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“They‘ll need to send a helicopter. There’s a two-lane paved road and a clearing half a mile east from there if the road is too narrow.”
“Okay. I’ll tell them.” Ian heard typing in the background. She sounded so calm, it would have been contagious if life as he knew it wasn’t ending. “Do you see his chest moving? Is he breathing?”
“No. I mean, I don’t know. I’m not sure.”
“That’s okay. Take a deep breath and lay your hand on his chest.”
But none of this was okay. How could he breathe, let alone deeply, when Alek might not be breathing at all? He felt Alek’s chest as instructed but was trembling so violently he couldn’t be sure.
“I can’t tell.”
“Why don’t you try checking his pulse?” she asked like she was suggesting something as benign as turning Alek on and off again like a frozen computer. “Just put your middle and pointer fingers in the groove at the side of his neck.”
Ian watched his shaking hand move like it was someone else’s, his body only becoming his own again when he felt the frantic, thready ticking under the pads of his fingertips, the proof that Alek’s heart was still beating.
“It’s there. I feel it.”
“Very good. Okay. Put your ear above his mouth. Do you hear anything?”
Ian did as he was told, his body working better now that he knew Alek wasn’t dead. Even though he suspected the Alek he loved was probably lost forever, not being dead was a start. Ian felt as much as heard, the slow and shallow tidaling of Alek’s breathing like the faint roar of the ocean in a shell held against a child’s ear.
“He’s breathing.”
“That’s good. Are you hurt?”
“No.”
“Good. What’s your name?”
“Ian Stewart.”
“And your partner’s?”
“Alek Katin.”
“Okay, Ian. I’m Patricia. Can you get a blanket and a towel?”
“I can’t leave him. What if…” He couldn’t finish the sentence. The prospect of Alek dying alone was too painful to bear.
“I understand, but we need to keep Alek warm. Put the phone down next to him. I’ll stay with him.”
Ian thanked her, set the phone down, and pressed a kiss to Alek’s forehead, tasting the metallic tang of blood on his lips. He wiped his mouth on his sleeve and ran on unsteady legs, time slowing down again as he ripped a blanket from the couch, grabbed a towel from beside the kitchen sink, and returned to Alek’s side. Alek was even paler, the circle of blood larger around his head.
He covered Alek with the blanket and his mind projected the image of the blanket pulled over Alek’s face if he died.
“I’m back. He’s got the blanket.”
“Very good, Ian. Can you check if he’s breathing now?”
Ian repeated the action, ear over Alek. “Yes.”
“And can you check his pulse?”
It was still there, tapping away. Ian was proud of Alek for holding on. “Yes.”
“Does it feel about the same as before?”
“I think so.”
