He releases my hand, and I lift the soft cotton fabric only to wince in sympathy at the angry cuts bleeding under his ribs, long bloody trails seeping into his jeans, some old and dry, some fresh and bright red.
“Holy crap, Ross.” I can’t take my eyes off the wounds, horrified. “Who did this? How? Is this from fighting Ed and his cronies?”
Again he presses his mouth into a thin line. He tugs his T-shirt down, and from up close I can see that the black cotton is wet with blood.
“I should call the cops. The sheriff—”
He laughs, while the rest of the color drains from his face. “The sheriff? Are you out of your fucking mind? He’s been looking for an excuse to lock me back up. I’m not going back there.”
“A doctor then. To take a look at this.”
God. I’m still staring.
“Whatever,” he mutters. “Forget it. I’ll be okay. I normally do this shit on my own anyway, I just ran out of fucking gauze and—”
“No, wait.” A split-second decision, a worry that digs teeth so deep inside me I wouldn’t be surprised if I bled, too. No way am I leaving him like this. “Keep an eye on the grocery bags. I’ll be right back.”
***
It’s strangely surreal, leading a quiet, pale Ross down the main street by the hand. He’s carrying one of my bags, and randomly I wonder how I’ll explain the blood on the brown paper to my dad, though mainly I wonder why Ross lets me pull him after me.
Why I decided that I needed to hold his hand. As if he’d run away, from me, this tall muscular wall of a man with the pretty ice-blue eyes and cruel mouth.
As if that’s not the guy I swore just a few days ago I’d stay away from.
I don’t even know where we’re going. My house is out of the question, and his is far, even farther than mine. I’ve never been there, though I’ve seen it from a distance many times. Dad always told me to stay clear of the Joneses. It’s as if he’d known that Jasper Jones was a psycho killer before any of us did, or maybe he was just naturally paranoid, like any good parent.
Ross being the horrible little shit that he was, staying away wasn’t a hardship. Even before I was a blip on his radar, I tended to avoid him. Observe him sometimes from afar, as I played in the woods around our houses with Josh. In the town. I always thought something was off about him, the way he hid his arms even in Summer, the way sometimes bruises showed on his neck or legs or his face. The coldness in his eyes that had nothing to do with their pale hue and more with a reflection of his thoughts.
But he covered that up well, was mean enough to distract anyone from asking, from wondering what was going on. Everyone assuming he just got into plenty of fights, earning those bruises like badges of honor. Nobody ever asking. I never cared to ask, hating him as I did, never considered what it must have been like growing up with Jasper the Psycho, until Dad told me when I returned home.
About beatings.
About killings.
I chance a glance at his face and find I don’t like his color at all. Too ashen. Too closed off and blank. His bruise-mottled chest replays in my mind—memory snagging on those perfect, hard muscles enveloping strong bones and sinew, maybe a bit too tightly. He’s strong, but kind of thin, and beaten to hell and back.
How to help him?
Why would I even want to?
Moot question at this point. I just do. And I don’t know what possesses me to tug him toward Mike’s Diner. It’s my day off, but Dena will be there, which might complicate things. I need a place to patch him up, though, out of the street and I can’t think of another off the top of my head.
I don’t have any friends. I haven’t reconnected since I came back. I’m a tourist in my own town.
Ross seems to snap out of the funk as we approach the diner’s back entrance, digging in his heels. “Luna—”
“I’m trying to help you.”
“You said I shouldn’t come back here.”
“Because you’re not paying.”
“Mike is lying,” Ross says, eyes flashing, resisting my pull. “I told you. I always pay my credit at the end of the month.”
Huh. I stare at him, and his gaze is fierce, like I’ve stung his pride again. He seems to be telling the truth.
I tug on his hand. “Mike doesn’t have to know. We’ll be quick.”