Chapter 44 #2
Weak, too slow for an athlete, but there.
“Come on, baby,” I whisper, leaning down so my forehead touches his. “You can’t leave. Not like this. Not now. You hear me?”
His skin is clammy.
His breathing hitches, then continues.
There’s a sound in the distance. Faint at first, then growing. Sirens.
“Sirens?” the operator asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah. I hear them.”
“They’re for you,” he says. “Go open the door so they can get in. Take your phone with you. Don’t hang up.”
“I’m not leaving him,” I snap, the thought of walking away making my entire body rebel.
“Just for a moment,” he says. “You’ll hear them in the hall. Prop the door open and come straight back. They need access. Caleb needs them to have access.”
He’s right.
Fuck, he’s right.
I scoop the phone up with shaking fingers, lean in and kiss Caleb’s hair. “Don’t move,” I whisper, absurd even as I say it. “I’ll be right back.”
Sprinting down the hall, banging my shoulder into the wall, shoving the front door open so hard it hits the stopper. The siren is right outside now. The red and white lights flash across the parking lot, painting everything in jump cuts.
“Here!” I wave my arms.
Two paramedics and a firefighter hop out of the rig, gear clanking, faces already in that focused, professional mask. One of them, a woman with her dark hair in a tight braid, looks up. “Miguel?” she calls.
“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah. This way.”
I backpedal, leading them down the hall, and then we’re in the bedroom and the room is suddenly crowded. They move with terrifying, efficient speed, one dropping a bag by the bed, the other snapping on gloves, checking Caleb’s airway, his pupils, and his wrist.
I flatten myself against the wall to get out of their way.
“What’d he take?” the woman asks without looking up.
I thrust the bottle at her. “These. I don’t—there were like ten? Twelve? I don’t know how many—”
“We’ve got it,” she says. “Thank you. When did you find him?”
“Like… five minutes ago?” Time is a joke. “I came home, and the door was locked and he didn’t answer—”
She nods, filing that away as she slaps a blood pressure cuff around his arm. The other paramedic is rubbing Caleb’s sternum hard with his knuckles, voice low and firm. “Caleb? Hey, Caleb. Buddy, wake up. Can you open your eyes for me?”
Caleb groans, the sound deep and slurred. His eyelids flutter again.
Relief hits me so hard my knees almost go out.
“He’s trying,” I say, voice barely holding together.
“We’ve got you, man,” the paramedic says to him. “Stay with us. Big day, huh? No more surprises like this, okay?”
He glances at me. “You did good calling it in,” he says. “We’re going to take it from here.”
I nod, even though it feels like he’s asking me to demolish a building with my bare hands. “I’m coming with you,” I say, my jaw clenching around the words. It’s not a question.
He nods. “Yeah, we’ll make room.”
They slide an oxygen mask over Caleb’s face and start an IV in the hand that isn’t bleeding. He jerks a little at the needle, a weak flinch that makes my heart clench. They work fast and quietly, the room filling with the beeps and zips of their equipment.
Somewhere behind me, the operator is still on speakerphone, his voice tinny from where my phone landed on the dresser. “Miguel? Are they there?”
“Yeah,” I say. “They’re… they’re here. They’re—” My throat closes.
“I’m going to disconnect,” he says gently. “You’re in good hands now. Take care of yourself, too.”
The line clicks dead.
I want to laugh.
Take care of yourself.
Right.
They get Caleb onto a backboard, then onto the gurney. His arm is bandaged, with white gauze over the cut. There’s a smear of blood on the sheet and on my jeans where I knelt.
He looks small on the stretcher.
Caleb never looks small.
His head rolls weakly as they start to wheel him out. I move to his side like there’s a string pulling me there, my hand finding his and wrapping around it, careful of the IV line.
“I’m here,” I tell him. I don’t know if he can hear me. “I’ve got you. Don’t… don’t fucking go anywhere.”
His fingers twitch around mine, the tiniest squeeze.
I hold onto that like it’s the last hook on a cliff.
The ambulance is all harsh light and narrow space, the air thick with antiseptic and rubber and this faint metallic tang that turns my stomach.
They let me ride up front, seat belt digging into my chest. I twist around to look through the small window into the back every five seconds.
Caleb’s on the stretcher, strapped in, oxygen mask fogging with each breath.
The paramedic from before is at his side, watching the monitor and making notes.
I catch glimpses.
Pulse. Blood pressure. The rise and fall of his chest.
We hit a bump. My teeth clack together. I taste copper from where I bit my tongue.
“Is he—” I start.
The driver, a guy with graying hair at his temples, glances over. “He’s hanging in there,” he says. “Vitals are low but stable. ER’s ready for him. You his partner?”
“Yeah,” I say, staring straight ahead. The streetlights whip past in slashes of gold. “Yeah. I’m… Miguel. I’m—”
The hospital comes into view in a blur of glass and concrete and fluorescent light. The siren cuts off as we pull into the ambulance bay and the back doors fly open before we’ve come to a full stop, then there are more people, more voices, and more hands.
They wheel him out. I jump down, nearly miss the step, and catch myself on the side of the rig. My legs feel like wet spaghetti.
A nurse intercepts me, a clipboard in her hand. “Are you family?” she asks.
“Yes,” I say, at the exact same time my mouth wants to say, I don’t know. What counts?
She takes it. “You can follow us to the doors, but then you’re going to have to wait in the family area until a doctor can talk to you.”
I nod like I understand words.
They push him through the automatic doors. I jog alongside, holding on to the rail of the gurney like if I let go now, he’ll slide away from me forever.
We hit the point where the signs say AUTHORIZED PERSONNEL ONLY. A nurse steps into my path, gentle but firm hands on my shoulders.
“Sir,” she says. “You need to wait here.”
I want to shove past her. I want to bite. Claw. Dig my way into that room with my bare hands.
Instead, my knees buckle.
The only reason I don’t collapse is because there’s a shitty plastic chair right behind me and I land in it.
“Is he—” My voice is shredded. “Is he going to—”
Her face softens. “They’re going to do everything they can,” she says. “Right now, the best thing you can do is let them work.”
Behind her, I see a flash of calf muscle as someone in scrubs moves past, the glint of scissors as they cut his shirt, and the beeping of machines syncing into a frantic rhythm.
The doors swing shut.
I can’t breathe without him.
My hands are shaking so hard I can’t unlace my fingers from each other. There’s blood under my nails, drying in rusty crescents. I stare at them like they belong to someone else.
I don’t know how long I sit there before my phone vibrates in my pocket. Time has no meaning at this point, so why pay attention to it? It could’ve been five minutes or fifty.
The screen lights up with Mom.
For half a second, I consider not answering.
I hit accept.
“Mijo?” Her voice is already high and tight. “What happened? The hospital called.”
Of course they did. Emergency contact forms. I’d forgotten that box we both checked, listing each other and our parents like some optimistic future.
I swallow. My throat feels like sandpaper. “It’s Caleb,” I say. The words slice my tongue. “He… he tried. Again.”
She makes a sound that’s half gasp, half sob. “Dios mío. Is he… is he—”
“He’s alive,” I say quickly, because I can’t do this twice. “They… they’re working on him. He took pills and he… he cut.” The last word scrapes out of me.
“Where are you?” she demands.
“ER waiting area,” I say. “By the double doors. Mamá, te necesito.”
“We’re coming,” she says. “Ashton is with me. Do not move from that chair, ?me oyes? We’re coming.”
The line clicks as she hangs up before I can argue.
I don’t move.
I couldn’t if I wanted to.
People pass in front of me, nurses, doctors, someone with a broken arm, a kid crying quietly into a blanket. The TV on the wall plays some muted nighttime talk show, the laugh track tinny and wrong. The vending machine hums in the background.
I stare at a spot on the floor until the pattern in the linoleum blurs together. Then I catch myself counting breaths.
Not mine.
I’m not sure I’m even breathing anymore.
At some point, a nurse comes over and asks me to fill out a form. Name, relationship, his full name, his date of birth, and his insurance. My hand cramps around the pen.
“The doctor will come talk to you as soon as they can,” she says, the script smooth. “He’s in good hands.”
Everyone keeps saying that.
All I can see in my head is his wrist, the tiny, stupid line across old scars. The orange bottle and the way his eyes fluttered like he was fighting through mud.
You’re allowed to go live your life even when he’s having a bad day, Luis said.
Right now, I want to grab him by his stupid fucking therapist shirt and shake him. “What about this?” I want to yell. “What about when his bad day almost kills him?”
“Miguel.”
Dad’s voice yanks me back.
I look up.
Mom is in front, hair pulled back, jacket zipped up like she came in such a hurry she didn’t even think to take it off in the car.
Her eyes are wild, already shiny with unshed tears.
Ashton is just behind her, tie askew, suit jacket half-on, half-off, as if he couldn’t decide whether to be lawyer Ashton or Dad Ashton and ended up somewhere in between.
Mom drops to her knees in front of me and grabs my face with both hands. “Mi nino,” she breathes, taking in my appearance. “Are you hurt?”
The question scrapes something raw in me. I shake my head. “Not—not physically,” I say.