NUMB

Day Forty-Three - Elyse (pt. 3)

Edie knows I am meeting Jet later, even though I did not tell her. She says she can see it on my face. I do not know what that means exactly, but I figure it must have something to do with how my face flushes when she asks me if I think I will be sleeping much tonight. She lies down in her own bed and we talk for a little while.

"Do you think this will all work?" she asks me.

"The plan, you mean?"

"Yeah, Jet's plan to get us all out of here. Do you think it will work?"

I take a moment to mull this over in my head. Jet seems like he has the drive to get it done, he wants it to happen. And there are people, so he says, outside who are willing to help. "I think that it will. I trust him."

"I do to."

She falls asleep shortly after and I slip out of the room. Jet is already in the stairwell by the time I push the door open. He looks over his shoulder from where he is seated on the top step of the stairs and stands when he sees me. I cover the short distance to him and we wrap our arms around each other.

He smells like dirt and sweat and I can feel the dull heat coming from his body. I suspect he is warmer than what I feel. The thought makes something clench in my stomach. I wish I was able to feel him completely, without the barrier my Numbness is causing.

After several minutes, Jet pulls away from me. His eyes meet mine and a weak smile crosses his lips. "I'm sorry. I took longer than I thought I would."

"It is alright. You found Seth, that's all that matters, right?"

"Yeah..." His eyebrows sit low over his eyes and I think maybe he is worried about something. But before I can ask him if anything is going on, he takes my hand—the bandaged one—and holds it up between us. "What happened here?"

I inhale deeply as I ready myself to tell him. "I hurt myself."

"How?"

"I..." I stare down at the bandage, recall how it would not stop bleeding and how it hadn't hurt after a little while. The pain in those first few seconds after I had broken the skin had been excruciating though. "I stabbed myself with a fork."

Jet's face lights up in alarm and I find myself speaking quickly to make it disappear. "It was not a big deal. It's healing and is not infected. Tasha took care of it. We needed a reason to get into a patient room quickly. This was the only way I could think of that would work well enough."

"You stabbed yourself with a fork, Elyse. You couldn't come up with anything else? Something that didn't involve stabbing yourself with a fork?"

I pull my hand away from him and press it to the outside of my thigh. "I had no choice, Jet. You were not here and we needed a quick fix. I only felt the pain for a second and then it was fine. Tasha treated it and I am keeping it clean, so there will be no risk of it becoming infected later. I will be fine, I am fine." My cheeks are flushed and I can feel my pulse in my neck. It is a feeling I have not experienced much. I do not like it.

Jet seems to notice and reaches out to take my hand again. I draw back, but let him take it after he tries again. He brings it up to his face and presses my palm against his cheek. The bandage drags against his skin.

"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I don't like to see you hurt. It makes me..." He shuts his eyes and takes a long breath, opening his eyes as he exhales. "It puts me on edge. I've heard the stories, from Tasha, about the injuries some of you get and what they can do to you. I know you say you're fine, but what if you weren't and you just couldn't feel it?"

I draw back from him this time, cock my head to the side as I study him. After a moment, I take his hand and press it firmly against where the puncture is on my palm. He tries to pull away, but I hold him there. "I can feel that. The pressure. It doesn't hurt me, but I know that something is not right. I will be fine, Jet. I want you to stop worrying so much about me. I've lived like this my entire life. I have injured myself more times than you would like to know, broken bones and ripped my skin open. I have the scars to show for every scrape and cut. I think by now I am able to tell if something is not healing properly. Even if I am unable to feel it, I know." I finally release his hand and he pulls it away from me. There are pin pricks of blood on the bandage now.