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“I’m sorry,” he said, as if bewildered, though I wasn’t sure if his bewilderment was at my actions or his own. “God, I’m so sorry—the wine—I just—”
“It’s fine,” I said tightly, though I wasn’t sure if it really was. “We were both—look, I get it. We’re drunk, we’re both grieving—” My throat tightened. And the thing was, I could see how it might be true, for him as well as me. How that longing, that desperate longing for Gabe might turn into reaching for the person who had been closest to him. But Cole was with Noemie, and I—what even was I? His best friend’s widow?
“I’m sorry,” he said again. He reached out, but I took a step back, involuntarily, and his face crumpled as though he was hurt. “I’m so sorry. I’ll sleep in the car.”
“Don’t be silly,” I said. “You’ll freeze.”
“I’ll put the heater on.”
“You can’t leave the heater on all night, the battery will run down. Come on, Cole. We’re both adults, we”—you, I thought, though I didn’t say it, but then it was true that at first, at least, I had kissed him back—“just made a mistake. We don’t have to let it ruin our friendship. I’ve got a sleeping bag—I’ll sleep on the floor.”
“No,” Cole said at that, his voice emphatic. “No. If anyone’s sleeping on the floor, it’s me. I’m sorry—I was—I don’t know what I was thinking, Jack. I was just confused. And I—”
He stopped.
“Yes?” I asked. I felt—I don’t know. Confused, but also sorry for him. But he shook his head.
“Never mind.” He pulled his phone out of his pocket, looked at it, and then sighed. “Look, it’s nearly midnight. Let’s get some sleep. And I’m going on the floor, okay? I don’t want to hear anything more about it.”
For a minute I thought about arguing—but then I gave in and nodded. Cole would be going home tomorrow, to a proper bed and a mattress. He could take one night on the floor.
“Okay.”
For the next few minutes there was silence, while Cole unrolled my sleeping bag across the floor, and I pulled out the couch. I hadn’t tried to unfold it the night before; I’d simply slept across the cushions, and now I struggled with the mechanism. It came with a bang, sliding out unexpectedly and hitting me in the ribs. The blow wasn’t hard, but it fell exactly over the place where I’d sliced myself on top of the wall, and a hot wave of pain shot through me, making me cry out and drop the sofa bed, holding my hands over the dressing.
“Jack?” Cole said, straightening with a puzzled expression from where he was unzipping the sleeping bag. “What—are you okay?”
I couldn’t speak. I could only stand there, my hand pressed to my side, making a movement that wasn’t quite a nod or a shake and trying not to whimper with the pain.
“Jack, what the fuck?” Cole came across, alarmed now.
I could feel something hot trickling down my side from beneath the dressing. Shit.
“I’m… okay,” I managed. The pain was receding, back to the low throbbing ache I was starting to get accustomed to. “I’m okay. I cut myself… climbing a wall. The couch just… it just caught me on the tender bit.”
“Jack, no. You’ve gone gray. This isn’t—let me see.”
I shook my head. I wasn’t taking my top off in front of Cole, not after what had nearly happened between us, but he must have read my thoughts, for his expression grew set and a little impatient.
“For God’s sake, Jack, I’m not going to jump your bones, if that’s what you’re worried about. Yes, I was stupid for a moment, I’m not denying that. But you don’t nearly faint from just getting scraped in the side by a couch; that’s not normal. Show me what happened.”
I closed my eyes. Then, reluctantly, I pulled up my T-shirt.
The first thing I saw was that the dressing—two days old now—was dark with old blood. More blood, fresh and red, was trickling out from beneath one corner. Cole gave me a look as if to say, Can I? And when I nodded, he began to peel back the wet corner of the dressing. I shut my eyes, feeling the pain intensify as the sticky edges pulled on the wound, but I could still hear Cole’s shocked intake of breath as the dressing came clear.
“Oh Jesus, Jack… This… this doesn’t look good.”
I opened my eyes.
“What do you mean?”
I peered down at my side, trying to see past the bunch of rolled T-shirt Cole was holding in his free hand. In the other was the blackened, crusted dressing.
What I saw made acid nausea rise at the back of my throat.
The wound hadn’t healed. It was still the same small, malignant puncture, just below my rib. But now the sides were puffy and swollen with the white, unhealthy look of flesh that’s soaked too long in the bath. And the liquid that oozed gently out of the hole was a mix of blood and something more unsettling, a kind of sticky white fluid that didn’t smell great.
“You need to get this treated.”
