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The fire truck pulls up, and we explain the situation, and they head up into the gas-filled apartment. A second ambulance pulls up, and I pick up Freya to carry her inside the back so she doesn’t have to walk on the frozen ground. We are each given thin, silver space blankets, and they fit our fingers with pulse oximeters to measure our blood oxygen saturation. It’s not nearly as low as Anna’s. The paramedics suggest we go to the emergency room, so that’s what we will do. I wrap my arm around Freya and rub her shoulders. To my surprise, she doesn’t pull away. She’s hardly uttered a word since we got out here. Why couldn’t I see what was right in front of me? This was avoidable, and I let it happen.
“I need you to go to the ER and get checked out.”
“That’s unnecessary. I’m fine. I can go to Birdie and Lonan’s until everything airs out.”
Like hell.
“Freya, I have to know that you’re okay. We don’t know how much you were exposed to. You’ve been sitting out in the freezing cold.”
I can’t believe I allowed Anna to put us in danger like that. I underestimated her addiction for the last time.
“What about you? You breathed in more than I did! You don’t even have a shirt on.”
“I’ll go too.” I move toward the seat in the ambulance.
“Wait, take the ambulance? Fuck, I can’t afford an ambulance ride! No way.”
She’s not getting out of this one.
“You’re going. If you don’t want to take the ambulance, then I’m going to drive you.”
She looks at me like I’m nuts. There’s no way I’ll budge. One of the guys on the fire truck runs over to give me a spare Minneapolis Fire Department sweatshirt. Fuck, that helps. Even if it’s on the small side, it feels way warmer than my mylar blanket that’s struggling to compete with the twenty-degree air.
“Fine, you can drive me. But this better be covered by my insurance.” I’ll cover it.
I hold up my right hand and try to hold back a smirk. I’ll take all the shit she wants to give me with a smile on my face if it keeps her talking to me. Bickering is something I miss—I miss everything about her. This week I’ve let her down more times than I can count, but going forward, I will do everything in my power to protect her and show her I’m ready to show up for myself, her, and whatever I can salvage from our relationship.
The firefighters upstairs begin opening windows, and thankfully, one of them throws me down the keys to my truck and a pair of Freya’s shoes. I owe them, the entire firehouse is getting tickets to the next game and some jerseys. It’s not enough to repay them for risking their lives for my sister’s bullshit.
After thanking them, I use the remote start to warm the truck up while we finish in the back of the ambulance.
I kneel in front of her. “Give me your foot.”
She sticks out her leg, and I slide her boots on one at a time. We lock eyes for a second before she looks away, and it almost takes the air out of my lungs.I needed that.She misses me too. I saw it in her eyes, if only for a second. Once we each sign a waiver, stating that we are refusing the ambulance ride, we climb into the warm interior of my truck. My jaw immediately relaxes, and I lean against the heated seats. She does the same. I adjust the blowers to our feet, trying to warm up her bare calves.
“Mmmm... damn, this feels good.” She moans, happy to be in a climate-controlled environment again.
“Don’t make those sounds,” I say through chattering teeth. “If you’ll notice, I’m wearing sweatpants.”
She answers too quickly. “I noticed.”
Was that a flirt?
“Oh, yeah?” I rub my hands up and down my arms and hold my hands next to the vents. I can’t stop the grin spreading across my face.She was checking me out.
“Not like that. Shut up.”
“Uh-huh. Seat belt,” I remind her.
* * *
We’ve been put into one of the emergency room bays. We’ve been given an oxygen mask to improve our O2 stats. They aren’t too bad, but apparently all you have to mention is gas leak and they bring the good stuff. We sit in a large glass room with a sliding door, there’s a privacy curtain I pull across the room. We’re finally alone. I gotta say something. If she doesn’t want to talk back, that’s fine. But I need her to listen.
“Back in Maine, I had a hockey injury, the doctor prescribed these pain killers, and I got a little carried away. It felt like the pain was still there, and they made me feel better. Eventually my hockey performance became affected and I, luckily, was able to stop taking the drugs in order to keep up my college scholarship. I found out later Anna would take some too. I suspected she was becoming addicted, but I didn’t say anything. I was too focused on getting back on track of my own goals.
“Then I left for college, and after Dad died, she used them to cope. I didn’t know how to tell her to stop because I knew how bad she was hurting. And if that’s what made her feel better, then why would I withhold peace when she needed it most? . . . Isn’t that fucked up?”
She doesn’t answer my rhetorical question.
