“God, Tessa. This looks bad. Your skin is so hot, which means it’s probably infected. Why didn’t you tell us last night?” She brushed her finger against the skin next to the wound, and I saw what her next move was going to be.
Yep. That’s what I thought. She was thinking about how to tell Dad. He was going to be extra pissed when he found out that someone from St. Ailbe’s—let alone his bosses second in command—had hurt me. And when I told him how the Cedar Ridge High kids wanted nothing to do with me now, he was going to flip. We moved all this way for nothing.
“Well, let’s get it cleaned.” She looked at my shoulder again and then back at me.
“I cleaned it last night.” Tears welled, but I wouldn’t let them fall. “The kit’s still on my desk.”
Somehow Mom taking care of my shoulder made it real. I had actually kissed Dastien last night. Thinking about him made me anxious to see him again. Which was beyond stupid. The guy was obviously dangerous.
“Turn around.” The second the peroxide filled cotton balls touched my shoulder I nearly threw up. Last night was nothing compared to today. Mom held my shoulder still when I tried to move away. The pain was enough to block out anything Mom was thinking. It was getting worse, not better.
“You need stitches.”
God. Not the stitches talk again. “Can’t we put the Band-Aids on it and see what happens in a day or two?”
“We’ll see.” The pain exploded, radiating across my back as she rubbed the Neosporin into the cuts and put on the band-aids. Gently, she helped me back into the shirt.
“Let’s see the lip.” She gave my lip the same treatment, going light on the Neosporin and leaving off the band-aid.
She sat down beside me on my bed and gave me that look, the one that said that if I even tried to lie I would be in serious trouble. “Did someone hurt you?”
“Please, Mom. Can we talk about it later?”
She pressed her lips together as she thought about it, and then finally sighed. “Fine. Go back to bed. I’ll come check on you in a bit.”
It was humiliating the way everything always went wrong for me. I lay back down and Mom tucked me in.
“We will talk about this after you get some rest.” She kissed my forehead and left my room.
The next time my eyes opened, the clock read 1:56 PM. Mom was back in my room, sitting on the bed with her hand to my forehead. A million of her unasked questions slammed into me. She wanted to know what happened, who did this, and why. But she was mostly worried about me and angry that someone had hurt me. Angry was the wrong word. She was furious.
“It’s really high,” she said to Dad who was standing over us. “Definitely over 100.”
He raked his fingers down his face, and then patted Mom on the back. “We’re going to take you to the hospital, Tess.”
Dad left my room, shutting the door quietly behind him. Mom grabbed a pair of jeans from my closet. I sat up and picked up my bra from on top of the comforter.
“Don’t worry about the bra. It’ll only make your shoulder worse.” She crossed her arms. “You ready to talk?”
I cleared my suddenly dry throat. “Not really.” I didn’t know if I’d ever be ready. It was too embarrassing. Only Tessa McCaide would have to get stitches because of a kiss.
“It was a boy at the party?”
God. She wasn’t going to let it go.
I nodded.
“He can’t get away with this. Tessa.” She paused, taking a deep breath. “Did he do anything else to you? Hurt you—”
My face burned. “Jeez, Mom. No. He kissed me and got a little carried away. I don’t know how he did that to my shoulder. He must have had something in his hand or I dunno…”
“Sweetie. They’re deep. There’s no way it wasn’t on purpose.” She sat back down on the bed, putting her face on my level, so that I was forced to look her in the eyes. “We’re going to have talk to your principal about this. Get a meeting with the boy’s parents. He could have really hurt you. What if he does this or something worse to another girl?”
The thought of Dastien with another girl made me monumentally pissed off. I tried to rein my anger in, but my shoulder burned, deeper into my arm and torso.
Somewhere underneath it I knew I was losing my mind over a boy who hurt me. “I don’t want to make a huge deal out of this. It’s fine. Really. It wasn’t even one of the guys from school.”
She crossed her arms. “If it wasn’t someone from school, then who was it?”