Chapter 40
forty
Chaos. A flood of people rushes toward me. Their screams are uneven and filled with horror.
I dodge around the frantic people escaping the scene, fighting to move upstream, but everything passes in slow motion.
Sharp shoulders jab into my side, forcing me to move back two steps when I just took three.
I find a way through, pushing and shoving myself between the terrified people as I check their faces, desperate to find Cait.
I round the corner and the view opens from the shady canyon of the tall buildings to bright May sunlight. The large park at University Square is normally peaceful with students studying or sunning. Today, it’s the scene of nightmares.
As people take cover in the surrounding stores and building lobbies, gunshots continue.
The echo effect makes their source impossible to pin down, sounding as though fired from every direction and from every building.
Sirens wail. Several police officers run past with weapons drawn, waving away bystanders, shouting at us to take cover.
Ignoring their pleas, I run toward what seems to be the main target—the park. I have to find her. I have to protect her.
“Cait!” I’m not even breathing. I’m a machine programmed to do one thing.
When I step on the grass, the sunlight slaps my face, temporarily blinding me. Still, my gaze swings, scouring the area as it comes back into focus. It’s desolate, littered with abandoned items—twisted blankets, flipped coolers, discarded backpacks and books.
“Cait!” I’ve screamed her name so many times, my throat burns.
Adrenaline forces me forward. Panic-stricken, I’m doing the unthinkable and passing by the fallen laid out on the grass. I see in their mortal wounds and glassed-over eyes they’re already gone. If I could just help someone, anyone. As soon as I think it, that’s when I hear the low voice.
“Help.”
I halt and spin to find the weakened source. It’s one of the only voices that could cut through my crazed mind. My head whips around when I hear it again, and I rush to her side. When I reach her, she’s curled on her side, holding her chest.
Shocked, I drop to my knees. “Steph?” My voice breaks on her name.
I roll her over and find her eyes frightened and wide. Her face is pale. A blooming spot of blood darkens the fabric of her T-shirt near her chest.
I don’t think, I act, doing what I’ve seen in movies. I yank off my jacket and press the fabric to her wound. She cries out in pain and I grit my teeth, feeling it with her. But what I’m feeling is my own heart breaking for seeing her like this.
“Safe?”
I lean closer when her voice cracks with the question. I glance around, unsure. When I listen, the gunshots have stopped. Or someone has stopped the shooter.
I scoop her into my arms, cradling her to my chest, then rise to my feet and run. Steph’s legs and head bob with her laid out in my grasp. Behind the shelter of two cars on a nearby street, I settle her onto the blacktop.
“You’re going to be okay.” I hover over her uselessly, returning my attention to her wound, but the blood rapidly soaks through the fabric of the jacket. The slickness coats my gripped fingers.
“Don’t leave,” she says.
There are gurgles in her voice, and when she can’t clear them from her throat, she coughs blood. It leaks from the corner of her mouth, and I try not to react. I have to remain strong. Her face scrunches in pain and terror, and she reaches out to clench my sleeve.
“Help!” I throw my head back and yell, seeking anyone who can hear. When no one responds, I fold over and hold her, praying for her to live and willing Cait to be safe.
“Help us!” I scream again. My throat burns, raw and torn from screaming.
When paramedics arrive a few moments later, the blood coating my hands has become sticky, the splatters on my shirt already turned a deep brown.
When I let Steph go, allowing the paramedics to take my place and work on her, I already know it’s too late.
She stopped breathing seconds ago with me draped over her, praying for her to live.
Completely numb, I step back until I bump into a car. In a daze, I watch them administer chest compressions while her body remains lifeless.
In a haze of guilt and anger, I stumble away. I break past a barrier of police officers to scour the park for Cait. If she’s not here among the dead, she’s safe. She’s safe. She has to be safe. This is my mantra.
At the far north end of the park, where she usually hangs out, I find her things. The contents of her bag are strewn everywhere. Her phone’s buzzing on the ground, but her blanket’s covered in blood.
“Cait!” I snatch up the blanket and scream into the air as if she’ll hear me and come running. If she’s here, she will. We’re connected. She’ll know I’m waiting.
But she doesn’t. Instead, there’s only the red-and-white flashing lights, the sound of sirens, and the scurry of first responders in uniform. I drop to my knees with my hands covering my face and finally break down and weep.
“Sir?” A soft but firm voice calls to me.
Through my burning eyes, I can make out the image of an officer. I stumble to stand and ramble in a panic as she nears.
“My girlfriend. These are her things. Can you help me find her? I need to see her. I need to tell her. Steph. I have a ring. I love her.”
“Sir, come with me. I can help you.” She places a hand on my arm and guides me.
My mind is a broken record playing one thing over and over. Cait. Cait. Cait. She’ll help me find Cait, and that’s all that matters.
There’s a point when my brain shuts off. Everything blurs. My mind has taken all it can. Maybe it’s shock. Maybe it’s exhaustion.
I find myself in a waiting room at a hospital, a crunching Mylar blanket around my back and a half-filled bottle of orange juice on the table next to me. I don’t even remember how I got here. On the wall-mounted TV, the network reports breaking news.
Mass shooting. Twelve people confirmed dead, and an unknown number injured. The shooter committed suicide.
I’m sitting in a chair, staring at the floor, unable to hold myself up with the weight of the world crushing me. I slump further, folding myself over my knees, my head heavy and waterlogged from tears.
I cover my ears. I don’t want to hear. I don’t what to know. I claw my fingers through my hair and pull, wanting to rip it all out.
“Evan.”
My eyes wince from the flickering fluorescent lighting above. Linden’s shape appears in front of me. I reach out to make sure it’s really him and paw at his arm. He leans down and hugs me so tightly, I wish it would wake me from this nightmare.
Cait’s in surgery. Three gunshot wounds. Critical condition.
“She’s going to live,” I tell him. If I believe it, if I put positive thoughts out to the universe like she would, it will come true. It has to. I can’t lose her. I crumple again.
Linden gives me a grim look. He knows the truth. He knows it’s bad. “She will. She’s strong,” he tells me, but the way his brows knit makes me unsure he believes.
“She’s going to live.” My voice is stern, certain. I set my jaw and clench my crusty, blood-covered hands. I’m ready to punch him if he says anything different.
“I’m sorry.” He sighs and refocuses.
“Steph. She . . .” My voice breaks, and my face flushes with the stinging heat of tears. They feel like kerosene now. I’ve produced so many, they’ve morphed into something toxic, potent and deadly.
Memories of watching Steph’s life slip from my hands replays in my tortured mind.
Her eyes were focused on me one minute, and then in the next, her mouthed dropped open in awe, and then her attention reached beyond my shoulder until her eyes glazed over and settled on something far away, like she was seeing something the rest of us couldn’t.
I squeeze my face so tight, I feel the blood vessels pulse on my hairline.
Linden deflates, dropping his head in his palms as he mourns her. Steph lived on the same street when we were younger. She was Linden’s first kiss. She’s been my best friend since age five. The Three Musketeers, my dad called us. And now there are only two of us.
Linden places an arm around my shoulder, and we cry for our friend and Cait.
“I told you to take care of her,” a woman says.
Through swollen eyes, I glance across the waiting room.
It’s been a few years, but Cait’s mom looks the same.
A tall and narrow man with drawn features stands at her side.
With his gray hair and stormy eyes, he needs no introduction, nor does he offer me his hand.
Cait’s dad. I’ve seen him on TV but never met him in person.
He skewers me with his intimidating gaze.
Unable to bear it, I glance away. I failed her. If I’d stayed with Cait instead of working, we would have been looking at buying her little house and dreaming of our future. If I’d stayed with her like I should have, this never would have happened.
Linden rises to greet them. They talk, though I’ve already zoned out.
I lean my head back against the wall and stare through the TV. The president is speaking on gun control. After the speech is done, experts debate the issue.
Fuck them. Fuck everyone for not dealing with this sooner.
For not coming to some agreement that fixes this, whatever it is.
How many times does this have to happen?
Do something, one way or another. Make a decision that protects us.
No word wars will make Cait well or give us back Steph or any of the people who died today or every time before this tragedy.
I close my eyes, seeking images of Cait. I find her smile, her laugh, and the way we teased each other. I want to find comfort in them, but remembering them breaks me more.
How could I ever live in a world where Cait doesn’t exist? Where we don’t exist?
Sometime later, Linden’s words bring me back. “She’s out of surgery.”