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xxviii August is a Prayer
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Pacing pointlessly around the small, dimly-lit room was to Blair as calming as it was excruciatingly painful. She did so for three minutes, then seven, then fifteen. By twenty-one she had crumbled onto the unsteady chair pushed against the corner of the room with her hand pressed to her side, and there were bruises in the shape of calloused hands everywhere the eyes could see.
When the doctor had confirmed that the eldest Cameron girl's breathing had gone back to a semblance of steady, John B had fell into Blair though he had expected it to be the other way around. The boy went limp into the arms of his best friend, knees smashed harshly with the dirty floor, mouth pressed into her bare shoulder, smudged with dry blood and sweat. Her fingers had threaded through his hair as her back collided with the wall. Though it had hurt her like hell, she didn't find the energy in her to scream.
She couldn't keep it in anymore. Whimpers spilled from her lips as she peeled back the fabric of her shirt, her fingertips stained a vivid crimson. Someone besides her shifted; she prayed it wasn't John B.
"Strong of you to keep that under wraps," the doctor said. They looked across the room to find John B with his head buried in Sarah's shoulder. Blair bit her tongue as his hand hovered over the bloody graze. "It's not lethal, but you still need to cover it before it gets infected."
She shook her head. "I'm fine. Go check on Sarah."
"Your sister's stable, little girl," he sighed, "you are not. You're pale and your hands are shaking even more than they did before," he pointed out. But what was she supposed to say, admit she was in excruciating pain? "Let me take care of it," the doctor added, and when he realized that she was hiding it from her companions all along, swore they wouldn't notice.
"Thank you," she whispered and nodded, and vanished for a minute to grab a metal compartment from under a table. She leaned back into the chair and shut her eyes.
He cleaned the wound with a (surprisingly) sterile wipe and placed a thick square of gauze on it. Once it had stopped profusely bleeding, he threw the piece out and replaced it, before securing it against the crook of her hip. When she opened her eyes, she caught sight of a small white pill in the palm of his hand, extended towards her face as he stood in front of her, hovering. "For the pain," he explained, "I'll give you a few, but you should take them with food. It'll prevent infection but it might make you nauseous."
Blair didn't care: blossoming spots of blue and purple on her stomach had done that already. She grabbed the pill and placed it on the tip of her tongue, then drowned a glass of water the doctor offered her before shoving the box of remaining pills (only seven) in her back pocket. The instant relief made her breath hitch in her lungs. Perhaps it had been mental. She scraped her hands through her hair as the doctor called John B away from Sarah and tried to hide her distress as well as she could, wiping her hands against the back of her dirtied shorts.
