Looking at Harlow, I’m trying to think of what I should be doing to ease her pain. Both from her father’s heart condition and the attack. New York City isn’t always the safest place to be but I never thought something like that would happen during the day. Were there any witnesses? Should she contact the police? Were they after her for a reason, or was she just another victim? The questions come one after another in my mind.
“I don’t want to tell you what to do, but maybe you should call the cops and file a report?”
She shakes her head, agitated. “I don’t want to deal with cops. I prefer them far away from me.”
With a troubled past and being a thief, of course she doesn’t want to call the cops. “Okay, as you wish.”
“Yeah, I’m a big girl. I’ll get through this. It’s too much all in one day is all.”
Hell yeah, it is. This isn’t the type of thing a person needs in their life. Parental illness and physical attacks cause different kinds of pain, the kind you don’t want to think about. It’s too much. I give her shoulder a little squeeze and am startled by a dot of blood coming through the hoodie.
“Harlow, your back. I think you’re still bleeding.”
“I must have gotten hurt when I was pushed on the ground. It’s burning a little. I thought it had stopped bleeding once I was in the tub.”
“Can I see? To make sure you’re okay.”
“Hell, no, you’re not looking. I’m not even wearing a bra.” She pulls away from me.
Right, I knew that, since I’m the one who put it in the washing machine. “Go in the bathroom and check it out. If it’s still bleeding, maybe you need to get it looked at.”
Harlow gets up from the kitchen chair and makes her way toward the hall. Her steps are slow and unstable. She’s worrying me. Running to my room, I get her a new hoodie—a black one this time—and then meet her at the bathroom.
“It’s a cut. About three inches long,” she says, her eyes meeting mine in the mirror before darting away.
Goddammit, can this day get any worse? “Can I see? I need to make sure you are okay.”
Groaning, she relents with a terse, “Look at the cut only.” She’s covering her front with the bloodied hoodie, her eyes down now. She won’t look at me at all. It’s obvious that Harlow is shy.
The first thing I notice about her bare back is the tattoo climbing from her hip to her ribs.
“The cut, TJ, how bad is it?”
Oh, yes, the cut! Come on, TJ, focus. Lifting a small towel from the shelf, I run water on it, and then look her over more thoroughly. It’s my face that needs cold water. Ugh!
“Don’t move, I’m going to apply soft pressure on it,” I warn then press the towel against the injury. The bleeding doesn’t seem as bad as I’d thought it would be. “Were they armed? It looks like it could have been a knife.”
She turns around to look at me. “I… I don’t remember. It happened so fast. Is it deep? Do I need stitches?”
“No, I think you’ll be okay without them. I’ll put some ointment on it and bandage it up, if that’s alright?”
Harlow nods then turns forward again with a quiet, “Yes.”
Though I’m facing her back again, I know she’s sobbing by the soft movement of her shoulders. This might be a jerky thing to do, but I decide to fix her cut before I take care of her. Cleaning the wound with alcohol first, I follow with a thick layer of ointment and then a rather large bandage, which I cut myself. “There you go. Put this on now,” I say handing her the clean garment.
She takes the black hoodie and pulls it on right away. “Someone tried to stab me. Jesus, this is fucked up, so fucked up.”
My arms go around her again; I feel bad for her. She’s having a bad day and the only thing I can do to help her right now, is this.
“Why don’t you come with me to the living room? You need to rest, you’ve been through a lot.” After leading the way to the couch, she doesn’t sit, rather she lays down and curls up on her side.
“Thank you, TJ.”
Sitting down on the short sofa next to the couch lets me watch Harlow carefully. She’s still crying but her tired eyes are taking over. With each blink, they stay closed longer than the last, until she falls asleep.
Watching her for so long starts to make me feel like a pervert, so I decide to check on the laundry. Removing her tops from the washer, I inspect them, wanting to see if her clothes are torn up on the back at all. Holding the thick sweater, it’s clear her wounds could have been a lot worse. The hole must be at least five inches long. “Fucking punks.”
There isn’t much I can do while she is sleeping in my living room. The anger within me is roiling and I have to find a way to let it go. Loud music would help, but that’s not an option while she’s sleeping, and I can’t leave her here all by herself to go for a run.
Fetching a cold bottle of water, I take to my treadmill instead. Putting on my earphones and turning up the music is the one release outlet I have available. Though I start slow, to warm up, it isn’t long before I’m running at full speed with every part of me hurting, burning. Regret will follow me later, but who cares? The anger I feel within can’t stay inside, it’s poison.
Pounding out the miles on the treadmill, I’m trying to plan what I’m going to say to Cassie—because it’s obvious that Harlow won’t be going anywhere today, so I won’t be either. That’s fine, but Cassie doesn’t need to know the truth, which means I have to lie to her again.
Can I be done with this already?
Cassie should be with a man who loves her, who wants to marry her and have children. That man is not me. Not now. Not ever.
Running faster, my legs can’t take it anymore but the pain feels so good I refuse to stop.
I run and run, until I hit my endurance limit and am at the point of collapsing. Pushing the stop button, I step off the machine and fall to the floor weak and out of breath. This feels so much better than getting drunk, setting my whole body alight with an adrenaline rush makes the anger vanish.
“TJ?”
“Yes?” I manage to say through my heavy pants and gasps.
“Do you have Tylenol or something like that? I have a bad headache. It woke me up.”
“Give me thirty seconds, and I’ll get it for ya.”
Harlow laughs. “What have you done to yourself? You look like you’ve been hit by a train.”
I manage to sit upright but know getting to a standing position will be painful.
“You need a hand?” Her laughter gets louder each second.
She can laugh all she wants. I’ll take this pain over the anger anytime. “I got this.”
I may hobble like a seventy-year-old man, but I don’t care since it makes Harlow laugh. After giving her two tablets, we make it back to the couch.
“When are you going back to see Ramsey?”
“I should be there now, but I have to get my shit together first, and this headache needs to go. Otherwise, he’ll know something happened.” She takes a deep breath. “He has enough to deal with already.”
“Rest. My couch is yours.”
“Do you have movies or something? Even though I’ll probably pass out after five minutes.” Chuckling, she rolls onto her side and leans her head on my thigh.
“Um, yeah, sure.” Grabbing the remote control, I push through and select the latest episode of The Walking Dead.
“I didn’t take you for a zombie type of guy.” She eyes me, curious.
“That’s because you don’t know me.” She might have heard a lot about me, but she doesn’t know me at all. Not yet.
“I do know you. Your dad loved you and talked about you all the time.”
I laugh. How had I known she would say something like that? My dad loved me, I know that, but he kept his alternate life away from me, too, and I’ll never know why.
“For years, he had been thinking about involving you with the Club, but your mother didn’t agree with him, and threatened divorce if he brought you in.”
“That explains why I found out the way I did, after he was dead.”
“I’m sorry, TJ.”
“Dead, so he had nothing to lose anymore.”
The room is quiet, apart from the TV playing the theme song of the show. Everything clicks in my head, it all makes sense and I can’t be angry with him. It shows how much he loved his wife, and how bad he wanted me involved. Well, I’m in. He got his last wish.
Her breathing evens out, her eyes close, and then she’s gone, resting again. I envy her easiness to sleep. I’m restless. An owl.