Aaron and Blue

Chapter 4

Blue sits rigid at her desk the next day. Aaron's eyes are smudged down his cheeks but she pretends not to notice. He takes a deep breath to speak. Blue flinches away from him.

"Look, Blue," he starts. Blue turns then, glaring at him, multicolored eyes flashing. He shrinks back as she leans forward, a fire burning in her chest.

"Talk to me again and you will regret it." Aaron looks as if he is about to say something but thinks better of it. The same threads that once connected them hum with tension, straining and snapping. Fragile.

Blue walks down the hall after class. The bus that she usually takes broke down and after thirty minutes the school finally declared that the kids would have to find their own way home. The hair on the back of her neck prickles and she turns sharply to look behind her. Sure enough, menacing figures are behind her. Taylor steps towards Blue, a tower of muscle looming over her.

"You and your little boyfriend having a fight?" He laughs. Blue stays silent and prepares herself for a fight, glad she put her hair in a bun today.

"What's the problem, wild girl. Forgot how to talk?" He turns to his friends. "No wonder the retard boy goes for her. What a moron." Blue tilts her chin up, stepping closer to him and setting her feet.

"Call me a moron one more time." Her voice is jagged glass. He grins in her face.

"What are you going to do about it, little girl?" That is all it takes. Blue launches a punch with her right hand straight into his face. Taylor stumbles back then lifts his hands. Blue follows him back and sinks punch after punch into his ribs. He tries to push her away at first, but gets frustrated and pulls back his arm. His punch lands on her cheekbone. Blue's head snaps to the side but she closes the distance between them again quickly. He throws another punch and it shakes her entire body. She wades into him with reckless abandon. He stumbles under the onslaught. Blue hears his friends shouting for him, the sound blurry over the pounding of her heart. Taylor loses his balance and Blue knocks him to the ground with a hard punch to the chest. He balls up to protect himself and Blue kicks him, again and again. She hears something. Taylor is crying.

Blue collapses to the ground, crumpling in on herself. Her hands are shaking uncontrollably, a mess of blood and bruises. She's going to throw up. Blue's gag reflex tugs at her throat but she controls it. What did she do? What did she do? She kicked him when he was down. She can feel the tears coming but she holds them back, focusing instead on the dull ache spreading throughout her body. Blue reaches up with fleshy fingers and touches her face. Her cheek is bleeding from his ring. A little blood drips down the top of her wrist from a split knuckle. She can taste the iron in her mouth from her lip.

Blue looks up and Taylor and his friends are gone. All that remain are a few stray drops of blood. She painfully pushes herself up from the floor and begins the walk home.

When her father comes in, he takes a look at Blue and frowns deeply, his eyes stormy. He makes sure Blue sees his disapproval then goes to the sink, scrubbing oil out of the lines of his hands. He pulls the first aid kit out of a cabinet and thumps it onto the table in front of Blue. He dampens a cloth and begins cleaning her wounds. Her dad is good at putting things back together. He works for hours and hours in a machine shop doing just that. Despite how good he is at putting others together, he couldn't quite make his own pieces fit back together right after Blue's mother left. He hums a little to himself, a song that Blue doesn't recognize.

"Look. I know you know not to fight," he starts. "Goodness knows I've told you enough times. This is bad though. You can't keep coming home with cuts and bruises on your face." He neatly ends a bandage around her hand and smooths it gently. "I don't want you to have scars from fights you got in as a teenager." Blue nods. She is too tired to argue much.

That night she lays in bed, the exhaustion finally hitting her with full force. Blue hears something outside her window, a low sort of mewling. Carefully she gets up and pushes open the window. Eyes reflect out of the darkness at her. The cat jumps up onto the window ledge and lightly onto the floor of the room.

"Hello, there," Blue whispers. If her dad finds out she let one of the neighborhood cats in, he will not be happy. The cat rubs up against Blue's legs, purring like a tiny engine. She reaches down carefully and scoops the cat up. She places it onto the bed and crawls in after. They take a moment to adjust then cuddle together. The cat delicately sniffs at her bandages then licks them. Blue strokes the cat and drifts off to sleep.

In the morning, the cat is gone, vanished out the window. Blue's muscles ache even more and the cut on her face bled in the night, leaving a dark stain on her pillow. She pushes her knotted hair from her face and squints into a mirror. Her face is a mess of colors, a Picasso. Blue prepares herself for more people to stare than usual and gets ready for school.