow, the one part of my that isn't currently on fire, and pulls me into a gap between two locker sets where people aren't walking by.

"Hi," Phil says, smiling at me. "I'm tireddddd," I say leaning against his arm, this would be a nice place to just rest for a little bit. Phil laughs at my actions and raps his arm around my shoulders  "Come on, you can sleep when we get to my house. Until then you have to stay awake, there is no way I'm carrying you all the way there," he says laughing. "Why not?" I joke, pouting. He rolls his eyes, "Come on silly, let's go," he says.

We walk back into the mob, but this time it doesn't hurt as much. I wonder why until I look back and see Phil's blocking most people from walking into me. I don't say anything, but inside I genuinely appreciate it.

We get outside and the stream of people distributes a little. Phil now walks beside me, his hand on my arm to balance me incase I trip. "How far away is your house?" I ask. "No far, it's closer than your home," he says. After a few moments of silence I speak again, "why are you so kind to me?" "Why wouldn't I be?" He asks, giving a confused look. "Because no one else is," I say. "You know the stupid phrase they drill into your head, just because everyone else is doing it doesn't mean it's the right thing to do? Well that applies to this situation too. Just because everyone else is cruel to you doesn't mean I should be. I don't like seeing people in pain. You also seemed like you could use someone to give you a hand," he says easily as if there was no other option and being the person he is, there probably wasn't for him.