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I looked down through the branches and leaves where the moose, further away now, still snuffed and grunted, swaying back and forth with agitation. But she was down there, and we were up here, sitting on solid wood and in no danger of falling. I tried to draw in a calming breath. Panic gripped me when I realized I couldn’t.
“Breathe,” Amos whispered in my ear, drawing in a deep breath and lifting my torso as he did. “If you panic, it’ll get worse. Relax your shoulders. Relax your jaw.” He inhaled deeply again. “And breathe.”
I tried. I forced my shoulders down and opened my mouth, but the wheeze my lungs made when I tried to draw a breath sounded just as painful as it felt. Amos kept us upright, and his hand tapped my chest. “Again. Deep breath in.”
I sucked in, feeling like I was being forced to breathe through a straw the size of a needle.
“Purse your lips and blow out.”
I let out a little gust of air, desperately sucking in for more.
“Slower. Come on, June. Breathe in.” As he talked, Amos kept one arm wrapped around me and the other shucked his bag off his shoulder and onto the bit of space to our left. He unzipped it and yanked out the first aid kit. I forced air down my lungs, my hands shaking. “And out,slowly.” Amos unscrewed the lid to his insulated water bottle.
I tried, pushing out the little bit of oxygen I’d managed to snag through pursed lips.
“In,” he encouraged, his voice low and reassuring. He opened the first aid kit and pulled out packages, which he threw onto his lap behind me. I pulled in a breath, and it was a little easier that time. “Out,” he whispered.
I blew it out through pursed lips.
“Do you have an inhaler back at the camp?” Amos asked. He tugged the thick, plastic straw off the water bottle cap, brought that to his lap with the first aid supplies, and then dug back into the bag. I shook my head, fighting to draw in another breath. He inhaled deeply, and I sensed him trying to stay calm. He pulled something else out of the bag, but I couldn’t see what it was. With his right hand still on my chest, he rubbed in soothing circles. “Okay, that’s alright. We’ll get you through this one and then I’ll get you some medicine that will help. Have you had an attack like this before?”
I shook my head, wishing desperately for my airways to just open and let me take a full breath. It was like drowning. Like being buried alive. I wanted to scream and freak out.
“Just stay calm,” he murmured, pressing his face against mine.
I closed my eyes, grateful for the contact. It helped. I forced another breath into my lungs, but it was so much work. It was exhausting. I’d never appreciated the automated action of breathing day in and day out more than I did in that moment.
Amos held me, sturdy and warm. “I’ve got you. Keep going. In and out. Slow it down. Your lungs are balloons. Expand them as much as you can before exhaling.” I tried, pushing my ribs out as far as I could. “Relax your jaw. Relax your throat. Open your airways,” he said. His voice was so calming, so low and full of compassion. It hummed through my back to my bones.
I closed my eyes, visualizing what he’d suggested. Each breath got better. Like the swirl in a snow globe gradually settling, my fear eased, and the attack retreated. When I had taken several deeper breaths, still wheezing slightly but beginning to feel some relief, I sagged in his arms.
Amos hugged me close, and whatever medical supplies he’d placed between us crinkled. “Thank God,” he sighed. He craned his neck to look down through the branches again. “I think she left. Hopefully she took her calf elsewhere.” I nodded
“Let’s give you a few more minutes,” he suggested, and leaned back, pulling me with him.
I settled against him, my raw lungs working hard and exhaustion slamming into me. “Stupid,” I gasped out, “moose.” Every syllable got sucked out of my mouth with a painful hiccup.
He laughed softly, and his hands ran up and down my arms, still soothing me, still encouraging me to relax. “I did tell you.”
“Don’t be a…” I sucked in a labored breath, “… dick, Brady.”
“Wow, using the one humdinger I gave you,” he teased. “Rude, June. Just rude.”
I felt like I’d run ten miles uphill. Both ways. My eyes drooped closed, and I melted into Amos’s firm body. Memory foam had nothing on Amos Brady’s body. Sleep clawed at my consciousness, and I welcomed it. As I fell into murky dreams, the faraway sound of running water tugged at my memories. I could almost feel it, the steam from the shower and the way my clothing stuck to my body. Soap slid all over my skin. Amos slid all over my skin…
Nine
Amos
As June relaxed into my chest, her head lolling to the side, I lifted a hand from her body and watched in shock as it trembled.
My hands never trembled. I never wavered, and I certainly never panicked in a medical emergency. But watching June’s lips go blue while she clung weakly to a tree branch, only a failed breath away from falling and being trampled by amoose? I’d never been more terrified in my life.
I looked down at my lap where I’d moved the water bottle straw, alcohol pads, gauze, and pocketknife within reach and thanked God that she’d managed to get the asthma attack under control. A tracheostomy with a pocketknife and a water bottle straw in a tree would have been almost impossible.
I mentally kicked myself for not preventing this in the first place. I’d seen her cough and I’d heard her wheeze. I’d known she had some form of asthma, but I hadn’t dreamed that she had no idea she suffered from it. I should have made sure she had an inhaler before leaving on a hike, but I’d been too distracted by my own revelations the night before to think clearly.
Namely, the revelation that curly-haired, filthy-mouthed June was likely to feature in every erotic dream I had for the foreseeable future. And it wasn’t just her body. It was everything about her. The way she took on everything with feisty indifference, the way she found awe in the ordinary, the way she cracked comebacks like the end of a whip—all of it had been embedded in my brain. And it felt permanent.
