Right Back On

Twenty-Two

On instinct, I dropped the heavy bag,--spilling the feed everywhere--screamed at the top of my lungs, and spun around. I knew for a fact that the hands on my arms weren't Blake's; hers were much smaller and her fingers weren't quite that strong. I also knew that they couldn't be Oakley's, because, once again, they were too big. Charlie and Tommy were out of the question since they were moving all of my brother's stuff to college an hour away. That only left a handful of other suspects, and, seeing as the very thought of one of them made me want to throw up, I blindly rammed my fist in the direction of what I assumed was their face.

While that description probably made it sound like the whole thing happened in slow motion, that was far from the truth. In reality, I dropped the bag, narrowly missing my foot, screamed and spun around in less than a single second. What really took the longest was punching this person. Blind with fear, I wasn't quite sure of where my target was supposed to be and it took what felt like forever to make contact with a nose, screaming bloody murder all the while.

"Holy shit, I know people think I'm an asshole right now, but I thought you were on my side!"

That definitely wasn't the voice I expected to hear.

And those definitely weren't the words I wanted coming out of that mouth. Oh, that poor mouth with blood dripping all over it...

"Hey, Coda! The guy who runs the Chinese food place gave me two extra fortune cookies! And I brought chopsticks and forks because I didn't know--holy fuck!"

Blake stopped dead in her tracks, almost dropping the three containers of Chinese food and handful of utensils that were balanced on top. Her gaze swiveled between the two of us in absolute shock. The blood drying quickly on my fist in the summer night explained what had happened, though she seemed unable to comprehend it. Apparently muttering profane rhetoric under her breath helped because she finally unrooted her feet from the trampled grass and set the pile of food she was holding on my show box.

"Um, do I even want to know why you're bleeding?" She questioned, carefully retrieving the hat I'd knocked to the ground. After brushing some dry grass off of the black felt, she placed it back on his head, having to stand on her tip toes.

Blood was still streaming from his nose as Blake adjusted the feather in the ornamental band of his now replaced headwear and then took a step back, hands on her hips.

"Well, are you two gonna tell me what's going on here?"

"Oh, God..." I muttered, eyes filling with tears. "Wyatt, I am so sorry... I didn't mean to punch you! I--I thought you were someone else, and..."

He brushed off my apology with one hand while wiping some of the blood away with the other.

"That's okay. Mind telling me who deserved to be punched in the nose for scaring you, if it wasn't supposed to be me?"

"That's a conversation for some Chinese food," Blake declared, handing him a wad of napkins and then assigning us each a white, styrofoam carton of noddles with various additions.

"Take the chair," I told Wyatt, feeling absolutely terrible. I parked myself on the gray show box with my noodles and honey walnut shrimp, though I was even less hungry than usual.

"So," Wyatt began again, "do I get to hear this story, or what?"

I sighed and dropped my head to my hands, mumbling out "it's a long one".