Trent And Derek
Moonlight casts shadows into Derek’s bedroom through the French doors. The body next to me is snoring. Oh yeah, I must’ve passed out after we had sex. I struggle to remember the details of the night. Derek took care of my hand. That’s right, when we got back to his house, he put antiseptic on it and wrapped it in gauze. He loves me. I feel the smile creep across my face in the dark.
My hand. I touch my palm where the pain is located. It’s swollen and the wrap is saturated. I crawl out of bed and tiptoe to the bathroom.
Oh my God. My hand is a mess. There’s a large, deep groove in my palm, exposing pink flesh in the valley where it’s split. I need stitches.
I don’t want to wake Derek, but I have to get this taken care of.
“Derek.” I gently nudge his shoulder.
“Huh. What?”
“I think I need stitches. My hand is really bad.”
“No, you don’t. You’re fine.”
“No, seriously. It’s swelling. I think it’s infected.”
“Okay.” He rolls over and drifts back to sleep.
“Derek, can I use your car to go to the hospital?”
“Huh? Yeah, go ahead.” He mutters and drifts off again.
I find an out-of-the-way place to sit in the emergency room of the University of Washington Medical Center, the closest hospital to Derek’s Queen Anne hill home that I could think of. It’s 8:03 a.m. on my phone. Derek will probably still be sleeping when I return. I hate not being able to come and go as I please. I’d have my car with me if I hadn’t agreed to let Derek pick me up at my apartment on Capitol Hill. But I couldn’t resist a ride in the Lamborghini his dealership recently acquired. Even though he deals inluxury vehicles, he’s still just a stereotypical used-car salesman. Sometimes I can barely tolerate listening to his feigned interest on the phone with his clients, knowing that as soon as he hangs up, he’s going to tell me all about what idiots they are, because he thinks most people are idiots.
I keep ending up in relationships with jerks who are unavailable. Whether they’re pining over some ex-girlfriend, or longing for some girl who doesn’t want them, or not ready for a relationship, or in Derek’s case, never want to be in a committed relationship again because his ex-wife broke his heart, it’s all the same. Unavailable. Oh sure, they’ll have sex with me and even b