“Do you want me to go?” she finally asks when I don’t say anything. “I’ll go if you want.”
I sit there, not as frustrated as I was a moment ago. I’ve even forgotten about the pain in my hand and my parents for a minute.
“I just don’t like it out there very much,” she explains. “My stupid sister ruins everything.”
I feel like I understand. I don’t like it out there very much, either. We can hide.
Together.
If she wants.
“I’ll go,” she tells me and starts to turn.
But I reach my hand through the water, inviting her in instead.
She stops, seeing me, and turns back around. Her eyes light up, and there’s almost no waiting. She takes my hand and steps in.
The water splashes, and she sucks in a breath as the cold water hits her. She giggles as she comes to sit down next to me.
“Wow, this is cool,” she says, looking around at the space, the shade of the bowl over us and the water spilling around.
I notice her white ballet slippers in the water as she hugs her knees to her chest, and everything on her is so small.
“What happened to your hand?”
I look at it, turning it over and rinsing off the blood in the water and wiping it on my jacket.
“Does it hurt?” she asks.
I still don’t speak. But yeah, it hurts a little.
“My dad taught me something cool. Wanna see?”
Her voice is so…relaxed. Like she doesn’t know how awful things can be.
“It’ll help get rid of the pain,” she informs me. “Let me show you.”
She takes my hand, and I try to pull it back for a second, but then I stop and let her have it.
She holds it up in front of her. “Ready?”
Ready for what?
She finds the cut on the inside of my index finger, toward the knuckle, but puts her teeth on the other side of the finger, pressing down enough to stretch the skin but not break it.
Her eyes meet mine, and that’s how she stays for several seconds, increasing the pressure just a little.
It doesn’t hurt, though. Not at all. It actually feels kind of good, because the annoying sting of the cut is suddenly gone. Just gone. Like a kill switch.
She stops biting, explaining it to me. “He told me if you’re hurt in more than one place, your brain only registers one pain at a time. Usually the stronger one. I had a hangnail one day, and it really hurt, so you know what he did? He bit my finger. It was so weird, but it worked. I didn’t feel the other pain anymore.”
One pain at a time. So if something hurts, you can make it hurt less by adding more pain?
The sting starts to return but not as strong, the feel of her bite still lingering.
She does it again, and again, the sting disappears.
“Is that okay?” she asks. “Better?”