Do you think Michael slept well because he came, or poorly because he bled everywhere?

I slept like shit. I wasn’t able to fall asleep for hours, I was too worried.

Worried about Vanessa. Worried about somehow being found out for peeping on my new friends while they fucked. Worried about the bomb in me. Worried about the **** in me. I only fell asleep once I started thinking about the worries that were far less pressing (global warming, dying alone, talking to women, etc.).

Too soon I heard my alarm blare. I was tempted to turn it off. Sleep in, call in sick to work. But, considering the updates on my work life, I didn’t know if I had that as a choice anymore.

I got up. I was hoping that me waking up and feeling like shit wasn’t going to stay a reoccurring event.

I sat up with a groan. My cuts stung. I needed a shower. I also probably needed disinfectant, but I was banking on the idea that if I ignored it, I wouldn’t get sick and die. Good plan, I know!

I peeked my head out of the door. I didn’t want anyone to see me with bloody rags wrapped around my body.

It was clear. I collected my upkeep supplies from my bag and quickly shuffled to the bathroom at the end of the hall. I’m sure I looked strange, boxers and bloody rags sprinting at an injured pace with shampoo and toothpaste in hand.

I burst into the bathroom and shut the door behind me.

Luckily, the room was empty. As exciting as walking in on a cute girl sounded, I don’t think it would lead to any sexy times. Likely, I would be outed as a bloody psycho and arrested.

I stripped down my boxers and started to peel away the rags. Overnight, they’d apparently decided they were part of me and had become part of the scabs.

I almost yelled when I tried to pull the first rag off. Instead, I whisper-yellled around a hundred curses under my breath. What did they do in the movies again? Bite down on something? Didn’t that keep fuckers quiet when they were asleep?

I looked around and saw my toothbrush. Probably not ideal, but I guess I can explain bit marks on a toothbrush better than a scream of pain in the bathroom.

I bit down on my toothbrush. I turned the shower on and stepped in. It was a smart idea too, I didn’t realize that tearing the make-shift bandages would re-open some of the wounds. Blood slowly leaked from a few different cuts, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as last time. How much blood could I lose before I needed to be worried? I yanked at all the rags until they were all off. I won’t admit how much I cried.

I showered. It hurt. Body wash stung as it touched my cuts. My eye and nose were better at least. After I was clean I just sat under the water for a long time. I’m not sure how long I would have stayed if there wasn’t a bang at the door.

“Hey, jackass! Quit jerkin’ off and using the hot water! You aren’t the only one with work, yaknow!”

Ava. It seems her attitude of me didn’t change since we last spoke. Unfortunate.

I finished up the shower and picked up all the rags. What do I do with these? Bloody, wet rags. I didn’t want to admit it, but I’m pretty sure some of my skin was attached to one.

I only had my dirty pair of boxers and a towel. I wrapped up the rags in the undies and wrapped the towel around my waist. I should have grabbed a shirt, dammit. My chest was where most of the scratches were.

Ava knocked again, harder this time.

Out of time. I’d have to wing it.

I excited the bathroom. Ava was leaning against the wall, holding her stuff and scrolling her phone. “I’m going to be late because of you, assho-“ she cut off as she looked up at me. “Holy shit, what’s with your chest?”

“Oh, these? Ha! Well, you see… kinky lady.” For some reason, my alibi required me to become Johnny Bravo. “Yeah, this chick I was with a few nights ago… she was wild, heh.”

Ava stared at me. She wasn’t buying it. “I thought the trope was scratching your back? Also, no way a ‘chick’ lets you do her in the back of a van, so let’s try again, eh? Because, from where I’m standing, those look like scratches made in self defense.”

I didn’t like where this was going. Ava seemed to be ramping up with a passion.

“In fact, it looks like someone attacked you. That, the fucked up eye and nose… I thought the mugging story sounded like bullshit, but now I’m certain. What did you do? Did you **** some girl? Or try, I should say; you clearly got your shit rocked.”

Oof. That was a bad look. Did I look the ****-y type? Perverted, sure, but ****?!

I also had to imagine that the girls didn’t want to room with someone who may-or-may-not be a ****.

“Okay, no! I… no. Not anything like that, I swear!”

Ava glared. “What, then?”

“I… I can’t say, okay?”

“You better say something, because, if not, I will make sure your ass is on the street in five minutes flat.”

Fuck. “Listen. I did this to myself, okay? Not the eye and nose shit, but the scratches. I promise, these are mine. I’ve never even had sex, much less **** it!”

Ava snorted. “TMI, man. Why the fuck would you do that to yourself? Bad mushroom trip?”

“No, nothing like that. Just… I can’t explain it without sounding like a psycho, so can we just let this go?”

“No, we can’t fucking let this go! Look at you!”

She walked over and inspected the wounds. I held my towel tight, wincing as she touched one of the deeper cuts on my chest.

“I’m a nurse, you know. You’d be surprised how much you pick up. I’m a damn detective at this shit.”

She grabbed my hand and started inspecting my fingernails. I hadn’t even considered them.

“Blood and skin. Fuck, you really did do this to yourself. What the hell-“ she stopped. She was looking at the floor.

When she’d grabbed my hands, she’d made me drop the boxers. Bloody rags littered the floor.

“My God, Michael, how much blood did you fucking lose? Why didn’t you go to a hospital?!”

“It’s not a big deal, really. I’m not even bleeding anymore.”

She huffed. “Follow me. I have supplies in my room.”

She pulled me to her room. I feel like we should have picked up the bloody rags and boxers, but that’s just me.

Jump ahead a few minutes and I was sitting on her bed in a towel while she tended my wounds. I winced and inhaled sharply every time she used the disinfectant.

“I’m sorry about all this. I didn’t mean to make you late for work.” I said. We’d been in an uncomfortable silence this entire time.

“It’s fine. Maybe next time don’t be a dumbass. Go to a hospital.” Ava started putting bandages (real ones, not my make-shift bullshit) on the cuts. She had a huge emergency kit in her room.

Her room was… sterile? White. White everywhere. Blindingly clean. She had cute little bunny plushes on her bed, but I didn’t think now was the time to tease.

She did have one non-white thing in the room: a poster. Some sort of metal band. Like, the hardcore shit. You know when you see a hardcore band’s and the font is so convoluted with its sharp points that you can’t decipher a single letter? That kind of metal band. It kind of looked like it said “VRTILVMNVRT7E”, but that didn’t seem right. The band members wore large black jackets and scary Leatherface-y masks. I couldn’t tell if the members were men, women, young, old, nothing. I’d say anonymity was the goal of the get-up, but they’d all signed their names on the poster. One had a heart under it.

Ava sighed. She was nearly done with me. “Okay. I… I want to apologize. I know I’ve been bitchy. I… I don’t actually think you’re, like, some ****. Sara has said nice stuff about you, it’s just… she’s…” she chewed her lip. “It’s not my place to say, but I don’t think she should make any judgement calls on anyone, especially dudes. I took out some shit on you that you didn’t deserve.”

“Oh. It’s alright.” I was kind of getting tired of women being cryptic and keeping details from me. At least in this case she’s keeping Sara’s secrets instead of her own.

“No, it’s not. You seem nice enough. If I really thought you were some bastard, I woudlnt let you in my room with nothing but a towel, yeah?” She smiled softly as she put the final bandage on. “Don’t get any ideas, though.” She said, poking one of my cuts. Ow. “How about this; we start fresh. I’ll try and be nicer, and in exchange you forgive me. I’ll let this weird injury slide, too. My guess is you tried some weird shit last night, and that’s why you didn’t go to a hospital.”

I was about to refute the claim, but she put her hand up to shush me.

“I don’t want a ‘yes’ or a ‘no’. I don’t care either way. I would just suggest not taking psychedelics in a creepy-ass room like that.”

She stood up and put her supplies away.

“Alright, now fuck off. I’m going to shower. You better hope I don’t get in trouble at work.” She was saying mean things, but this time they seemed to be as playful banter than genuine insults, based on the smile she wore.

She walked away. I was alone in her room. I didn’t stay, obviously. Why would I? This is a dumb paragraph.

I went to my room to get dressed for work, grabbing the bloody rags on the way.