Above and Beyond by Riley Morgan

pain.
                  But Lena gritted her teeth and stayed strong while Ramon double and triple checked every cut, making sure he hadn’t missed anything. He pulled out one final splinter, nearly invisible save for the cloud of blood that coated the exterior. He dropped it into the top of the first aid kit and let go of Lena’s hand.
                  She began to climb out of bed, but Ramon gently stopped her with an arm across her shoulders.
                  “I need to do your feet now.”
                  Lena leaned back and allowed Ramon to put her feet onto his lap. He grimaced when he saw them. The splinters had been driven deep into her feet and had torn and slashed her flesh when she stomped away from the fight. Lena hadn’t even felt it until now.
                  She watched as Ramon took a deep breath and leaned in low. He worked with laser focus, methodically finding and removing every sliver of glass from Lena’s feet. It took him nearly an hour. Every second was miserable for Lena. She nearly passed out from pain a number of times, but she never managed to slip into the comfort of unconsciousness. By the time he had finished, Lena was in such a deep state of surrender that she hardly noticed him get up and go to the bathroom.
                  He returned a moment later with a fresh pair of gloves and a damp cloth.
                  “This is going to hurt.”
                  He was not lying. Lena gritted her teeth as he cleaned her wounds, first with warm water, then with the biting sting of hydrogen peroxide. After that, he wound her palm and soles in loose coils of gauze wrap, securing the ends with little metal clips.
                  “You should stay off of your feet for a few days, at least, and avoid using that hand as much as possible.”
                  Lena begrudgingly accepted his help to get into a comfortable position to sleep. She tried at first to push herself up, but realized that without the use of either feet and one of her hands, it was hard for her to do even that much on her own.
                  “Can I get you anything before I go?”
                  She said nothing. The indignation of submitting yet again to Ramon had been as humiliating as his earlier intervention had been infuriating. He turned to leave. A funny feeling in Lena’s stomach caused her to call out to him as he went. He stopped and turned back to her.
                  “Wait.”
     

Ramon
                  Ramon was surprised, maybe even shocked, when Lena stopped him to say thank you. She certainly didn’t need to. This was all very much in his job description. Had he done his job better, she wouldn’t be laid up in bed with two bum feet and a fucked up hand.
                  “You’re welcome,” he said.
                  He went to take his absence, and was even more surprised when Lena called out again.
                  “Don’t go. Please don’t go.”
                  He went back to the bed where Lena was lying. She was a wreck. She needed to sleep. He told her so.
                  “I can’t sleep,” she said. “I’m too wired.”
                  Ramon believed her. He remembered when he was younger and he had run barefoot through a big pile of broken glass. He remembered when his mother, with tears in her own eyes, had stayed up late picking out the shards, one painful sliver at a time. He did not sleep that night, but he was not sure if it was because of the glass or something else.
                  “How can I help?” he asked.
                  “Can you just stay and talk?”
                  Ramon never thought that he’d hear Lena actually ask him to talk to her. He didn’t think she’d ever listen to anything he had to say,