It's been nearly a month since Azuriah and I met, and things have gotten a lot better with him since then. It's still really uncomfortable for me to be too close to him, but we can walk and sit normally, side by side, now without it bothering me, which is a huge improvement, though only with him. It's the same as it always has been with anyone else. As it turns out, he and I actually live on the same block. I took my free period as my last class so, even though I spend it in resource anyway, I'm out of school a few minutes earlier than he is and we've gotten into the habit of meeting at Central Park before walking home.
Waiting for him now, I climb up onto the playground and over the railing on the equipment, so that I sit up high, my legs hanging over the edge, while I wait. A few other kids come and go a few minutes after I knew everyone had gotten out of school, and I didn't have to wait long until I saw the familiar ash-blond boy come just barely into view.
I let go of the rail with one hand to wave to him.
"Hey, Azuriah!" I called to him to get his attention as soon as he looked up from the horizon, still making his way over to the playground, and I smiled over at him. "For once, I'm taller than you!"
He smiled back. "You're sitting up high, though, that's hardly fair!"
"It still counts, you're always tallest!" He was still quite some distance away, so I didn't think I needed to climb down just yet.
He adjusted his backpack and sped up a bit to meet me when his gaze slid past me to look at something behind me, his eyes widening in what I could've sworn was fear, though it was hard to tell from so far away. I furrowed my brow in confusion.
"What…?" One of the kids from school must've climbed up behind me without my noticing, because before I could turn around someone shoved me hard and I fell to the ground. It wasn't too high: six, maybe seven feet. I tried to land so I wouldn't twist my ankle but just as my feet hit the ground someone else shoved me back. I hadn't gotten the chance to regain my balance after falling, and was easily pushed over. I fell back hard and all the air seemed to leave my lungs when I hit the ground.
Gasping for air, I tried to scramble away, but the first boy had jumped down and kicked me back down. When I hit the ground, I tasted blood.
"Come on, freak, get up!" he shouted down at me. I could faintly hear Azuriah's feet pound against the earth as he ran towards us but he was too far away.
I was trying to get to my feet when one of them grabbed my arm, trying to force me to my up, and I reflexively jerked away, causing me to loose my balance again. I couldn't seem to stay on my feet very long.
"What's wrong, loser, don't you know how to walk?" the second one sneered, as he forced me to my feet. I tried my hardest to get away from him but this one was much bigger than me. He held my arms behind my back as the one who had pushed me off the park equipment stepped in front of me.
"Jonathan," I said quietly, trying to sound menacing, but I was still trying to regain my breath and still struggling desperately, trying to get away.
He ran his hand tauntingly down the side of my face and I jerked my head away, still tasting blood, and feeling a bit of it running from the corner of my mouth.
"What kind of person," he mused, "can't stand to be touched, or have anyone anywhere near him, for that matter? You're a whole new level of freak, Copeland," he said, using my surname. I could only glare at him as he took his hand away from my face, though not before caressing his hand carefully down my neck. I flinched back, my skin crawling.
He turned as if to walk away, but at the last minute whipped around and punched me hard in the stomach. I felt my legs buckle, but the boy behind me kept me up, and for a moment everything went dark. When my vision cleared, I was still seeing spots, and the footsteps pounding toward us were getting much louder. I lifted my head with the little energy I had and smiled.
"What are you so happy about, you little psychopath?" he asked.
"You won't be happy when he gets here…" my voice sounded shaky even to me, but I still smiled. I could only hold my head up a moment longer, so I took that moment to spit the blood that had filled my mouth at him, before letting my head fall back down.
"Are you so stupid to think I'd let you get away with that? Your boyfriend can't protect you, Copeland, I can take him," he snarled at me, raising his hand to strike me again. He hit me hard, several times, before the boy behind me let me fall to the ground. I coughed up the blood that had filled my mouth, and just after he kicked me down, I heard a very angry, very familiar boy shout.
"You leave him alone!" Azuriah thundered, and just as I passed out, I glanced up to see him throw Jonathan to the ground, and the boy that held me quickly ran off before he Azuriah could get to him too.
When I came to, the light seemed blindingly bright, so I kept my eyes closed. I tried to sit up but the pain the action caused prevented it and I lay back down with a quiet groan. As if on cue, I heard someone skid to a stop next to me.
"Hey," said a proverbial voice, "how are you feeling, are you all right?" asked Azuriah, sounding anxious.
"Yeah," I said, my voice sounding strained, "yeah, I feel fantastic." Even after having gotten beaten up, somehow I manage to keep my sarcasm. Great.
I blinked a few times, finally having gotten used to the light, and looked up at Azuriah. I tried to prop myself up on my elbows, feeling rather helpless lying completely flat. It seemed my sarcasm was lost on him when he was worried because he only frowned down at me and tried to keep my lying down.
"Rowyn, be careful, you're hurt pretty bad, you need to rest or you're gonna make it worse."
"You sound like my mother," I told him, trying to lighten the mood a bit, but it wasn't helping that my voice still sounded pretty weak. I glanced around and grabbed a few pillows from near by, putting them behind me so I could sit up properly. Looking around, I didn't recognize where I was at all.
"Hey… do you mind telling me where we are?"
"Oh, yeah that's right. We're at my house, you've been… asleep, for a couple of hours now," he obviously didn't want to deliberately point out that I'd been unconscious, so I didn't correct him. "I brought you here because I didn't have a key to your house and even if I did it might look bad to your parents if a stranger sauntered into their house with an unconscious kid."
"Not a kid, and yeah you're probably right," glancing around I saw that we must be in their living room or den, and I'd been carefully positioned on a rather large sofa, obviously meant for a big family.
"You know what I meant," he said with a slight smile.
"So… how bad was it anyway? I saw you take down Jonathan, but after that…" I was curious as to what had happened and how bad a condition I was in.
"I taught that kid a lesson he won't soon be forgetting. Who was that jerk, anyway?" he asked.
"Jonathan Mikkleson," I answered. "He's been picking on me since grade school… my own personal bully. He likes to beat me up when he can catch me alone, which tends to happen a lot, as you know. His favorite adjective seems to be 'freak.'"
Azuriah shook his head. "That guy has no reason to treat you like that, I won't let him."
"Thanks," I said, adjusting my position. Wincing, I stopped, and settled back against the pillows. "How bad was… am I? Like… on a scale of band-aids to hospital."
"Pretty bad, Rowyn, but I think I patched you up pretty well. Here, look," he moved towards me, and I was happy it didn't have much of an effect on me. Though admittedly it may have been because of my weakened state, I was glad I could actually feel safe around someone for once. He sat by me on the edge of the sofa before stopping. "Er… may I?" he asked. I nodded even though I wasn't exactly sure of what he was asking permission to do.
He reached down and, to my surprise, pulled the hem of my shirt up, exposing my flat stomach. Trying to keep from blushing I focused on what he must be trying to show me. After lifting my shirt up far enough, I saw what he was talking about.
"This is the worst, I think," Azuriah said quietly. On the right side of my torso, going from the middle of my ribcage down my hipbone, a few inches past my waistband, there was a long, dark bruise. For a moment he absent-mindedly traced it, starting at the top near my ribs and gently ghosting his fingers down the side of my stomach, stopping when his fingers brushed my waistband which, I now noticed, was sitting rather low on my hips, causing a shiver to course through my body. I closed my eyes gently, the way I do when I'm trying hard not to flinch away. I felt his gaze shift up and knew he had noticed my eyes were closed, because he gently pulled my shirt back down.
He opened his mouth to apologize, but I interrupted him. "It's fine… what else?"
"Well, you can't see it, but I had to patch up a pretty bad cut on the side of your face. Hold on a second," he leaned away to reach for something on the little table next to the sofa, and turned back around with a small mirror. "See?"
I turned my head to the side and saw a shallow cut along the side of my jaw, a few inches long.
"This is not going to be fun to explain when I get home…"
"You can crash here for a while if you want, at least then when you get home the… on your stomach," he didn't seem to want to verbally point out anything physically wrong with me, "won't look as bad, bruises look really bad just after you get them."
I nodded. "Thanks, Azuriah. I'll text my… parents, to let them know where I am," they weren't exactly my parents, they were my foster parents, but it's easier just to call them my parents when I talk about them.
Still looking a bit concerned, he gave me a small smile. "No problem. I'll go find you a blanket or something, we can play games until you're tired enough to sleep. For some reason when one person in my family goes away somewhere they all have to go. My sisters and my parents are out of town visiting relatives until Monday, but I convinced them I was sick so I wouldn't have to go. Lucky… this would definitely be difficult to explain."
My phone vibrated and I checked it. "My parents say I can stay as long as I want so long as I check in every now and again."
"Cool, you can stay a few days until your… injuries, are healed enough to be relatively easier to explain."
For the rest of the night we played board games that he got from his little sisters' room until I fell asleep a little while after we gave up on games and decided to marathon season 4 of Doctor Who instead.
