deep voice
calm
Mari’s voice is rising, less calm. She’s talking, what is she saying?
the low voice, can’t make it out
Mari’s hand in mine, squeezing. Try to squeeze back.
I want to squeeze back, but I can’t move my fingers.
calm voice again
and I want to know what it’s saying. What’s happening, Mari. I’m trying to squeeze back.
It’s going up, Mari says. Her hand leaving mine, I want to reach but I can’t, I want to say wait don’t go. What’s going up. What are you talking about. What’s going on.
Nothing to be concerned about
Relief, that I can hear the calm voice. Nothing to be concerned.
Pressure’s in a normal range
I know that, Mari says. I’m a fucking nurse.
Try to smile. My best friend’s a fucking nurse. Take my hand again, Mari, I can squeeze.
When will she wake up, Mari asks. That’s what I want to know.
When is she going to wake up?
Twenty-Three
I woke up gasping forair, like I’d spent too long underwater, grasping at my throat like there was something in it making it hard to breathe. It was dark, but not as dark as it had just been wherever I was. Now there was moonlight coming in through the car window next to me, illuminating my hands as I held them up, made them into fists just so I could see whether I could squeeze them after all.
“Hey.” I heard a voice next to me, low and gentle, but it wasn’t that calm voice from before, the one that had said there was nothing to be concerned about. There was something to be concerned about. My body felt like it would explode with concern.
“Hey,” the voice said again, and I realized I’d been lashing out with my fists, making contact with the hard muscle of a chest, an arm, until I felt my wrists restrained in a firm grip. “It’s okay,” he said. “Shhh, hey, it’s okay.”
Eamonn. It all came flooding back to me, the last day I’d spent in Ireland, the reason we were sitting together in his car. It was parked now, the silhouettes of a few skeletal trees the only thing I could make out in the dark outside the window. I hoped that he’d parked it before my outburst, and hadn’t had to pull off the road in a rush. I really couldn’t remember.
I’d started to cry. I didn’t even know how hard I was crying until Eamonn loosened his hold on my wrists, pulling me closer to put his warm hands on either side of my face. “Jess,” he said, wiping at the tears on my cheeks with his thumbs. “It’s okay. You’re safe.”
Even in my frenzied state, I knew that the soft way he said my name didn’t mean anything—he was trying to calm me down, talk to me the same way he talked to that dog at the park. It was only my imagination that made it sound romantic. But the use of my name at all meant everything to me, because I didn’t know if this right now was the dream or if the vision I’d just left was, but I needed to be reminded that I was a person, that someone could see me. I placed my hands over his on my face, wanting to touch him, wanting him to touch me harder.
When I pulled him in for a kiss, I mostly got his top lip until he slanted his mouth over mine, opening me up with his tongue. I could feel his strong fingers on my cheeks, my jaw, holding me in place. He kissed me like I was the dream he didn’t want to wake up from. He licked at the corner of my mouth, where I’m sure some of my tears had gathered, and breathed my name against my parted lips.
“Jess…” He kissed my jaw up by where it met my ear. “Are you…”
I didn’t know what he was going to ask.Are you sure?maybe, or evenAre you okay?I didn’t want to hear any questions because I didn’t want to have to stop to think about the answers. I just wanted to lose myself in the sensations of the here and now.
“You don’t need to be gentle with me,” I said, and I meant it in every way possible. I didn’t need his soothing words, didn’t need him to ask why I was crying or what had made me wake up like I was coming out of a nightmare, because for all I knew, ithadbeen a nightmare. I couldn’t decide if I hoped it had been a nightmare or something else.
I also meant that it was okay if he held my wrists tighter, kissed me harder. I wanted that. I needed it.
He made a sound in the back of his throat, and then his hands were at my waist, half lifting me, half dragging me, and I was climbing over the center console to straddle him, our mouths still hot and wet on each other.
“I will always be gentle with you,” he said, but his hand was fisted in my hair as he tugged it back, pressing kisses against my exposed throat. “Jess,fuck.”
