Jake points down and takes the white—well, now pinkish red—washcloth off my knee.

“Keatie!” Dawson rushes over to the bed and gently sits down next to me, quickly wrapping an arm around me. “What’d you do?”

I lean into his chest and feel safe. Safe and happy. Happy he wants me and no one else. “I fell.”

He grabs the vodka bottle out of my hand, takes a swig, and then kisses me. “You need stitches.”

“Why do you two keep saying that? I don’t need stitches. I just need a couple of those butterfly bandages. Run down to the field house and get some. I’m sure they’ll work fine.”

He hands me back the bottle and looks at me seriously. “You need stitches. Nothing else will hold on your knee. Drink.”

I take another drink. “Why the vodka?”

“Because it's gonna hurt,” Jake says. Like, duh.

“Really? I’ve never had stitches before. Isn’t the cut, like now, the worst part? It hurts. A lot.” I start to get tears in my eyes.

Tears about everything that feels hurt.

Jake pulls back his hair, showing me a hairline scar. “Six stitches.” He holds out his wrist. “Four stitches.” He points to his own knee. At a thin white line across the top. “Eight stitches.”

Dawson points to a scar above his right eyebrow. “Four stitches. Camden threw a golf club at me.” He shows me his elbow. “Five stitches. Sliding into home plate.”

I touch Dawson’s cute little eyebrow scar. “That doesn’t look bad.”

He leans in and gives me a sweet kiss.

I don’t care that Jake is watching. I give him a deep kiss back. I want him to know that I appreciate him. Appreciate the way he asked me to Homecoming. Appreciate how sweet and perfect he’s been to me. Appreciate that he’s not a hottie god.

Jake grabs another clean washcloth, puts it across my knee, and wraps bright yellow athletic wrap around it to hold it in place.

Dawson kisses me while he does it. He’s trying to distract me, but I still cringe and make a pitiful ouch sound into his mouth.

“I’d say another,” Jake says to Dawson.

Dawson hands me the bottle. “Big drink this time.”

I actually take a bigger drink this time. I want the pain to go away.

Dawson stands up. “It’s time to get you to the nurse.” He picks me up and carries me to the student center, and into the nurse’s office.

Jake says to the nurse, “We need some stitches.”

“Well, let’s get her in here and take a look,” the nurse says. I remember meeting her briefly during my orientation tour. She looks like a sweet grandmother who would never hurt a fly.

She undoes the wrapping and removes the washcloth. “Oh, my, sweetie, that is a nasty cut.” She smiles at Jake, almost flirtatiously. “You were right. She needs stitches.”

She cleans the cut, which hurts like a bitch. I squeeze Dawson's hand tightly, tears streaming down my face.

Then I watch as she goes over and prepares a shot.

“What’s the shot for?” I say, in a panic, to Jake and Dawson. “My tetanus shot is up to date. I don’t think the chair was rusty.”

When she walks out of the room for supplies, Dawson explains, “She has to numb your knee to do the stitches.”

Jake agrees. “That’s why I gave you the vodka. So it won't hurt as bad.”

He lied.

Even with the vodka, it hurts a lot.

She sticks my kneecap about a thousand times, each time sending burning medicine into my already hurting knee.

Then I watch in horror as she shoves a needle threaded with blue thread into my skin.

I bury my head in Dawson’s shoulder. I have one of his hands in a death grip and Jake is squeezing my other hand every time she pushes the needle in again.

Eventually, the nurse says, “That should do it. Five stitches.” She covers it with a big gauzy bandage and rattles off a bunch of instructions I don’t quite catch.

I think the vodka is finally starting to kick in.

Dawson carries me back to his dorm and lays me on his bed.

Jake pats me on the arm. “You were a trooper, Monroe. And she gave you pain pills. Score.”

“Thanks for taking care of me,” I tell him as he walks through the bathroom door to his room.

“Five stitches,” Dawson says. “That is pretty impressive.”

He kisses around my knee, up my thigh, and to my waiting mouth. He gives me a yummy kiss, then says, “You were brave.”

I roll my eyes at him.

He laughs. “I should have asked for a shot to numb my hand. You were squeezing so hard I think you killed it.” He holds his hand up, making it look limp and dead.

“That’s cuz Jake was squeezing my other hand every time she did a stitch.”

“He was trying to distract you.”

He leans up on one arm and grins at me. “So, everyone seemed to like the way I asked you to Homecoming.”

“It was amazing, hilarious. Awesome. I loved it. I'm so excited to go with you. I really didn’t think you were going to ask me. I was so surprised.”

He scrunches up his nose. “You think I’d let anyone else take you wearing that dress? No fucking way.”

“You like my dress?”

“I love your dress. Love your loft. Loved the whole weekend.” He touches my face gently and his brown eyes look at me with such sweetness. These eyes look so different from the ones I saw that night at the Cave. There’s no more hurt in them.

I push my lips hard against his.

And kiss him.

“Dawson, remember the night at the Cave? How you told me your goal was to take Whitney to Homecoming.”

“A lot’s changed since then.”

“I know, but we had a great weekend, and you helped me pick out my dress, but you never said anything about us going together.”

“That’s because on the long drive back to get you, we decided I should ask you in a big public way. We had it all planned out. I wanted you to be surprised.”

“When I was sitting there waiting for you, Whitney told me that you bonded in the limo. How you had gone to the last three Homecomings together, how you wouldn't want pictures with me, and how you'll be king and queen. That's part of why I wouldn't take the key. I didn't believe you yet.”

He smiles. “Does that mean you believe me now?”

“I’m starting to.”

Tuesday, September 27th

He can't be a god.

7am

I didn’t take a pain pill last night before I went to bed because I had that vodka, so I woke up at three this morning with a throbbing knee. I tried for a couple hours to go back to sleep and finally gave up.

I hobbled into the bathroom, got some water, and took a pill around five. I got ready, thinking it would help me forget that it hurts. It didn't really work then. But now, as I walk into the Social Committee meeting, I’m feeling completely relaxed and pain-free.

I sit down, pull my over-the-knee sock down, and inspect the gauze, making sure it's still in place.

Aiden sits down next to me. “Five stitches, huh?”

“Yeah,” I slur a little.

“Why did you run out of my room and pretend you weren’t hurt, when you obviously were?”

“I felt sick. I didn’t really know about the cut until I saw it was bleeding.”

Peyton and Brad start the meeting, so Aiden stops talking.

I listen to Peyton go through all the details for the Homecoming after-party. It’s interesting and I can’t wait, but I’m really struggling to keep my heavy eyelids open.

Maybe I can close them for just a second.

I'm lying in Aiden's bed looking up at his ceiling. He touches my pinkie and tells me about the sexual dream he promised to tell me. I'm turned on by his dream and he knows it, so he rolls over, pulls me hard up against his chest, and says, "Since it's a dream, we can act it out and, technically, it's not cheating."

Then he kisses me. A mouth open, full-on tongue, hot, hard kiss. The kind of kiss I didn't know he was capable of. I feel like fire and energy are rolling through my body. When he bites my bottom lip and tugs on it gently, that fire pulses directly between my legs. He rolls on top of me, but is holding himself above me. Like he's doing a push up. I run my hand across his arm, across the muscles that are all pumped from holding up his weight.