TWENTY-NINE MAC #2
St. Albert’s is only a few miles away, but finding the emergency room seems to take forever. Finally, the red neon sign of the ER is before me.
I park and run. The automatic doors take forever to open, and I turn sideways and slip through the second I have enough space. The AC of the hospital a shock from the heat. I look around in a hysterical rush to find someone to help me.
A nurse sits behind a desk. She sets down her water bottle when she sees me rushing towards her and offers a small smile. “Can I help you?”
“Yes. Sage Meadows? He was just brought in.” She starts pressing keys on the computer. My fingers drumming quickly against the desk. Fuck, what if she doesn’t let me back? What if she stops me from getting to him?
“Are you family?”
“Yes!” I answer without a thought. He is my fucking family. He’s the only family I have. The nurse smiles knowingly and taps yet another key.
“Ok, he’s still in the ER.” She clicks her tongue, scanning her eyes over the screen.
I lean forward, trying to just see the damn thing myself.
“C15. I’ll buzz you back. Just go down the hall, past the nurses’ station and turn left.
It’ll be the first door on your right.” The door buzzes, and a small green light appears over a keypad.
“Thank you.” I’m rushing through the doors, my boots loud along the gleaming floor. The smell of antiseptic is strong in my nose. I walk past rooms with the curtains drawn as nurses smile and continue on their way.
Then I hear it. A sound I was so scared I’d never hear again. It sounds hoarse and raw, but I’d know Sage’s laugh anywhere.
I’m running down the hallway, past the empty nurses’ station, around the corner. Room C15. The door is open slightly, and I hear Sage speaking inside.
I barge into the room. Sage sits on the bed, arm out while a nurse cleans a gash along his arm. Blood sluggishly drips onto the floor. But he’s looking at me and smiling. His face and hair covered in soot.
I can’t move fast enough, closing the space between us in three large steps. Then his face is in my hands. His brown eyes look up at me, and the world finally slows. The panic starts to fade into the background. He’s ok. My eyes burn; my throat’s raw.
I fight to press down my rising emotions. Having him back in my arms slams me with too many of them. Love and relief so consuming it hurts.
I kiss him. His lips, his forehead, his cheeks. Anywhere I can reach. Anywhere I can feel that he’s ok. That I’m not imagining this. His skin tastes like ash, but I don’t give a fuck.
He laughs, but it turns into a wheezy cough. His uninjured hand rises up to hold onto my forearm as I continue to kiss him. I’m too choked up to say anything. All my words flew out of my head when I saw him alive and breathing.
“I’m good, asshole.” I drop my forehead to his, his face still held in my trembling hands. “I’m ok. I promise.”
I want to tell him I love him. I want him to fucking know how much he means to me. Maybe it will stop him from doing something this fucking stupid again.
I’ve said I love him before. But now he’ll know how I mean it. Not as a friend. Not as a brother. Not some fake sentiment he doesn’t know the depth of. I’m in fucking love with this dumb asshole, and I need him to know it. But the words don’t come out.
“Try and keep your arm still, Sage,” the nurse says, reminding me we aren’t alone. I don’t give a fuck that she’s seeing this. He’s my family. My best friend. My fucking person. And he’s alive.
“I’m a little disappointed, Sage. If I could take bets from patients, I’d have twenty bucks right now.” Sage chuckles, but it sounds painful for him. Pulling back, I finally look at the nurse fixing his arm.
She’s small, probably middle-aged. She looks homey and kind. She offers me a soft smile before continuing back on her work.
The gash on his arm is gnarly, jagged and painful. The blood-soaked rags on the tiny table the nurse is working on make my breath hitch. If he hadn’t have gotten here as soon as he had…I shake my head. He’s alive. Hurt, but alive.
“Oh yeah?” I ask the nurse to try and distract my brain from free falling into a black void. I swipe my eyes, brushing away the tears that I hadn’t noticed.
“Yup. Sage here said you’d punch him when you burst into the room like—how did you put it?” She looks up at Sage and smiles wider. “That’s right. Like the Kool-Aid man.” A choked laugh bursts from my lips. It sounds more like a sob, but it has Sage smiling at me.
The nurse laughs along quietly, sitting back on the rolling chair. She tugs off the gloves, tossing them into the medical waste bin off to the side. The whole time she keeps that soft, warm smile on her face.
“Well. The doctor should be right in to stitch this up. Try to keep it still, please.” She gives Sage a chastising look, which he returns with an arrogant shrug.
“Yes, ma’am,” Sage says in an over-the-top southern accent. He salutes her with his other hand. She doesn’t look like she believes him, but leaves us alone without another word, closing the door quietly behind her.
Sage sits straighter on the bed, squaring his shoulders. With a heavy sigh, he says, “Ok, let me have it.” He cracks his neck, preparing for a fight I don’t have the heart to start.
“Why? Why did you run into a burning trailer?” I question, my hands returning to hold his face. I don’t ever want to let go of him again. Don’t want to let him out of my sight. My thumb absently swipes away some of the soot.
“I couldn’t let it all burn, Mac.” He tips to the side, hand going to dig something out of his back pocket. He glances down at the paper he retrieved. His face falling. He hands it out for me to take. Reluctantly, I let go of his face and take it from him.
This fucking guy. My fingers tremble holding the old photo in my hands.
It’s of us and Mom. We are sixteen. It’s the summer Mom got sober.
For an entire summer, she didn’t touch a single drink.
On this day, she took us out for ice cream.
Sage and I muttered we were too old for ice cream, but we went because she was sober.
And she was happy just wanting to do something for us.
Money was tight, as it always seems to be. There wasn’t much we could afford. Mom bought a disposable camera from the gas station, asked a mom with her son to take our photo.
And there we are, Sage’s arm is over my shoulder, his other over his mom. All of us with big, happy grins. I trace over our faces with the tip of my finger. If he hadn’t gone back inside, it would have been lost forever.