4338.211 · July 30, 2018 AD
Intact Stitches
Fifteen minutes from car park to house. Each step catalogues exactly how Sarah misread everything—the tears, the intensity, the vulnerability she'd thought was real. Her body still marked with evidence of intimacy that apparently meant nothing. At home, unwrapping the filthy bandage from her hand, she braces for torn stitches and infection. They're intact. All of them. Impossibly, inexplicably holding despite everything she put them through today. Some wounds heal. Others just teach you who leaves.
Night has fully descended. Sarah walks through dark Hobart streets, body still flushed and aching in ways both familiar and new. Cars pass, headlights briefly illuminating her dishevelled state. She keeps her head down.
The same questions circle endlessly: How did she get this so wrong? The tears on his face. The desperate way he touched her. How could all that have been meaningless?
She reaches her small weatherboard house. Locks the door. Moves through darkness to bathroom. Catches her reflection—eyes swollen from crying, mascara smudged, marks visible on her neck. Evidence she'll have to explain or hide tomorrow.
Then she notices her hand. The bandage completely soaked, darkened with dirt and mud, stained with fresh blood. She'd forgotten about it completely—the injury from the goose incident, the fresh sutures, the instructions about keeping it clean and dry.
Unwraps layers of sodden gauze, bracing for torn stitches and infection.
The stitches are intact. All of them. Still precisely placed, showing healthy pink tissue. Makes no sense—she'd been certain they'd torn at the dam. But here they are, stubbornly holding.
She showers with hand wrapped in cling film and rubber glove. Hot water washes away physical evidence whilst doing nothing for the ache in her chest.
Climbs into bed. Too big, too empty. Exhaustion finally overtakes grief. Tomorrow she'll have to face Karl and pretend she's equally unaffected.
