Emotionless

“Molly?” a smooth voice called from behind the three of us. I turned onto my stomach, wiping away the tears as I looked towards the darkness to see who was shouting after Molly. Emerging from the thick black, Matt came strolling into the park with Jimmy and Brian hot on his tail. Pippa and Molly turned onto their tummies as well, lying on my sides as we all looked towards the three huge men walking towards us. I gulped, sitting up on the ramp and sliding down on it quickly as I grabbed my board and made a dash for the side exit before Matt could do something to me.

There were voices behind me, but I ignored them. I wasn’t about to hang around and get beaten up. I ran faster and harder, my aching legs pounding against the asphalt of the pavement as I sprinted towards my apartment. Passing by the bar, I seemed to have had a black out or something because I was suddenly on my butt, skidding across the asphalt. My calves were sticky with blood, my elbows stinging painfully and my head throbbing after I’d whacked it on the floor. There was a gasp and hands on my body instantly, one of them holding my hand and the other around my waist.

“Whoa, are you alright- Keeley?” I looked up, trying to stand on my own but my knees were shaking violently and blood was coating my legs. My board, smashed and splintered, lay next to me on the asphalt, a sharp agony in my leg with a piece of wood jutting from the muscle. I screamed. I shrieked. There was a huge piece of wood in my leg, that’s why I couldn’t stand up and that’s why I had blood all over my legs. “Shit, Keeley, calm down. Look at me, okay? Don’t look at your leg, concentrate on me.”

I was lifted into the air, wincing and moaning about the pain as someone held me close to their body. Damn my clumsiness. When I did manage to look away from my leg, I saw Zacky trying to smile down at me, but it faltered. I could see the fear in his eyes, I could taste the anxiety radiating off his body. “It hurts,” I whined childishly, hiding my face within Zacky’s neck as he sighed. Each step he took shot pain through my leg. I could feel the wood delving deeper and deeper into my flesh, I could even feel it moving with each jolt.

“I know, baby, I wish I could make it better. Just try and concentrate on me, okay? Don’t look down, promise?” Zacky said, stopping for a moment to stare deep into my eyes. I was in too much pain to even think about talking back to him in a sharp tone or tell him off for calling me ‘baby’ so I just nodded with a quivering bottom lip. “Okay, I’m gonna get you to a hospital and we’ll get you fixed. I need you to keep your leg as still as you can or it’ll go even deeper.” I nodded again, obeying his every word. A kiss was pressed against my forehead, the sound of a car bleeping hitting my ears.

I hated hospitals. They were just too clean. There was a nurse by my side, her curly blonde hair being pulled back tightly into a neat bun at the back of her rounded face. She had dull grey eyes misted with tiredness. When she slid her gloves on, she snapped them with a lazy smile over at me. I felt like screaming and squirming away but she held my leg down. So, I screamed as loud as I could. Zacky ran into the room, the nurse pulling away with a shocked expression. “Calm down, dear,” she said with wide eyes, “I’m only going to clean up the grazes on your calves and elbows. But, it’s okay to be scared.”

“I’m not scared,” I whimpered, clutching tightly to the bed sheets as Zacky sighed. Loosening one of my hands from the sheets, he twisted his fingers into mine and smiled reassuringly at me. He pulled up a seat next to the bed, kissing my hand softly as I just stared at him in wonder. Zacky just smiled back at me, rubbing his thumb along me hand before I hissed as that bitch of a nurse put something on my elbow instead. “I’m not scared.” My force was a little more forceful this time. I tried to pull my hand away, but Zacky kept a tight grip and quirked an eyebrow, challenging me.

I narrowed my eyes on him before gripping onto his hand just as tightly as the nurse pinched at the skin of my arm. That hurt. There were little dripping sounds as the nurse dropped things into a little plastic tray on the bedside table, every so often a sharp sting as she wiped what seemed like a damp cloth over the wound. “Almost done with this one, honey. Then your boyfriend can swap with me, he seems to have a calming effect on you.”

“He’s not my boyfriend,” I seethed with a wince as she swiped that fucking rag across my arm again. Zacky looked a little pained when I said that statement, but kept his eyes calmly on mine. There was pressure on my arm as the nurse wound a dressing around the wounds and swapped places with Zacky. As she wheeled the little table across with her, I noticed that there were stones in the little tub. So that’s what she was pulling from my arm. “Don’t you have, ouch, something, damnit, better to do?”

“Nope. I phoned Pippa and Molly for you. Pippa said she’d be here soon but Molly’s tied up with Matt,” Zacky said, popping the ‘p’ childishly as I sighed. But, as he rubbed his thumb across my hand, I felt the knots lurching in my stomach again. He wanted to be here, he wanted to be with me. No, he doesn’t want to be near me! He just wants to get in my underwear… but the look in his eyes says differently. What is that…?