“What are you doing?” I question.
She grabs a washcloth out of the cabinet and runs it under the water. “Someone has to clean your ass up.”
I sit on the edge of the tub as she carefully wipes away every drop of blood. She applies light pressure to the cut on my lip, apologizing when I wince at the sting. Once she's got it all, she pulls out some gauze to wrap my hand. It's all cut up from Blade's piercings and the force with which I hit him, and you can already see that it's starting to bruise.
&
nbsp; “That looks horrible,” she tells me as she covers the damage.
I shrug. “You should see the other guy.”
She glances at me through her eyelashes, with that no-bullshit attitude she possesses. “Don't joke. You could have gotten yourself killed.”
“But I didn't,” I say, smiling sweetly.
“Not the point.”
Raising to her feet, she turns around and storms out of the bathroom, but I'm not letting her get away that easily. I jog after her and manage to stop her before she gets to the stairs. She tries to look down to avoid me seeing her face, but the tears streaming down her cheeks are hard to miss.
“Meelz,” I whisper. “What's wrong?”
She looks up at me. “I can't handle you risking your life like that. Not even for me. Zayn, he could have killed you. You know that.”
I sigh and wrap my arms around her. “I know, but I couldn't let him get away with what he did. The bailing on you thing, maybe, but he tried to seriously hurt you, Amelia. That was his goal.”
“Don't you get it?” she huffs. “Killing you would be seriously hurting me. There's nothing worse he could do to me than that.”
“Amelia,” I sigh.
She shakes her head, standing firm. “Don't Amelia me. Just promise you won't ever do something that reckless again. Promise me.”
The desperation in her voice has me agreeing in an instant. “Okay. I promise.”
Her shoulders sag in relief. “Thank you.”
A small smile makes its way to my face as I use my thumbs to wipe away her tears. I don't know if I thought she really began to hate me after she started dating Blade, but seeing that she cares as much as she does is a relief.
When her face is dry, and no new tears are leaking out, I drop my hands before I do something I shouldn't. I turn to glance up the steps.
“Where's Easton?”
She waves off the question as she heads back into the kitchen. “He left for class like ten minutes before you got home.”
I nod. “And speaking of class, why aren't you there?”
“Well, I woke up to my phone missing, and when I signed into my computer to locate it, I saw it moving toward a familiar spot of campus,” she explains. “You were the only one who wasn't home. It wasn't hard to figure out.”
I can't help but chuckle. “You're smarter than I gave you credit for.”
Breaking a piece off the Pop-Tart she's eating, she throws it at me. “Don't act like you don't know I have an almost genius level IQ.”
“For book smarts, yes. But street smarts? You could use a little work.”
Her jaw drops, and I can't help but tease her a little more.
“Careful. Leave that open too long, I just might fill it myself,” I murmur as I slip past her and to the fridge.
A strangled whine leaves her mouth. I know I probably shouldn't have said it, but the opportunity was just too much to resist. Grabbing a bottle of water out of the fridge, I play innocent and as if I said nothing at all as I hop up to sit on the counter.