Breakdown (Crash into Me)

by Amanda Lance

  “No” I literally dug my heels into the ground. If I was going to be an immature kid, I may as well have gone all in with it. I pulled hard enough until he let me go. “I can’t. I won’t!”

  “Just look at your hand, Jumper!” You easily got a second degree there! You gotta get that checked out by a doctor.”

  “Not a chance. If I go to the hospital, the insurance might notify my mom and dad. I don’t even know if I have the card on me—”

  William shook his head, flabbergasted. “A free-clinic then!”

  “No. I’ll have to wait for three hours for basic first-aid. I can save myself the wait and take care of it at home.”

  “You live over an hour away.” He tapped the steering wheel impatiently, almost angrily, I thought. “I have some first-aid stuff at my place…”

  Being alone with William? In his place, where he lived and slept, where he probably had dreams about cars and naked girls? Why wasn’t that as appealing as it should have been? I poked at my rapidly blistering hand, trying to picture how it would look later on, if it would scar or if I would lose feeling there entirely.

  So maybe riding in another race tonight wasn’t very realistic, but if hanging out with William was the only alternative available to me I was glad to have it.

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “That could work.”

  “Okay.” He stopped his nervous tapping and leaned over me for the glove box, finalizing the surprises for the night by pulling out a lighter held to pack of cigarettes with a rubber band. “I don’t live too from here, so at least your hand won’t fall off—”

  “It isn’t that bad.” I poked at the red flesh again, feeling the pain as my nerves protested against the assault. Judging by the lack of pain in the center of my hand I thought maybe there was a third degree burn—the nerves partially destroyed by the fire. I clenched my hand until it formed a fist. Without explanation, the pain was not as invigorating as I expected, even close to being thrilling.

  His offer to help me, however, was.

  The place where William lived could truly only be described as a place. Poorly lit and with clothes scattered on various parts of the concrete floor, it reminded me of the back of an album cover—something grungy, with that 80’s metal twinge.

  Technically, I realized, it wasn’t even certifiable dwelling at all, just the basement of the Chinese restaurant from the corner.

  “The owner barely charges me at all,” William said, reading my mind. “Ah, watch your step there.”

  As instructed, I ducked to get inside the low entrance, instantly squinting at both the darkness and the smell.

  “In return I do some basic maintenance on the van they use for deliveries and the wife’s car. All my clothes end up smelling like kung pao…” While he scratched the back of his head and hurried to straighten the place up, I forgot about the pain in my hand, immensely enjoying his almost nervous smile. Still, I didn’t understand why anyone like William Do-gooder would feel self-conscious, especially in regard for someone like me. In a weird way though, I appreciated it and looked away, if only to be anymore rude or intrusive than I already was.

  “You don’t smell like kung pao,” I murmured. Not looking at him, I tried to take in the names of as many car magazines as I could and felt a slightly fascination to see a well-crafted beer bottle tree in the corner.

  “You, um, don’t have to clean or anything. Especially for me,” I was quick to add. “I’ve seen much worse.”

  Laughing, he used his forearm to swipe garbage into its container. “Kinda doubt that one, Jumper.”

  I smiled at a semi-fond memory. “Seriously. You should see the bakery Thanksgiving eve. I don’t think even FEMA could help that disaster area. Besides, this is your place. Who cares what I think if you’re comfortable?”

  William choked on a combination of air freshener and laughter. “I didn’t think of it that way. It’s just that I haven’t had a girl here in a long time. I always end up going to them.”

  Blushing furiously, I looked away and pretended to stare at a massive box of hot wheels and matchbox cars. “Well, it isn’t like we’re here for that.”

  “Right.” Swearing, and I think tossing the can of air freshener somewhere, the sound of William’s feet against the floor sounded panicked to me as he moved quickly. Mumbling apologies, he began digging through a closet attached to the small kitchen space, undoing all his good work that the brief cleaning session had done. Though my back was still turned to him, I saw envelopes being thrown like Frisbees, noisemakers, half-melted candles tossed aside, oil stained rags, and more than one tennis ball that bounced my way.

  When I turned, I saw William trying to lug an enormous backpack over his shoulder. Naturally, he did it in a single try, but the pretend look of strain on his face was almost enough to make me smile. Moreover, I appreciated his effort to try and cheer me up.

  “What is that?”

  He started walking and I followed, kicking tennis balls out of my way as necessary and trying to decipher the sound of yelling from the kitchen above.

  “In here, Jumper, is everything you could possibly ever need to survive a nasty night and then some. Now come on, let’s have a look at the damage.”

  William led me into a bathroom that was only about half as disgusting as I imagined, though just as small. Not wanting to seem snobbish, I sat on the end of the tub as instructed, where I was slightly surprised when he came to sit close next to me.

  “Okay,” he sighed. “Let’s see it.”

  With a certain amount of reluctance, I gave over my hand. But for all his brass talk of sex and cars, his rough friends and blue collared profession, William was completely gentle, holding the back of my hand like it was a something precious. I watched his face while he examined my palm, how the expression between his eyes changed when he turned my inner hand towards the bathroom light. Then, when his rough thumb ran just slightly over my wrist, I watched the twitch of his lip. Maybe if I had been better with men, I would have been able to read exactly what was going on behind those late summer eyes of his, but as it was I couldn’t, and the frustration of it sent fresh throbs of pain to my hand.

  I cleared my throat obnoxiously. The sound of my voice startled him and he dropped my hand as gently as he had taken it. “What’s the verdict?”

  William looked up at me wryly. “We’re going to have to amputate.”

  “Hardy har har.” I reached for the faucet and turned it on cold. “I’m in stitches over here.”

  “Ah ha.” William sat up and dragged the backpack over. “I see what you did there.”

  The water felt incredibly good on my injured hand. Not Rush worthy, but if I was honest with myself, I should have run cold water fifteen minutes earlier. And as it was, the sharp pain was starting to slowly subside.

  “Here.” William handed me two small pink pills. “These will help too.”

  I swallowed them dry, not willing to take my hand from the cold water for even a second.

  Sighing, William shook the hair from his eyes as he sat on the toilet seat lid. “Now how do you know I haven’t just roofied you or something?”

  I shrugged and leaned my head on the light switch behind me. From this angle I could see his messy blond hair better and stare openly at the muscles of his arms through his shirt while he riffled through the first-aid backpack. “I don’t know—have you?”

  “No, but—” The sound of something slamming in the backpack startled me. My hand flinched away from the water. The second I realized it I put it back in. “Damn it, Jumper! Are you trying to give me gray hair?”

  “Why would I do that?” I laughed. “I like your hair just the way it is.”

  “Then use your head.” He sighed. “You’re too smart to be doing dumb shit.”

  I floated on the compliment for a good three minutes while he sorted through the mess of a backpack, throwing away empty boxes of band-aids and what I guessed were expired medicines. Finally, when I grew bored with my own thoughts and
the sound of pots and pans from above, I spoke up, curiosity and pain killers starting to get the best of me.

  “I—how’d you know this was a second degree?” I didn’t have to gesture to my hand for both of us to know what I was talking about. “I mean, I knew it was a second degree, but how did you? Have you had medical training or something?”

  “Nah.” He looked back up at me and smiled. Still, I told myself that weakness in my knees had to have been from the pain in my hand. “I did a couple semesters at a junior college, but that wasn’t for me. I only know some of this stuff because I’ve been in so many accidents myself.”

  Accidents? The word alone made me feel jittery, but somehow I got the feeling that it didn’t mean the same thing to me that it did to William. While I would call a fender-bender an accident, he would probably consider that a regular part of his weekend routine.

  “You don’t look like you’ve been in any accidents.”

  Nodding, he put down a wrap of gauze and pulled up the side of his shirt. A lump formed in my throat at the sight of the definition I saw there, the clear-cut muscle splashed with thin white lines.

  “See these?”

  I nodded. “Uh-huh.”

  “Crashed my first car into a post-office when I was seventeen—chunks of the windshield got me pretty good.”

  I counted to five before making myself look away. After all, how much longer could I stare before it would be considered outright gawking? “Wow. What else you got?”

  Smiling still, he rolled up his gray shirt sleeve and pointed out a long red scar, almost impossible to see beneath the tattoo of a Route 66 sign. Surrounding it, colorful blue stars, black aces, Celtic symbols, and random pieces of machinery went as far as my eyes could see. As he rotated his wrist, I could see a heart surrounded in bright orange flames. Though maybe I should have expected it, I wasn’t ashamed to admit that the sleeve of tattoo surprised me a little—though why exactly I could not say.

  “A sore loser,” William said, pointing out the scar to me “After one of my first races.”

  I titled my head to the side, studying a gear shift on his other arm. “I didn’t know knife fights and tattoos could be accidents,” I teased.

  “You don’t like them?” The painkillers must have had me by then, because for a second I could have sworn he sounded disappointed. William shook his head at me but still smiled. “What else am I supposed to do with all the scars I get?”

  I shrugged. What could I say? While his tattoos definitely made him more attractive—an issue I was going to have to explore with myself later—I wasn’t going to beg him to see more. But I did ask myself how I could have gone a week without seeing his arms, not to mention how he could afford such extensive tattoo work on a mechanic’s salary.

  “Hey, you.” He nudged me. “Get that hand out of the water so it can dry.”

  Chapter Ten

  With the cold water and pain killers, my hand was pleasantly numb, tingling just a little at the fingertips. I used my right hand to shut off the faucet, feeling the slightest twinge of guilt for possibly running up William’s water bill. Grimacing, I shook out both of my hands and looked away. I was glad now that I had bought the car shaped cookie-cutters. After all this, I would definitely owe William a little something.

  Without warning, he snaked his arms against me—almost required in the ridiculously small bathroom—and turned on the faucet again before grabbing the bar of soap below the medicine cabinet.

  “You really do know your first-aid,” I teased.

  William looked up at me and smiled. “Trial and error, Jumper. If you behave yourself…” He dried his hands on a paper towel and reached for my hand. “I’ll show you the scars from the dog bite that ended up getting infected.”

  “Oh, goody!” I focused on my pretend excitement as best I could, a welcome distraction from the cold goo he applied to my hand, and the silent wish the scars in question were somewhere on his thigh.

  “How did you get bit by a dog? I suppose that was an accident too?”

  Smiling still, he tossed the Q-tip he used to apply the ointment. When I saw how easily it landed in the wastebasket, I smiled.

  “Cora liked to bring home strays. I was too little to understand taking food away from a starving dog was a bad idea.”

  I flinched at the feel of gauze on my hand and the sound of another girl’s name on his lips.

  “Cora?”

  “My second oldest sister,” he said simply. Finished wrapping my hand, William secured the gauze with a thin piece of medical tape. When he took my wrist his smile grew wider, clearly satisfied with his work. I, however, pulled away.

  “Your parents didn’t take you to the doctor?” I asked. “Antibiotics? Rabies shots?”

  William laughed a little as he let my wrist go. Not at all offended like I thought he might be, he leaned over to start putting things back in the backpack.

  “She had gotten in trouble for bring animals home before.” He chuckled fondly at a memory I couldn’t see. “She knew she’d get reamed out if she got caught with another one, so she begged me to keep quiet, bribed me with hot wheels and candy.”

  I ended up smiling just a little. That, was easy enough to picture. “Do-gooding runs in the family then?”

  William’s smile fell as he zipped up the final compartment of the backpack. “Nah, Jumper. Not always…”

  I hated the change in his demeanor just then, how his body tensed and how his dimples disappeared like a runaway teenager at a train station. And while it did affect his general appearance, my dislike did not revolve around that particular aspect. Instead, my hate had more to do with the tension he gave off, and the darkness that his eyes possessed, not to mention to obvious unhappiness in him.

  Feeling brave—I blamed this one the bright pink pills—I reached my good hand up slowly until the nail of my index finger was floating just along the edge of the thin scar by his ear. After everything he had done to make me feel better, this was the least I could do. “And this one?”

  Faintly, he smiled, looking at me just from the corner of his eye. “Bar fight.”

  “I presume you won?”

  Now he smiled until his dimples showed completely. I felt myself relax too, not even aware that I had been tensed up. “Even if I didn’t, I’d tell you I had. Speaking of scars…” William continued to smile as he stood up, easily picking up the backpack once again and slinging it over his shoulder. “I show you mine you show me yours?”

  Shaking my head, I walked out of the bathroom in front of him so he couldn’t see me smile. “That isn’t very gentlemanly of you, William.”

  Taken aback, he feigned offense, dropping the backpack where he stood. “When have I ever given you the impression that I was a gentleman?”

  I looked away to smile again. “Good point.”

  I continued to smile even as he shoved the first-aid backpack into the closet, and I tested the springs of the shifty looking couch with my arms. Even as I did this, however, I got the feeling that I was intruding, my invite worn out now that my intended purpose there was served.

  I brought my bandaged hand to my chest and held it close.

  “You’re really not going to show me any scars, Jumper? Tattoos? Anything?”

  Coming up from behind me, William plopped himself on the couch and kicked off his sneakers, instantly comfortable. When I did not react likewise, he looked up at me and frowned a little. Still holding my hand close, I responded to his silent request and sat beside him, smiling at his smile.

  “I don’t have any tattoos,” I said finally. “And most of my scars are on the inside. All very cliché I’m afraid.”

  “Nothing about you is cliché, Jumper.” He leaned closer and wiggled a single eyebrow. “But I bet all your scars are prettier than mine.”

  I smiled freely, running the nail of my index finger up and down the gauze on my hand and now wishing I had been bold enough to touch William’s face when I had the chance. If he had rebuked
me I could have pretended my hand hurt too much to notice I was being inappropriate, openly blamed my boldness on the painkillers he had given me…

  “How’s your hand feeling anyway, Jumper? You want some more Advil?”

  Damn. Maybe I couldn’t have blamed my behavior on the painkillers.

  “No, thanks.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t feel too bad.”

  “Why’d you do it then?” he asked suddenly. “Want some scars for the outside?”

  I could tell he was trying to make me smile, but I couldn’t. Instead, I looked away in shame at the way I had behaved in front of William’s friends. While not intending to, I had undoubtedly embarrassed him around the elite group. It was doubtful, but the idea that my destructive behavior could have somehow diminished the respect other people held for him made me queasy.

  “I’m sorry I ruined your night. I didn’t mean—”

  He brushed off my apology with a wave and a smile. “You didn’t ruin anything, Jumper, don’t worry about it. It’s you I’m worried about.”

  I bit hard on my lip, truly believing if I let myself talk I might tell him everything, crawl right out of my skin and expose myself completely. I stayed silent.

  “Okay, Jumper, I’ll tell you what. I-I won’t ask you to spill your guts, tell your life story or anything. But you gotta tell me why you did what you did tonight.” William sighed and propped his feet up on dingy coffee-table covered in scratches. When I still said nothing he tried again. “Just give me some… explanation, okay? Make me feel better about taking you home, Jumper. Because, I gotta say, I don’t feel real comfortable leaving you alone right now.”

  In a way I wanted to laugh. If I never spoke up would he stay with me forever? How weird would it be to be stuck in William O’Reilly’s place for the rest of my life? To bake and grow old with him as my human antidepressant?

  If I didn’t think I would be such an inconvenience, I would have been tempted.

  “I-like I said before, I just started feeling things again; things other than sad anyway. I guess I got a little paranoid it would just go away again. That ride was so amazing… ” I sighed, looking up and away at the happy, familiar memory. Unfortunately, the memory wasn’t enough to give me a rush, and when I realized it I looked back down at my wrapped hand. “I know it wasn’t logical, I even knew it when I put my hand over the fire, but I sort of had the theory that if I hurt myself I could make the adrenaline keep going, at least for a little while longer.”