“Relax, you big baby. I haven’t even touched you yet,” I say.
Different colors of bruises cover his back. The yellow ones are old, from last Monday’s punishment. Jax left his soccer ball out and Wyatt almost tripped on it. By almost, I mean he saw it out of Jax’s room and therefore he could have tripped on it in the middle of the night so he punched Jax in the back two times. There are new bruises, though. It’s Friday. I haven’t seen him since Monday night so these could be from any of the other nights.
“And these?” I ask, lightly brushing my lips to the darkest bruise on his back.
“He had to wake me up on Wednesday. Apparently, I made him late to work so when I came home from school and he was waiting for me.”
I’m afraid to ask what he used because I know it wasn’t his fist. No, Wyatt only settles for his own hands if he can’t reach anything. He wouldn’t want to damage his life-saving instruments.
“Okay, I’m gonna start pulling the glass out,” I tell Jax once I’m positive that I’ve cleaned the tweezers enough.
His whole body tenses. Not for the first time, I wish I could take his pain away. I always have to stop myself from telling my parents. The only reason I don’t is because Jax swears he will run away and give up college. He’s a senior, but he’s only sixteen since he skipped a grade before he moved to California. He has five more months until college and he’s free of Wyatt. He’s gotten full academic scholarships from the best Ivy leagues.
Connor and Logan are going to New York, Jax is still undecided. I know moving 3000 miles away from his father will be good for him, it will give him a fresh start. I can’t help my heart breaking when I think about it, though. Every time his scholarships are brought up, I have to mold into a carefree smile even though I’m dying. Five more months and Jax, the boy that I love, might be on the other side of the country. Five more months and I won’t have to picture a broken, lifeless Jax on the floor, bleeding out from the hands of his father. We can survive five more months.
It has to be enough, I can’t lose him. We’ve come so far.
I turn his face towards me so he can see how serious I am. “Every night, come here. It’s the only way I’ll know you’re safe. I can’t keep wondering if he’s—”
He lands a whisper of a kiss on my more than willing lips. “If that’s what you need, then I promise every night I’ll be here.”
I refuse to smile, not until I’m sure that he knows I’m not going to bend on this anymore. My hands shake as I prepare myself to ask something from him that I know I shouldn’t. It’s risky, any night his father could suddenly care enough to check if Jax is home, and if he does, he’ll be at my house. I shudder as I think of Wyatt finding out. I don’t care about my parents, I’ll be relieved if that happens.
“Every night Jax. I don’t care, if you’re not here, I’ll tell my parents. I won’t risk your life. I’d rather you run away.”
He squeezes my hand. “I promise.”
I kiss his shoulder blade, before getting to work. After pulling out the fifth piece of glass I murmur, “Why did you wait until now to have me take these out?”
“I think asking to go to your room so you can pull out glass might have raised some questions from everyone. Don’t you think?”
“Okay, but you could have just snuck in here,” I point out.
“Everybody was already up. Besides I thought I could patch myself up for once.” He grins. I don’t return it. “Once the adrenaline left, I knew that I needed your help, but it was too late to ask.”
“When did you calm down?” I ask quietly, too afraid if I speak too loudly he’ll stop talking.
“When I opened your fridge.”
“How—”
“I saw you only had one more yogurt and I pictured your face watching me eat the last one. So I grabbed it and waited for you to come down the stairs.” He winks at me. “Ow!”
“Whoops.” I repeat him from this morning when he took the first bite of my last yogurt.
“I’m in pain here.”
“So was my stomach all morning,” I complain, but pluck the last piece of glass more gently.
“You’ll forgive me soon enough,” Jax says with a laugh then winces immediately.
There isn’t anything to forgive, but I’m not gonna tell him that. Grabbing my phone, I look at the time. Connor will be here any second and I told my brother that I was jumping into the shower. I know I’m being paranoid, but I can’t help it. Logan finding out that Jax stays the night is the least helpful thing that can happen. He won’t be pleased.
Feeling me tense behind him, Jax turns around. “What’s wrong?”
“I need to take a shower,” I say.
“And?”
I ignore him and inspect the cuts in his back. Luckily none of them need stitches. I hate when Jax makes me stitch him up. I shudder, remembering the first time two years ago. We had to be as sterile as possible so he didn’t get an infection. When Jax passed out from the pain, I snuck into his house and stole supplies from Wyatt’s medical bag. I was so nervous that I kept shaking so it took longer and hurt worse. Now I think I’m almost as good as the doctors and that’s pretty good in my opinion since I’m only fifteen.
After re-cleaning the wounds on his back and applying antibiotic ointment, I put one small Band-Aid on the only cut that needs it. They’re not as bad as I first imagined when I saw the tiny shards of glass sticking out of his back. I can’t help but tremble thinking about Jax going through the motions of high school with pieces of glass in his back. This kid is something else.
“I don’t know,” I finally say.
Always able to read my mind, Jax turns around and hugs me.
“I’m okay,” he says into my hair. “It’s just a few scratches.”
“I hate him!”
“I know.”
I hate that Jax can forgive his father. He should despise him for everything that Wyatt puts him through. This is why Jax is better than anyone I know, he isn’t capable of hating anyone. I, on the other hand, hate Wyatt Chandler with a burning passion. If he was on fire, I would roast a marshmallow on the flames coming off his body.
“Hurry up with the shower so we can get to bed,” Jax says as he releases me.
I take the quickest shower known to man and that’s saying something since I’m a swimmer. Speed racer status, I jump into my pjs and run a comb through my tangled hair. Once I’m decent, I return to my room to see Jax sitting on my bed doing his homework. Following his lead, I grab the one page of geometry I have left. I finished most of it before practice.
“I had more!” I say when I see him eyeing my homework.
“Before or after practice?”
Sometime he knows me too well. It should be annoying, but it’s not. “Before.” I’m about to say something more, but my stomach growls loudly, making both of us laugh.