038: The frying pan

"Yeah?" he said, as if he'd been waiting for her.

"Can you come and get me? I'm moving out."

***

Kell arrived and Maille was waiting outside for him. He drove the pickup truck. She had a small backpack, and that was all. Kell got out and opened her door for her, and then proceeded to drive toward the freeway. He started to get on the freeway and then turned into the Motel 6 parking lot.

"What are you doing?'' Maille cried, alarm in her voice.

"You can't do this." Kell hit his palm against the steering wheel.

"What?" she was shocked and her heart rate accelerated.

"Run away."

"I'm not running away, I'm moving out."

"You're mad, you're hurt, and you have somebody to run to." He laced his fingers into hers. "Maille Mann, you can't throw away your family for that reason. You'll just make things worse."

Maille's shoulders slumped. "Kell, I ---."

He nodded. "You want to be on your own, valued for yourself. I understand, believe me, I do. But this isn't the way."

"I want---" she stopped. She'd been about to say that she wanted to be with him. The words had just popped into her mind and she knew them to be true, with a powerful desire to be--- just with him.

"Maille, don't run away. We can get you a room here for the night, and you can go back and let your mom and dad help you find a place to rent, and get you a car..."

Maille swayed toward him, not knowing what she wanted, but that wasn't it. Memory after memory of thier few hugs and cuddles assailed her, and she bit her lips to keep from crying in frustration. 

"Kell---"

"Maille, please don't run away. Don't run to me."

Maille froze. Was she pushing herself on him? What was it she was feeling right now? Her heart beat was fast, her arms aching to hold him, and be held again. The feeling was so strong and she was suddenly so mortified that she wanted nothing more than to get out of the truck and run. She reached for the handle, pulled and stumbled blindly.

For once impulse was what it was cracked up to be. Maille ran. The lights of the freeway loomed ahead of her, a field behind the Motel also beckoned. She staggered, then started sprinting toward the darkened field. She couldn't see what was in the field, but she ran on, feeling the wind dry her tears, her braids flying behind her, and the voice in her head, screaming at her...

Stupid. Stupid. Running away from home because she was misunderstood ... running toward a guy... a gay guy--- that didn't want her.... She stumbled again.

Her hands flew out to stop her fall, and she lost her balance and fell headlong.  Unfortunately, she didn't complete the fall. A searing pain ripped through her stomach, and her head snapped back. Instead of falling to the ground, she snapped backward, her clothing caught on a fence. She felt the scrape of a barb and cursed her own impulse for running into an unknown field. Her sobs ripped throughh the night.

She knew Kell would come. Yet she hated herself for making him.

She heard his hard running feet, felt his arms around her, picking her off the fence, and crushing her to him.

"Maille, Maille, Maille!" 

"I'm sorry, Kell. I'm sorry." she sobbed, feeling something warm dripping down her hand. She was bleeding. Crap, she was bleeding.

"Maille, don 't run from me either." he tried a nervous laugh as he lifted her to her feet. He brushed her off, saw the blood in the darkness against her white shirt and pulled it up unceremoniously.

"Shit." he whispered. He knelt in front of her and tried to get a better look at her stomach. "You need stitches."

''No, Kell, please don't..." He picked her up and ran with her back to the truck and stuffed her in. He'd ripped off his own white shirt and now shoved it against the gash in her abdomen. 

Maille pressed against the shirt as Kell flipped the overhead light on, and pulled the fabric away briefly. She could see her hand was torn also, and the stinging was starting to register, but not like the actual pain across her middle. She felt like gagging, having never been seriously injured in her life.

He was talking the whole time, but Maille felt a fog settle over her and she couldn't hear what he was saying.

Kell's eyes were intent, his lips a grim line across his face, as he held her hand up to the light, and examined the multiple lacerations. Under the seat was a first aid kit and he quickly retrieved it and wrapped her hand all the way around in gauze. But the red splotches all over his shirt were getting bigger. He pulled it away from her stomach again and they both looked at it. Maille was still crying, but not from pain.

He tilted her face back as he pressed his hands hard over hers. "I am going to take you to the Emergency Room."

She shook her head, biting her lips.

He closed the driver's side door and slammed the truck into reverse, laying an arm along the seat as he turned to see the field behind him, and how to get out of it. Maille had not recalled the bumps and ditches she'd obviously run through, but she felt them harshly now as her stomach throbbed and stung.

"I"m sorry, Maille Mann. I should have sensed the kind of mood you were in. I should have stayed with you."

"I'm not your responsibility." 

His answering grunt told her what he thought of her statement, and she curled protectively over the bloody shirt, one finger twisting the button on the front of her jeans till it came undone and eased the pressure on her skin. 

She kept thinking over and over what a fool she was, what an inexperienced, impulsive, idiot.

At the hospital she tried to get out by herself and fell out instead, her legs didn't want to support her. Her stomach was now covered in blood and she grimaced.  Medical staff rushed to get her in, Kell was pushed gently aside and told to wait in the lobby, and Maille was hauled onto a stretcher, crying brokenly. 

Her eyes sought his. "Kell!" She reached for him, feeling strangled as if the idea of leaving his side again was more than she could bear.

His eyes were dark, unreadable, his face impassive, blaming himself. The doors swung shut and rocked back and forth, blocking their view of each other, and Maille faced the ceiling as the wheels turned beneath her.

The gut wrenching sobs came from somewhere deep inside and just wouldn't quit.

She felt so alone. She had no one. No one that really loved her for herself. Why? Because she'd never made anything of herself. She was no one and no one cared. Her family just wanted to boss her around. Kell wanted to be her friend, but he didn't want to deal with this baggage.

Don't run to me.

They were telling her to hold still. She shook her head back and forth, crying, trying get away from the tears and the pain as doctors bent over her, removing the bloody t-shirt. 

And then Kell was there again. Somebody had given him a blue hospital shirt to wear. He leaned over her face, his beaded goatee tickling her chin. His hands held her shoulders firmly. "Stop thrashing baby, stop it. I'm here."

"You don't want to be here!" she cried.

"I want to be here more than anything. I want to be with you. But you've got to hold still."

"I want ..."

"Maille, it's going to be okay. Let's get you fixed up and then we'll go to my house and talk, okay?" he rubbed her shoulders hard, the pressure bringing her back to awareness. The smell of him, the confusion of him....

Part of her still wanted to be away, to not have to feel what she was feeling. She wanted him to hold her, but she didn't want him to hold her. She clutched at his arms and he laced his fingers through hers. He looked deeply into her eyes while the ER physician examined her stomach and pried her bleeding hand away from Kell's arm.

"It's not bad." she heard someone say. "She's in shock. We're going to start an IV. She'll just need a few stitches. Can't run into a barb wired fence, young lady. They'll stop you every time."

Maille had her eyes closed and tried to calm her breathing. Kell was telling her to breath slowly, breathe in and out. He breathed with her. His hair smelled like him, his cologne didn't mask the sudden rank perspiration, but it smelled good too. He knelt over her, close, so close.

"Is this what friends do?" she whispered.

"More than friends, Maille Mann. You are more than a friend to me."

******