Cecil’s chest is still.
He isn’t moving.
I don’t even think he’s breathing.
With no concerns for my safety, I race his way. Flames are licking at the ceiling of the greenhouse, but I push through my panic as determined as ever to save Cecil as he did me almost four years ago.
The chemicals I mentioned earlier are at the point of boiling over, so when I reach Cecil, instead of commencing CPR as his still chest is desperately begging for me to do, I drag him out of the danger zone by the scruff of his shirt.
His heaviness as I drag him over months’ worth of produce adds to the weight on my chest. I thought only deer got heavier after dying. I had no clue humans did as well.
Just as we reach the clearing between the cabin and the greenhouse, the containers of chemicals explode. The blast is so furious, I’m thrown a good six to eight feet from where the flames race over Cecil’s frozen form.
My back is on fire, and my skin is giving off the same putrid scent it had after my father’s goon set Ophelia’s car alight, but after rolling on the sloshy ground to put out the flames dancing across my skin, I scamper back to Cecil’s side, then commence CPR like help isn’t over an hour away.
“Come on, Cecil.” I pump on his chest like the first-aid book he left lying around taught me. He said his odd assortment of books were fire starters, but within a couple of months, he was comfortable enough around me to read them without fear of judgment. He even lent some of his favorites to me.
Thrillers are my favorite. I’m halfway through a book by Stieg Larsson now.
The fear making it hard for me to breathe eases a little when my third set of compressions brings back Cecil’s coughing gurgle I’ve grown accustomed to the past four years.
While his lungs fight to remove the smoke choking them, I roll him onto his side before racing into the cabin to fetch him some water. He forced me to drink water by the gallons when he learned the cause of the wounds on my back. It didn’t help my skin, but it kept my lungs healthy.
“Here…” I shove the glass into his hands before crawling across the crispy ground to switch on the sprinkler system. The blast took care of most of the flames, but for what it missed, the sprinklers will get.
“Slow sips,” I urge after returning to Cecil’s side. As he gulps through the water with more gusto than a man on the verge of death, I ask, “What were you doing out here? You know you’re not meant to go outside by yourself.”
He’s barely coherent, but a reminder that he isn’t as young as he thinks he is won’t go unpunished. He smacks me up the back of my head with his open hand before grumbling under his breath, “I’m not dead yet, boy. It’ll do you best to remember that.” I curl my arm around his back when his smoke-hazed senses almost send him falling backward. Although he shoos me away, his slit eyes can’t hide the admiration in them. He’s pleased I saved him, proving he still has a lot of living left to do, but he’s also confused. “Something felt off, so I thought I’d investigate.”
“You could have woken me. I would have checked for you.”
“I could have… but I didn’t.” In between coughs, he mumbles that he was fine years before I arrived, and he’ll be fine years after I’ve gone. Before I can disclose I’m not going anywhere anytime soon, he mutters, “Then something went and struck me over the head. Knocked me out cold.” He slaps my hands away when I attempt to check his head for a bump. “It wasn’t hard enough to kill me. Just enough to keep me down for a little.”
“A little? You weren’t fucking breathing—”
I get whacked for the second time.
Cecil hates when anyone who isn’t him swears.
“I was down, but now I’m back up.” He curses like a sailor when his attempt to stand sees him crashing into my arms.
If that isn’t already concerning, his lack of fight when I lift him into my arms to carry him to his truck is extremely daunting. I’ve never believed my claims he was old and frail. I just liked teasing him about his long-winded innings.
Although tired from his exhaustive fight to live, Cecil has no issues threatening my life when it dawns on him where we’re heading. “No doctors! I told you the day you take me off this land will be the day I take my final breath.”
“You need help—”
“I’ve got help. Who do you think is carrying me around like a baby?”
“I agreed to help you harvest corn, not bring you back from death!”
His spit hits my cheeks when he pffts at me. “Death? Please. I’m fine. I just need a rest. I’ll be right as rain tomorrow.”
“Tomorrow?” I blubber out more to myself than Cecil. “You haven’t taken a single day off the entire time I’ve lived with you, so if you’re out until tomorrow, you need medical assistance.”
I grit my teeth when he mutters, “Don’t make me tell you twice, boy.” For a man the weight of a child, his snarl has a lot of impact. “The sick go to the hospital to die. I’m not done living just yet. I still have a lot left to give, so you either put me in bed or put me down entirely.”
Conscious his ‘a lot left to give’ comment has more to do with me than he will ever let on, I alter the direction of my stomps. I’m not fucking happy, but if I were to force him, and something terrible happened, I’d never forgive myself.
