the thing about revenge

18 g h t e e n : nurse emily and roberto

"Asher." I kicked his toe with mine before my eyes widened in horror. His knuckles were bloody and he was shirtless, only donning a hoodie that was absolutely no protection against the cold. His plain white t-shirt had been cast aside with bloodstains on it.

So the rumors were real. Asher was really a-

He groaned and I scrambled to action. I ran to the car and flicked through the compartments until I found the first aid kit I was looking for. I grabbed it and ran back to him. I took ahold of his face and lifted his hoodie. The tears threatened to fall from my eyes. The blood...I shuddered. I closed my eyes and kept on blinking until the tears went away. I scrutinized his face again. His lip was cut up and the side of his mouth was bruised. There was a purple spot blooming at the corner of his eye and his hair was wet. There was a thin layer of sweat that covered his face and his entire shirtless body (not that I was checking him out or anything).

I heard Asher got into fights as often as he changed the girls he carried on his arm (which trust me, is very often). But this was my first time noticing firsthand the kind of damage those fights actually did to him.    

I lifted his face gingerly in my hands and his eyes jerked open. He was very sensitive for someone who looked half dead. However, he couldn't quite seem to focus on me and kept squinting.

"What are you doing here?" He croaked out.

"I'm looking for my cat." I rolled my eyes as I touched the tip of my finger to his lip.

"So, you own a zoo now?" He half-joked. If he felt any pain at all, he did not let on.

"No, but I'm saving you. So I would greatly appreciate if you could just shut the hell up." I huffed.

"I didn't ask to be saved." He mumbled but stayed still and shut up anyways.

I wet the cotton wool with alcohol and dabbed it gently on his open wound. He hissed loudly, stomach muscles clenching. I could see the goosebumps that were forming on his exposed skin. I shrugged off my coat and wrapped it around him.

"No. It's cold. You wear that." He argued.

"Could you please just?" I said, annoyed. He was the one shirtless in October.

"I'm not cold." As if to not back that information up, he shivered.

"You obviously are. So just take the goddamn thing!" I said as I shoved the coat at him. He finally, and very reluctantly pulled it across his shoulders while grumbling.

"You owe me an explanation. Why are you injured?" I asked softly as I started to tend to the wounds on his eye. He looked at me with those blue eyes and smiled a crooked half-smile which looked like it took a lot of effort.

"Why don't you make a guess, love?" He said lowly as his eyelids fluttered shut.

"Gang fight."

"Hmm."

"Is it not?"

"Hmm."

"Stop!"

"Hmm."

"Ugh."

"Hmm."

Only then did the pair of boxing gloves that laid next to him catch my eye. His haversack sat loyally beside him.

"Oh. You were at a boxing tournament." I said dumbly. All the rumors of Asher being some sort of mafia gang leader were wrong. That would have been so cool, though (if he didn't shoot me first).

"You participate in underground boxing." I continued when I saw the half-smile again. We were too young to participate in legitimate ones anyway.

"I bet you suck," I commented unhelpfully. He smirked and then winced. He slowly tilted to his side and shoved his hand into the pocket of his sweat pants, pulling out a shiny silver medal. Who knew underground boxing had so much budget?