Ache With Me

The sound of the steel door of the loft opening startled me awake. My heart beating wildly, I reached out for Max and found only cold sheets. With some difficulty I heaved myself off the mattress to peek out between the curtains. Some of the lights were turned on, giving me a clear view of the loft.

The blond hair of the person standing in my kitchen tipped me off that it was Max. He’d had a meeting to go to and then he said he was going to hang out with Hunter. A quick check of the clock told me that it was a little after 2 am.

“Where the hell have you been?” I asked, stepping out from between the curtains. He jumped slightly like I’d startled him, but didn’t turn around.

“I was out with Hunter, go back to bed Lily.” He was leaning slightly to one side, his hands gripping the edge of the sink tightly. I crossed the loft to him and when I got close enough, I noticed what looked like bloodstains on his jeans.

“Max?” I put one hand on his shoulder and he winced.

“Go back to bed.” He still wouldn’t turn around.

“Max, it is two o’clock in the morning and you have blood on you, do you honestly think I’m going back to bed?” I pulled on his shoulder just enough to see his face and I was horrified when I did.
He had a bruise blooming over his left eye and several others scattered on his face among with little cuts. Dried blood was crusted beneath his nose and down his chin beneath his split lip.

“You should see the other guy.” He muttered.

“Jesus Christ Max, what happened to you?”

“Just a disagreement with someone, it’s fine.” It was clear he wasn’t going to give any more information than that and I was just too tired to argue.

“We’ll talk about this in the morning. Sit down.” I got the first aid kit out from under the sink to clean his face up. He didn’t complain once, even though I saw him wincing when I cleaned the cuts out with alcohol. “Take off your shirt.”

“I appreciate the offer Lily but I don’t think I’m in any shape for that.” In those few words, I saw the Max I met that day in the coffee shop and that was it.

“Go fuck yourself.” I threw down the cloth I’d been cleaning him up with and stormed back to bed as fast as I could. Considering I was five months pregnant, it wasn’t as impressive as I would have liked. I could hear him clattering around in the kitchen for a while, and then the curtains slid open and shut.

I didn’t move as he got into bed. There was a moment of silence, then he sighed and rolled over. It was the first time I’d ever gone to bed mad at him and I hated it. But how could I not be upset? He’d gotten the shit kicked out of him and he wouldn’t tell me why. He deserved the silent treatment.

The next morning he grumbled and groaned all the way to the shower. The noise woke me up and I rolled over to see a small bloodstain on the sheets where he’d been lying. The sight of the blood reminded me what had happened the night before. Unfortunately I didn’t have the time to sit in bed and contemplate how upset I still was with him. I had to be at work in 45 minutes and with Max in the shower I couldn’t exactly talk to him while I got ready.

Because of the way my stomach had ballooned out, I couldn’t fit into any of my pants anymore. I’d flat out refused to buy maternity wear so here I was, wearing dresses in the middle of a Seattle winter. Thankfully because Max was driving me to and from work I didn’t spend too much time out in the cold.

I was sitting on the couch with Cheshire and Sylvester when Max came out, bare chested in sweatpants. I could see all the bruises running up and down his torso from here and it just reminded me how horrified I was last night. Who could have done something like this to him? And why? I didn’t think anyone disliked Max enough to beat him like this.

He found a clean shirt in the basket of folded laundry neither of us had bothered to put away and leaned over the back of the couch to kiss me. I shied away from him, ignoring the look of disappointment on his face.

“Still mad at me?” He asked, putting on his shoes.

“Yes.” My voice was frostier than the air outside.

“Lily, it’s nothing. I’m fine, I’m home, we need to get you to work.” When I didn’t move, he sighed. “Lily, please can we go?”

“Not until you tell me the truth.”

“That was the truth. If you want to keep sitting here talking about it you’re going to be late for work.” He crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for me to make up my mind.

I may have been stubborn, but I also knew I needed to get to work. Zina would want to go over the article I sent her last night; I’d been working on it before I went to bed. So despite my desire to find out just why my boyfriend had gotten the shit kicked out of him, I got up and followed him down to the car.

It was a silent car ride and I didn’t bother to kiss him goodbye before I hopped out of the car. There was no way this wasn’t serious. If he and Hunter had gone out and gotten in a bar fight, he would have told me about it and I would have let it go. But with all his secrecy, I couldn’t believe that he wasn’t hiding something huge from me. But what could it be?