Divot

You swallow, the air is thick even though you’re outside. Fuck fuck fuck. You need to fix this. Fix it now.

You realize you’re drenched in her blood. “Ah.. ah..!” You flick your hand, red rolls off of your fingertips. You drag it along your pants and shake your head. “I-.. I .. Mal-” You groped around for words, while picking the small girl up. “Its not that bad! I mean, he got you pretty good. But its not deep enough that it won’t heal. You won’t need stitches.”

Your heart drops as you watch her head loll to the side, cheek against your chest. The way she looks up at you, its like she’s staring at a stranger. In just a few minutes you became someone she doesn’t even want to know. You try to explain yourself.

“I just thought you.. you looked sad. And I wanted to cheer you up, that maybe Captain would get you to play.” You stumble into the house, shifting her into your left arm as you open the door, making sure not to bump her head into the door frame. You take her to the bathroom and stoop to your knees, placing her on the tiled floor as gently as you possibly could, then pull a med kit out from underneath the sink.

“I riled him up too much I guess… I…” Your eyes bounce between her and the kit. Enough explaining. You need to fucking fix this already. You sigh and pop it open, grabbing a plastic bottle and unscrewing it.

Mal throws her head back, knocking it against the bathroom wall- hissing and twitching in your grasp as you pour rubbing alcohol into her. You watch the liquid collect in her wound, drip down her shaking leg. Mal jitters, a whimpering rasp rings in your ear and guilt boils in your marrow.

You were just trying to make her feel better. Messing around.. you didn’t mean to- you..
...you know you get nothing out of lying to yourself.

“I... didn’t think he’d do that.” The words hardly come out of your mouth as you grab a cotton ball, dragging it across the wet pink divot Mal had obtained from your bullshit. White fluff clings to her sticky flesh like a cobweb as you pull it away. Tossing it and looking for a good band aid in the med kit.

The sound of her breath, curling and shaking in the air.. It makes your stomach burn. You’re lucky. This gash could’ve been three billion times worse. He only got her on the leg with the very tips of his claws. It could’ve been her face, her stomach… You don’t know what the hell you were thinking. You were getting frustrated and she wasn’t responding, so of course you had to do something stupid.

You grab a box and plop it into your lap. You’re pulling the band aid wrap out of its packaging when she finally responds.

“it’s okay” her voice is so forced yet so weak. You quickly glace up to check on her, as soon as you meet her gaze you look back down out of shame. Your head feels hot, almost dizzy. Its not okay. This isn’t okay. You’ve always… messed with her. Plenty of times, and before it was okay. But this wasn’t like any of those other times.
You did it on purpose.

“Really… I’m okay…” Your skin prickles. Her voice melts into her shuddering so much so that you’re not even sure she said anything at all- those words nothing but a light airy moan from the air hitting her sensitive exposed flesh. But she puts a hand over yours, and you know its real.

You drag your tongue against the roof of your mouth, your throat feels like it could close up. For a moment you don’t know if she was trying to comfort you, or herself. But you know her well enough to know she’s only saying it for you.

You think about the way she was curled up at the base of the tree, like a little mushroom feeding off of dead bark. You felt so pissed off, seeing her so disinterested. So nothing. You don’t know why you get that way. It all just simmers under your skin, it makes you uncomfortable, so uncomfortable that you need to put an end to it. You have to get it out.

You stare into the pink of Mal’s leg.

You remember riling Captain up.
Ordering him to go after her.

You remember him getting too rowdy, too rough.
Her laying on the ground, crying.

You remember standing over her, blood soaking the grass.
You bent down and-

You wrap her leg up.

You wrap her leg up.
And then you leave.

Its hard to think, really hard to think…
I’m not mad, I think I’m just.. uh… really confused? What she said sort of makes sense.
Kat said she thought that I was sad, and that she wanted to make me feel better.
She figured that if I didn’t want to play, that Captain could make me want to play.
She riled him up, a bit too much.. and when he went to play with me he hurt me by accident.

But... that really doesn’t explain why-

I hiss, squeezing my eyes shut when Kitty pours the medicine on my cut. “ah..ah..ahh..oww..ooww...hh…” I shake and Kat grabs me a little harder to keep me still. The medicine is somehow cold and hot at the same time, dripping so far down my leg that it soaks my sock. I twitch, and try to pull my leg away, but Kat keeps me in place. It hurts so bad that I bite my lip open..

Kat mumbles under her breath, and I barely hear her before I try to buck away again. She digs a little cotton tail into my cut. I suckle my lip and the taste gives me comfort. Its like a smaller, more manageable version of the cut on my leg. I can focus on this, and I’ll be okay...

I poke my tongue into it, and imagine I’m a kitten, licking over my wound.

I’m quiet for a while, shuddering and trying to focus. The cold tile soothes me a little bit, Kat was too rough, way too rough with me and I can still feel it ache even though she’s grabbing something else now. As the pain slowly goes away, I remember that she said something to me. 'I... didn’t think he’d do that.'

I take a breath, such a big breath that my ribs hurt. “Its okay…” the air all comes out, I feel blood rolling down my lip as I sigh.

Kat’s head tilts up towards me, I look back at her and slowly lick up the blood, pushing my tongue into the small notch in my lip. She does a double take, then stares back down fast as if she was suppressing a reflex.

“really… I’m okay.” I repeat and her claws poke into my leg. She grips harder and harder, like she doesn’t believe me. Like I’m lying. I whimper, and reach out to touch her hand, squeezing it. It takes a moment, but she eases up on me.

Kat looks into my cut for a few moments longer, then starts to wrap me up.

I breathe, she caps the plastic bottle and starts putting everything away. I still don’t know what to think. My stomach feels hot, when I think about what happened.

My room felt a bit stuffy and warm, and I wanted some cool air. I grabbed a blanket and took it outside, setting it up underneath the big oak tree next to the house. I was looking up at the leaves, watching them slowly swish.. everything was so calm and pretty.. I remember starting to doze off... then the next second I was crying. Everything hurt.

Captain had knocked into me, grabbed me in his big beak and thrashed me around. It was just so fast- I don’t know exactly when it happened but I heard a weird sound, and my leg felt like it was on fire...
I was on the ground. Rolling, squeezing my knees to my chest.. my heart felt like it was beating too fast for my body..

Kat walked over, my vision was blurry but I saw her snap at him to back off. She looked down at me. My knee sock was ripped, but some of the fabric was stuck in my cut, that was gushing out all over the grass… I felt like I was going to die from how much I was bleeding… she bent down.. and grabbed me… she pulled my sock down my leg and watched the blood pour out… and she…

I can't stop thinking about it. My body vibrates, my mind spins.
Kat accidentally brushes against my bandages again, and I gasp.
I gasp every time she touches me.

I try to find something to say.

‘why did you do that?’ too accusatory.
‘please, can you do it again?’ too desperate.

“Why.. are you acting like nothing happened?”

Kat slowly cranes her head towards me, like she can’t believe I even spoke. Suddenly, she grabs me by my shoulders and slams me into the wall.

I freeze.

Her breath is ragged, her claws dig into me. She stares at me. For so long. She tilts her head, and I can hear my knit sweater give out a small cry as she plucks her claws out of it. Kat slides up her face mask, her eyes are sharp. I feel like a wounded mouse in the talons of a hawk. I can still see the smear of rusted red on her lips, on her chin. All over her face.

“Kitty… I-” she muffles me, she muffles me with a kiss and slides her tongue against the notch in my lip. She grabs my sides and I am absolutely nothing in comparison to her. She takes all the air in my lungs, she digs her claws into my hips and rolls on top of me. Suckling my bottom lip into her mouth..

I can’t do anything but gasp.

She pulls away, and I’m laying flat on the floor. I’m too fuzzy to think of anything to say, all I know is I don’t want her to go... I wrap my legs around her hips. She stares at me with her mouth slightly open. I can hear the way her breathing stops, then starts again in a shudder, a shiver. Was she surprised? It's still so hard to read her even without her face mask on. Her fingertips press against my ankle, holding it. She leans forwards again but something in her stutters. Kat’s eyes go wide and she shoves me, flips her mask back down then gets up and leaves. She leaves me.

I turn on my side, and press my cheek against the tile.

My mind cycles back.

‘why did you do that?’

‘Please, can you do it again?’