STARGIRL

22. Stitches

It hurt Maddox to smile.

The pain in his face was excruciating but when he saw Arabella it was an innate reaction for his stomach to drop and his lips to curl themselves into a smile. The bruises on his face pulling back tightly on his skin and the rushing buzzing noise in his head going off from the concussion.

Arabella looked up from the book she was reading to see Maddox approaching her with that crooked smile of his, his brown hair which was usually styled was currently draped over the gauze wrapped around his head as if he we wearing a bandana and his face the shades of purple and blue were slowly turning the hue yellowish-green.

She didn't return the smile. She kept that infamous neutral and emotionless expression of hers on her face.

"Uh hey." Maddox managed to sputter out through the pain as he took a seat opposite of her at the small table she was sitting at. She looked at her cup of white tea that lightly shook when he did so.

"You're all types of messed up." She wasted no time getting to the point as her gaze shifted back onto him.

Maddox chuckled and scratched at the nape of his neck. He was glad that the bruises on his face concealed the fact that he was blushing.

"We haven't really spoken in months." She continued to say in that raspy monotone voice of hers.

Maddox nodded slightly and leaned back in his seat, his stare solely focused on the splotched and faded black fabric of his Vans.

Arabella grabbed her cup and gripped her hands on it, the warmth radiating off the cup itself sending waves of heat throughout her entire body.

"I'm sorry."

Maddox raised both of his eyebrows completely unsure as to what was happening and what words had just came out of her mouth.

Her breathing was shaken up, "I'm so, so sorry."

Her apology sounded as empty and meaningless as she felt, but she truly meant it. Maddox could tell by the way she was avoiding his stare. She couldn't help but feel guilty.

He let out an innocent chuckle, "Stop."

Arabella looked up and over at him her dark eyebrows coming together as she looked on in sheer confusion.

"I'm fine either way, besides I wasn't going to let Abel humiliate you."

Arabella sighed and looked away again, "You don't get it X."

"Get what? I already told you-"

"Stop!" She sharply interjected, her fingers gripping the sharp edges of the table tightly, "Don't you get it?" She asked him as he sat up straight in his seat, his jaw clenched waiting for her smile to fade and for her lips to form words.

Letting go of her grip on the table the young woman frantically began to shake her head, "I just can't stand the fact that you try to protect me so much even when I don't deserve it."

Maddox shrugged his shoulder nonchalantly before crossing his arms against his chest, he took in the way she looked under the recessed lighting. The shadows casted onto her tan oval face seemed to have made her her facial features soften up. Her dark brown eyes looking black with a small flick of glossy white in them. Her lips seemed longer and larger because the shading underneath them.

Suddenly she looked up again, "Accept my apology."

Maddox was looking at her as if she were insane, "What?"

"Accept my apology." She urged him again, he noticed her fingers sliding onto the table.

"You can't force someone to accept an apology." He said trying to understand where she was coming from exactly. Arabella groaned from the frustration of not being able to communicate as well as she would like too which made Maddox laugh for a bit before he suddenly grunted in excruciating pain. He raised his hand up to his jaw to apply pressure on the area that hurt him.