These splits were metal, with a blue foam-like cushion lining the inside. He's seen plastic ones, but these were perfect. They cooled after being exposed to the air, and touching his bruises with it felt like pins being hammered into his flesh, all the way down to his muscles. They twitched, causing the pain to last and spread like an icy burn.

So very, very nicely.

He pinched and twisted his skin, pulling, counting to ten with each go. There was already the aches with every breath he took, but the throbbing sensations running deep through whichever arm he picked for the night was the perfect cherry on top. These bruises were definitely going to last a lot longer because of it.

That was good. Great.

What wasn't great was that he felt like absolute filth. Masochism or not, TJ didn't want to risk slipping in the shower when he could barely stand up straight, so until the muscles in his thighs heal, he was stuck with washing out of a sink, and that fucking sucked. Goddamn he just wanted to exfoliate and soak.

But that was price to pay for all the bruises, he supposed.

ZZZ

TJ didn't think for a moment that they wouldn't be visiting him everyday. Their excuse was simple, but smart, in a way. Someone had to drop off his homework, whether or not he was able to do any of it was irrelevant.

He had to give them credit, though. They kept coming over despite his coldness towards them.

"You can take your notebook back."

TJ looked up from his phone. Spinelli was the one dropping his homework off today, apparently. And his notebook from last year, he forgot about that.

"Your history teacher gave your class some huge essay to do," she said. "People who take AP classes are either bored or crazy. That's probably why you took it."

"Uh-huh."

Instead of leaving like she did last time, she sat in his desk chair, slowly spinning with the occasional kick. TJ wasn't sure if she was staying to annoy him or not, but as long as she wasn't yelling at him, then what the fuck ever. His throat was kinda sore today, anyway.

He had plenty of texts of people asking for help to catch up to.

ZZ

Spinelli knew that her temperament was not her greatest feature. Granted, it was useful for getting people to stop fucking around with her and her friends but when it came to shit that got emotions stirring, it only made things worse.

Mikey wanted them to take the slow and steady route, and of course he would, he was better at the whole connecting emotionally junk. But how did they expect her to act when she saw how badly TJ was injured?

She wanted to knock some sense into him, because be was being so goddamn stupid! How did the rest of them not want to scream at him? It probably wouldnt have done much; as much as TJ kept saying they weren't his friends, he at least used to be, and was probably still used to her temper. It didn't even phase him.

. . .

"How did you get into this stuff, anyways?" She asked. She kicked the floor again to keep the chair spinning. He stopped texting (who the fuck could he be texting, anyways?) and looked at her.

"Why?"

"I can't ask a question?"

"You can ask. Doesn't mean I have to answer."

That was another thing. He could be as stubborn as she could be loud. Maybe even more so. Whatever. She stopped the chair facing his desk. Since the conversation was going to be one sided, she didn't feel like trying again. Not right now. Instead she turned her attention to the sketchbook on his desk. The homework was piling up, but that was on the side, clearly not something he was focusing on.

Last time she flipped through it, he didn't move to stop her, and it's not like he's able to move fast enough to stop her now.

Spinelli took her time looking through what he drew. Like she said before, he was great at drawing realistically, and there were a lot of drawing of animals that she could only guess were ones at the shelter. A few anatomy sketches, some perspective work, and the occasional attempt at a cartoony style, but those were few and far between. None of them knew he could draw like this, but they didn't know a lot of things about him, apparently.

"Gretchen is dropping your homework over tomorrow," she said, standing up. "Maybe you'll have a conversation with her, you sure as shit don't want to talk to me."

"Okay, thanks."

She rolled her eyes and left.