The day I wrote a song about you

Chapter 9: Bad

"Dude, just gonna borrow that navy shirt. We need to do laundry ASAP." Luca came into my room. My whole face hurt. Memories of the night before crossed my mind. The alley, the disgusted faces, the man who helped me. "I'm leaving, but if I were you, I'd get up already and take a shower." Luca chuckled. He obviously hadn't seen my face. "Don't come too late."

"O-okay."

"Had too much fun last night?" I could hear the smirk in his voice.

"Yeah..."

"I'll leave you get dressed and stuff. My phone is about to die. See you later."

"Luca, I-"

He closed the door. After a few moments, I heard the front door closing, too. I sighed and tried to get up from my bed. I was still wearing last night's clothes. Except for the T-shirt, that was on the floor, covered in blood. Putting my feet on the floor, I pushed myself up and a sharp pain ran up my back to my head.

"Merde."

I walked slowly towards the bathroom, my dizziness slowly fading every time I took a step. I breathed out slowly and rested both hands on the sink before I tilted my head back and stared at myself in the mirror.

The first thing I noticed was the black eye. My face was incredibly puffy, mostly clean, but I still had a little bit of dried blood on my left eyebrow and around the cut on my lip. The guy that helped me gave me something to clean myself up. I remember him telling me to go to the hospital, but I used the taxi to go home instead. I hated hospitals. I had spent too much time in them, surgery after surgery.

My torso was the worst. I had bruised ribs and my arms were scraped. It hurt to even look at it.

My eyes became watery. People were fucked up.

I couldn't go like this. I needed to call Luca. I went to grab my phone but it wasn't on my bedside table where it normally would be. I looked around my room but then remembered I still had my jeans on. I patted one of my pockets and got out the phone from one of it.

"Merde." I repeated. The screen was cracked and it didn't turn on. I grabbed my charger and plugged it in before I went to have a shower. I couldn't even scrub my body with soap. I limited myself to gently rub it and let the water fall down upon it. I got out with difficulty, my ribs were killing me. I don't think they were broken but it was mostly because of the bruises. I looked for the first aid kit I knew we had somewhere around the kitchen. Riley bought us some essentials since she was cooking some day and cut herself. Needless to say, we had nothing to treat the wound, so we had to call our neighbor. It was the first time we met the family that lived in front of us.

When I found it, I put on some antibiotic ointment and a few band aids all around the cuts and scrapes in my body. Since I was feeling a little better and my phone wasn't turning on, I decided to go to Ace's house and explain everything to Luca. I'd talk to him and tell him I couldn't stay.

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Ace's parents' house was not an alien to me. I had been there at a party before. I knew I had to use the intercom outside the gate, so I prepared myself to just ask for Luca. I couldn't let people see me like this. Least of all, in a nine year old girls' party. I was wearing a big hoodie to cover myself up, but I couldn't hide the marks on my face.

With difficulty because of the pain in my ribs, I achieved to extend my arm and press the button. After a while, someone responded.

"Hello?"

Good. Ace. I could deal with Ace.

"Uhm- Hi. It's Nico. Is Luca around? Can he get out?" I asked more nervous than I would've liked.