I Amsterdam (Completed)

Chapter 8.2 - Brandon

I awoke to the copper taste of crispy, dried blood coating my lips, and the nasty stinging of my knuckles stripped bare of skin. My jaw suggested a sore, black bruise, and I didn't need a mirror to tell that my cheek was colored with a long, red scratch vibrating pain. With each forced breath I took, my lungs seemed to be collapsing in on themselves, folding and then unfolding in beat with my diaphragm. I groaned, and lifted my hands to look at the damage I put upon myself.

Soft, tender fingers brushed against my arm. "Don't," I heard Emma say. "It'll only hurt more. Just leave them." I followed her instructions.

My vision cleared. I was lying on my bed, and Emma sat by my side, with a bowl of water on my nightstand table. I was soothed by the sound of dripping water as she squeezed a drenched towel above the bowl, all her concentration on the task at hand. I felt my breath completely leave my body as I watched her.

She folded the damp towel and dabbed my face. "You got pretty angry there," she said.

I was so caught up in her elegance that it took me a moment to realize what she was talking about. Emma took the towel, now painted in my blood, back to the bowl of water, and I noticed a deep gash along her arm. Her knuckles were torn open slightly.

Regret immediately consumed me. "You're hurt," I said.

She didn't even glance at her wounds. All of her attention was on cleaning the towel of blood. "It's just a scratch."

"No, it's not," I argued. "Emma, you should go take care of that. Let me-," I moved to sit up, but agony soared through my body, and I groaned as I fell back down. Emma dropped her towel in the bowl with a plop, and her hand darted to my chest, gently holding me down. Her emerald eyes were fierce with worry. "No. Like I said, it's just a scratch. You, however, have got a bruised jaw, raw knuckles, a kick in the abdomen..."

"I'm so sorry," I apologized.

"It's not your fault," Emma said.

"Maybe, maybe not. But you didn't deserve to get hurt."

"Maybe I did," she said. She squeezed the towel once more and dabbed the blood around my cheek for so long I felt the warm water turn cold. I glanced up at her eyes to see them lost in her thoughts.

"Emma?"

She laid the towel down on the table, sighing. "I once got in a similar situation, too, you know? In a fight," she explained. "A close friend scolded me after, to be more careful, but I didn't pay attention to him. It was only when I saw you dive into Stefan that I realized what he meant. I realized what it's like seeing someone you care about put themselves so blatantly in danger because they weren't careful."

Something clicked in my head. "Was that the reason why you can home in an ambulance that evening?" I asked.

"Yeah, you were there?"

I nodded. "I was talking a walk outside after a disagreement with my parents. And I saw the ambulance outside your house."

"Small world," Emma said softly.

I smiled subconsciously. "You care about me?" I teased.

She looked at me, a smirk tugging her lips. "So what if I do?"

She continued dipping the towel in the bowl again, but after a moment, she let go, like its weight had suddenly become too heavy for her. She looked at me curiously. "What were those boys talking about?" she asked.

My mind raced with contradictory thoughts. Should I tell her? I wondered. She seems to understand almost anything about me, no matter what it is. She is still here, treating me, curing me, even after she saw the rebel side of me. But I was still so afraid that what I tell her would push her away from me.