Knowing Sang: Moments from the Blackbourne Boys' Persective

Deeper

Nathan

"Fuck . . . fuck, ouch, fuck me, fuck." I can't go any farther like this and kneel down on the wood floor of my shed, gritting my teeth from the pain. Every muscle's on fire from the strain of having held myself for so long, and the gashes and bruising across my body hiss and burn as if they're alive.

Gabe said a while back that he was having trouble with some homophobic goons in his art class. Nothing he couldn't handle, of course. But I wanted to goad them, draw them out. See if they were part of all the shit that's apparently been happening inside the school.

On second thought, I don't think Gabe would've made it out of the mess, although he most likely wouldn't have been quite as reckless. By the time Vic showed there were more than a few big guys on me. He managed to pull some off with my help but just barely before we dodged the hell out of there.

Ugh. Not even to the second day and already people are beating each other up.

I'm still crouching on the floor when I think I hear something, but at the moment I'm just too damn sore to care.

"Nathan!"

For a moment I can't place the voice, although it's definitely female. A girl? Here? God I hope it isn't that annoying priss Danielle. I straighten onto my knees and twist around. Squinting through my painfully swollen face, I see the familiar, petite figure of a girl I'm coming to recognize all too well.

"Sang?"

She crosses the room to me before dropping down on her heels, peering closer with a worried frown marring her beautiful features. 

"Victor made it sound like you were fine. Why did he lie to me?" She sounds utterly betrayed and baffled, hurt almost. God. Any other time, she would've been a welcome sight. But I never wanted her of all people to see me like this.

I try to get up, but slip on my own two stupid feet and fall back against the cabinet. Fuck it. I'll just sleep here tonight.

"You know you shouldn't trust boys," I say, groaning with the effort not to show how much pain I'm in. Though that's probably a wasted attempt, considering how bad I must look. I try for a grin instead. "We're . . . um . . . something bad that I can't think of right now. Remind me to tell you about it later."

"You're all driving me crazy." Her pitch turns higher by the second. Or maybe that's my ears becoming sore. Great. Thanks, body. Might as well just hurt everywhere while I'm at it, why not. Literally.

I see Sang's small hands reaching out towards the bottles of creams I was trying to get at before and failed. "Which one did you want?"

I take my earlier thought about her back. Has any other girl ever been such a freaking godsend?

I point to one of the tubes and Sang suddenly snatches up my broken finger.

Fuck!

"Hey!" I shout.

"Is it broken? Why aren't you at the hospital?"

"I saw a doctor," I *say defensively. "That's where I got the bandage thing." Bandage thing. Nice, Griffin. Really scoring points for yourself there, man. I wanna slap myself for my inner monologue.

Maybe later when I actually have working arms.

"Is this all you need?"

I nod.

"Come on," she says, standing and clutching my arm to help me up. The fact that she's too little to take my weight on her own yet seems totally oblivious to it makes her all the more endearing. "Let's get you inside so you can lay down. You look terrible."