My hands reach for Sam’s chest, and I clamp down, hard, soaking my skin with his blood. Everything is red. My hands are so wet that they slip, but I move them back to the source of the blood, and I resolve not to fail again. I’m aware that I cannot breathe normally. Vacuous white noise floods the room, and I can’t see anything but death. Because God—oh God—Sam is bleeding out, right in front of me. So, there is only the static sound in my head, the internal chaos, and the splintering destruction of everything that makes sense.
This cannot be happening. There cannot be all this blood draining from the boy I love. I won’t tolerate it.
“Stell…”
Sam’s voice breaks me from the saturation of blood, and I look up. He’s trying to smile, and that just drives this horror deeper.
“Stell, you give me such light. In a dark, dark world, you give me such light. Don’t…cry…”
Thick crimson liquid trails from his mouth, so the attempt to console me rings as horribly impossible.
Even with the pressure I’m putting on his gunshot wounds, I can’t begin to control the bleeding. “No, no, no,” is all that I can say. There is no stopping the word. If I say it enough, this will end, so I’m relentless. “No!” I keep repeating, my voice broken and wrecked. My body won’t let me stop.
“It doesn’t hurt…really. I feel so good. It’ll be fine,” he manages to say. “I promise.”
I can only respond with a sob.
Sam is going to die. I know that.
“Say you…trust…me.” He coughs, and his eyes roll up. “Say…trust…”
I have never been so scared in my life. It’s only because he’s struggling so much—and he so clearly needs this from me—that I can give him this one last thing. “I trust you.” My words are garbled, but still, I say them. “I trust you.”
The uselessness of trying to dam the bleeding is undeniable now, and I move up and cling to him while I fall apart. It takes every ounce of strength I have, but I lift him so that I can wrap my arms around him and hold him fully. I won’t let him leave this earth anywhere but in my embrace.
“I trust you. I love you. I trust you. I love you.” This is the first time I’ve told him that I love him, and every word devastates me further. “Please, no, no, no! Sam, I love you.”
For a split second, his hand is on my arm, and then it falls to the floor.
In my love, his breathing halts, and his body falls lifeless.
Repeatedly, I scream his name. I scream until my throat hurts, until I cannot produce any more sounds.
This death cannot happen.It can’t.
Instinctively, I lay Sam’s head back onto the floor, place my hand under his neck, and tip his head upward. With my mouth covering his, I pinch his nose and try to blow life into him. I try to breathe for Sam. I pump his chest, but more blood just seeps onto both of us. Then, my mouth is back on his, and having to exhale and fill his lungs might be the only reason that I can even breathe at all, yet I breathe for as long as I can stand to because it might be the only salvation.
Minutes go by, and all I can taste is death. I pull myself from Sam’s body with the clear decision to get help. Staying here is giving up on him, and I can’t do that. Some crazy part of me thinks that maybe—just maybe—I am wrong, that he can be saved. I refuse to have it be too late.
“I’ll be back. I’ll get help. Do you hear me? This will be fixed. I can fix this. I can fixyou! I can!” I’m screaming to no one, but I scream anyway. “You taught me that I can do anything I fucking want. I’m going to prove you right. Watch, Sam. Watch me.”
Panting, I rush to find my cell phone in the bedroom. After I stumble and catch myself, the comforter is soiled in blood, but I keep going and grab my phone from the dresser.
Micah and Felicia or Kelly and April—they’ll help me. They’ll know what to do. But I’ve got no fucking cell signal because the storm blew out service.
I’m barely dressed when I step out onto the deck off my room and hold up the phone. Still nothing.
Jesus.I suddenly realize how serious the storm was, the kind of trouble we’re really in.
Trees are down everywhere, and a few trunks are torn up at the roots. From here, I can see how wild the ocean is. Waves rise higher, and with more density than usual, they crash into the cliffs with relentless force. The wind is still strong, the sky gray like steel and showing no breaks of light.
I try to protect my eyes with one arm as I make my way through the debris on the deck and race down the stairs. I can’t find a signal, no matter what I do, so I have to get into town. Given the aftermath of the storm, my little piece-of-shit car will never make it, but I can run. Sharp pain sears through my foot, but I don’t stop until I’m halfway down the driveway and faced with a nightmarish tangle of live electrical wires. I might be blind with panic, but I’ve got enough sense not to run through them.
Think, I beg of myself.Think. Focus.
Sam’s truck.
Driving off-road will be rough, but it’ll be a lot faster than trying to navigate on foot through the newly downed trees, dense foliage, and rocks. I can barely see through my tears, and I’m in the driver’s seat before realizing that I need the keys. I shake out the visor—not there. I have to go back upstairs.
