What Lasts in Us

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

I follow Nate into the bathroom all but ten minutes later. Like all the other windows of the house, the little window above the toilet and the one opposite, in the shower, are boarded up; only the one above the toilet is missing glass. And just like the entire house, this room is dark, with next to no light getting in naturally. Almost every single tile is cracked, chunks of the mirror are missing, and it looks like someone thought the shower rose was valuable. Huh.

Nate dumps his bag by the toilet and turns to face me. "I'm fine," he says. He barely contains a wince, and favours his left side. "I've done this plenty of times."

I toss my bag onto the floor next to his. "I don't care. I'm helping."

He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, chest expanding. Then he shuts the door – no, he shoves it into place, the bottom of the wood scraping along the floor – closing the two of us into this tiny room.

Nate turns back to me, and I can now see the circles under his eyes, the bruises, the cuts, all underneath the blood he hasn't been bothered to wipe away. "You want to help?" he says gruffly. He sits on the toilet and leans back against the cistern. "There's a needle and thread in my pack."

I feel his eyes on me as I kneel beside him and search through my stuff, then through his. I come back with the needle and thread and my near-full bottle of vodka. I twist the cap and toss it to the floor.

"Don't waste it on me," Nate says. From the corner of my eye I see the side of his mouth turn upward. "I'd rather drink it."

"Tough luck," I reply.

Nate huffs a laugh and closes his eyes. "Sounds like a plan." He truly looks exhausted, battered. But he deserved every single one of them bar the gunshot wound.

I clear my throat and realise I'm staring. Thank god his eyes are closed – but they crack open an inch at the sound of my voice. "Shirt off," I demand.

Nate drags himself forward, his body like jelly, not made up of muscle, tissue, bone, and blood. "Whatever the lady says." He moves to shrug off his jacket, but the material clings to him, the blood seeping from his shoulder acting as a glue.

"Oh, definitely."

He gets his right arm through the sleeve, and unfortunately can't get the other off without grunting and wincing. So I put the bottle of vodka on the floor and lean forward until all my weight is on my knees. I grab the collar and the sleeve just below the shoulder, just beneath the wound, and slowly peel back the jacket. Nate swears something colourful as the jacket finally comes off, and I toss it away.

Next it's his shirt, which clings to him like a second skin – perhaps one size too small, as the short sleeves are so tight around his biceps they look like they're about to explode out of it.

The knife I usually hide in my boot is in my pack, courtesy of Nate. I lean back against my heels beside him, beside the toilet. "I'm going to have to cut," I say.

He drags his gaze away from his shoulder to look at me. "Fine."

I grab the knife from my pack, and take a moment to think of how to approach what I need to do next. Obviously it's a moment too short, because as I shove the blade under the sleeve, it's right by the wound. I slice the blade upward.

I think he means to strike me so I jerk back, but all he does is grab his shoulder, blood seeping through his fingers from where the material gave way. He looks up at me then, chest heaving, and damn, could looks kill. "What the fuck?" he growls. He glares at me. "Jesus fucking Christ."

It's bad enough that he didn't ask me to be here in the first place, so I think it'll only make things worse if I admit I made a mistake and misjudged the whole thing. So I stay quiet and pull at the remains of his shirt, and tug it over his head before he can protest or say another word. His necklace – consisting of two silver rings – sits heavy against his skin.