Heart Bones

We both look at each other’s mouths for a brief second, and then it’s like fire shoots down my entire leg.

“Fuck!”

Something just stung me.

Something just stung the shit out of me right when I was about to be kissed and if this isn’t my damn luck. “Shit, shit, shit.” I grip Samson’s shoulders. “Something just stung me.”

He shakes his head as if he’s pulling himself out of a trance. He catches up to what just happened. “Jellyfish,” he says. He grabs my hand and pulls me toward the shore, but my leg hurts so bad, it’s difficult to walk.

“Oh my God, it hurts.”

“Sara keeps a bottle of vinegar in their outdoor shower. It’ll help the sting.”

When he can tell I’m struggling to keep up, he bends down and scoops me up. I want to enjoy the fact that he’s carrying me, but I can’t enjoy anything.

“Where did it get you?” he asks.

“My right leg.”

When the water is just below his knees, he’s able to walk faster. He rushes me past the fire, toward the outdoor shower on Sara’s stilt level. I hear Sara yell after us. “What happened?”

“Jellyfish!” he yells over his shoulder.

When we reach the shower, there’s barely enough room for both of us inside. He sets me down and I spin around and press my hands against the shower wall. “It got the top of my thigh.”

When he starts to spray the vinegar on my leg, it feels like tiny knives stabbing me in the fleshiest part of my thigh. I close my eyes, pressing my forehead against the wooden shower wall. I moan in agony. “Oh, God.”

“Beyah,” Samson says, his voice strained and deep. “Please don’t make that noise.”

I’m in too much pain to dissect that comment. All I feel is pain on top of more pain when the vinegar hits my skin. “Samson, it hurts. Please stop.”

“Not yet,” he says, spraying down my leg to ensure he gets all the sting. “It’ll feel better in a second.”

He’s a liar, I want to die. “No, it hurts. Please stop.”

“I’m almost finished.”

He stops suddenly after saying that, but not by choice. Samson disappears in a confusing flash. I spin around and peek my head out just in time to witness my father punch Samson in the face.

Samson stumbles back and then falls over the concrete ledge of the foundation.

“She said stop, you son of a bitch!” my father yells at him.

Samson scrambles to his feet and backs away from my father. He holds his hands up in defense, but my father goes to hit him again. I grab my father’s arm, but it does little to ease the impact of the second hit.

“Dad, stop!”

Sara appears and I look at her pleadingly for help. She runs over and tries to grab my father’s other arm, but he’s got Samson by the throat now.

“He was helping me!” I yell. “Let go of him!”

This prompts my father to release some of the pressure around Samson’s throat, but he doesn’t let go. Samson has blood running from his nose. I’m sure he could fight back, but he isn’t. He’s just shaking his head, staring at my father wide-eyed. “I wasn’t—she got stung by a jellyfish. I was helping her.”

My father looks over his shoulder, searching for me. When we lock eyes, I nod vigorously. “He’s telling you the truth. He was spraying vinegar on my leg.”

“But I heard you say…” My father closes his eyes when he realizes it truly was a misunderstanding. He exhales deeply. “Shit.” He releases Samson.

There’s blood running all the way down Samson’s neck now.

My father puts his hands on his hips and tries to catch his breath for a few seconds. Then he motions for Samson to follow him. “Come inside,” he mutters. “I think I broke your nose.”

TWELVE

Samson is leaning against the guest bathroom counter holding a rag to his nose to stop the bleeding. I’m sitting on a heat compress in the dry bathtub. The bathroom door is slightly ajar, and even though Alana and my father are down the hall, we can hear every word they’re saying.

“He’s going to sue us,” my father says.

Samson laughs quietly. “I’m not going to sue him,” he whispers.

“He’s not going to sue us,” Alana says.

“You don’t know that. We barely know him and I broke his nose,” my father says.

Samson looks at me. “It’s not broken. He doesn’t hit that hard.”

I laugh.

“I’m confused,” I hear Alana say. “Why did you hit him?”

“They were in the outdoor shower. I thought he was—”

“We can hear you!” I yell. I don’t want him to finish that sentence. This is already too embarrassing.

My father walks to the bathroom and opens the door all the way. “Are you on birth control?”

Oh, my God.

Alana tries pulling him out of the bathroom. “Not in front of the boy, Brian.”