Pipe Burst Guest novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: Two in the Morning

At two in the morning I was still dressed, sitting on the edge of a bed in a hotel that belonged to me.

I had not turned on a lamp.

I could hear the river through the glass, and under it a low rumble from the service elevator.

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw a thin man with a boy's ears laughing on a dock.

I stood up and crossed the sitting room in my stocking feet.

I knocked on the door of the second bedroom before I let myself think about it.

Nico opened it at once, with his shirt unbuttoned and his phone in his hand.

He had not been sleeping either.

"Marisa," he said.

"I can't be in there."

He stepped back and let me in.

He put the phone face down on the dresser, and I noticed that, and decided not to notice.

"Sit," he said.

I sat on the edge of his bed, and he knelt in front of me and looked at my knees.

My stockings were torn through, and under them the skin was scraped raw from the concrete at the pier.

I had knelt on that concrete in front of Aurelio and had not felt it until now.

"You didn't say anything," Nico said.

"It's nothing."

"It's bleeding on your hem."

He went into the bathroom and came back with a towel, a bottle of whiskey and the first aid kit from the cabinet.

"That's good whiskey," I said.

"It's the only disinfectant I trust."

He wet a corner of the towel and took hold of my leg behind the knee, to hold it still.

His palm was warm and rough against a place nobody had ever thought to touch.

I had not known the back of my knee could feel anything.

I looked at the wall, because I did not know where else to look.

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