Chapter 42
Quill
Lack of Oxygen
She Might Be Scared of You
Luke Richards
My last survival instincts had driven me through the emptiest corridors and smallest parks until I had finally made it to the philosophy department.
I had looked everywhere for first aid kits and for my father, but the former did not seem to exist here and the latter did not seem to have managed to follow me.
I was sure he had returned to his office because he had realized that it would be risky if someone saw me running across campus like this, if someone found a pool of blood on his desk.
And I was sure he would find me by car if I wandered through the streets to the Rydells' house.
Besides, the main campus park, where the parking lot was located, was too crowded.
And so I didn't even hesitate when I pushed open Davian's office door and simply rushed in, slammed the door shut, and pressed myself against it, panting heavily, my hand with the letter opener in front of my stomach.
I had held my sweater under it so I wouldn't leave any bloodstains. But now it was soaked in dark red.
Sorry, Lara.
The first aid kit had to be somewhere around here. I had seen one last time and...
I stood rooted to the spot, holding my breath, staring at Davian, whose gaze pierced right through me, his face paler than usual.
“Davian... What... are you doing here?”
He only had two classes today, and Lara had told me that he often spent Wednesdays at home doing household chores.
I should have known he was still here. He would never leave his office unlocked.
“This is my office...” He jumped up from his chair, dressed in one of his white shirts and black chinos. “What the...”
His gaze pierced my hand, through which another wave of cramps shot, causing me to grimace.
“I was looking for a first aid kit...”
Davian darted around his desk toward me.
“What is that, Quill...” He reached for my hand, but stopped himself. “What the hell...” He looked up, his face contorted with horror. “Who...”
“I...” Avoiding his gaze, I walked past him so he couldn't read the truth in my eyes. “I was stupid and careless.”
He followed me immediately, stepped around me, and looked from my trembling, dripping hand with the letter opener to me and back again, as if his mind was racing.
“How on earth...”
“Davian...” I looked at him for help as my vision blurred with the next wave of pain. “Please. It hurts so much...”
He pressed his lips together and in the next moment hurried across the office to a cabinet, next to which, on the wall, hung the first aid kit.
He grabbed it, hurried back, placed it on the desk, and turned back to me, gently taking my hand and lifting it, not without observing my reaction.
I couldn't even look, so painful was the mere sight of it.
“Fuck” Davian sounded desperate, frustrated. “Fuck, Quill. That’s your arterial arch.”
The panic that had been eaten away by all the adrenaline in my body until now regained the upper hand.
“What? What does that mean?”
Everything around me began to spin.
Davian ran his fingers through his hair.
“Okay... Stay calm. Everything will be fine.”
I wanted to believe him. But there was a goddamn letter opener in my hand... and everything... was spinning...
“I feel dizzy...”
With my other hand, I let go of my sweater and just managed to grab his arm.
He immediately held me by my upper arms, led me around the table to his chair, into which I slid, my arm dangling down at my side.
“Sit down, lean back... Let me get everything ready.”
I nodded and closed my eyes.
“Keep your eyes open. Please. Try. For me.”
For him.
I forced myself to keep my eyes barely open. For Davian. Smiling at him through the pain, because how could I not? He was so incredibly handsome with his tousled hair and the strands hanging over his forehead.
But he only stared at me for two seconds before ripping open the box, dumping its contents on the desk, and tearing open all the plastic packets.
Where did this sudden tiredness come from? And this chill?
I tried to focus on something, but failed, because simply keeping my eyes open was a challenge at that moment.
God, in an apocalypse, I'd be the first to bite the dust...
“This is going to hurt.”
Davian got down on his knees between my legs, placed my blood-smeared hand on my leg, and I flinched as a new wave of fire blazed through my body.
Filled with awe, I watched as he took the disinfectant he was holding in his hand and sprayed it around the letter opener on the wound in my palm.
Whimpering, I tilted my head back, and squeezed my eyes shut.
“God, Davian, if that already hurts so much...”
“You managed to get this letter opener into your hand. It won’t get any more painful than that. Unless it stays in there and the wound gets infected.”
He grabbed a rolled-up bandage, lowered my hand back onto my leg, and slid it underneath so that it pressed against the tip of the letter opener.
“Ah!” I gasped.
“I'm sorry... I'm out of practice.”
Out of the what?
“Okay, grip your knee as soon as the pain starts, but don’t tense up until it’s out. I’ll be quick and press this bandage on it. We can do this, okay?”
I nodded vehemently, whimpering and closing my eyes as Davian wrapped his hand around the letter opener.
It was like reliving my father pushing the letter opener into my hand. Only this time, I squeezed my eyes and teeth shut and let out a muffled cry as every nerve ending in my hand exploded.
“You did it.” Through blurry vision, I opened my eyes to be rewarded with Davian's smile. “You're damn strong, Quill.”
I returned his smile, but winced in pain as he lifted my hand, pressing from underneath against the bandage and the wound beneath it.
“Please hold the lower bandage roll in place. I'm going to put a bandage on you now.”
Just as he was wrapping the bandage, my blood soaked through the entire roll.
“That's so much blood…”
Davian threw it on the desk, quickly grabbed a new one he had already opened, and pressed it gently on the wound.
I clenched my teeth and whimpered again.
God...
“I'm here. You won't bleed to death while I'm with you. I promise.”
I promise.
I smiled again, getting used to the pain, even though I flinched from time to time, and slowly relaxed as he began to tie something like a pressure bandage.
He seemed to know what he was doing. As if he had done this before.
Shivering, I leaned my head against the backrest, closed my eyes for a moment, and felt the tiredness trying to pull me back.
“I'm so cold, Davian.”
He looked up and examined my forehead.
“And you're sweating.” He cursed something incomprehensible. “Your blood loss is much too high.”
Davian carefully taped the bandage in place before turning to the table with a concentrated expression, as if looking for something.
Clumsy Hearts
Ahmet Kenan Bilgic, Turgut Mavuk
“How can you promise me that I won't bleed to death here and now?” I laughed softly.
What kind of peaceful death would that be? In Davian's arms...
I smiled dazedly.
“I studied medicine for two years.” He straightened up, looked down at his blood-stained shirt, and took a deep breath. “Then Lara was born and I had to quit.”
“You wanted to be a doctor?”
God, I felt like I was on drugs.
He began to unbutton his shirt.
Immediately, I was wide awake, staring at his hands.
“My teachers talked me into it because my grades were so good.”
“Joseph's golden prodigy.”
His expression darkened as he pushed the shirt back over his shoulders.
“Lately, I've been wishing I'd never met him.”
“Then I would never have met you.”
He fell silent and my gaze landed on his bare chest.
My head was like jelly and my mouth just let every word out, no matter how pointless or unnecessary it was.
“God, Davian. Do you work out?”
Color returned to his face and he ran his blood-stained hand through his hair, pressing his lips together.
I couldn't suppress my tired smile, but lost myself again in his defined chest and the groin that disappeared into the waistband of his pants...
Davian cleared his throat.
“Except that I jog every morning and your brother drags me to the gym every weekend, no.”
He walked around the desk, grabbed a water bottle, and washed my blood off his hands over a flower pot before walking over to a closet, giving me a glimpse of his back and the lettering on it.
“You look so incredibly good. And that tattoo...”
I squinted, trying to read what it said, but he pulled a new white shirt out of the closet, turned to me, and looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“And you sound like a drunk.”
I narrowed my eyes, pretending to be offended.
“I would never drink alcohol.”
He nodded, a smirk spreading across his lips, but when his gaze lingered on my hand, his expression softened.
“You need oxygen.”
He opened the window and I turned in his desk chair to face it.
“Davian Rydell is the only oxygen I need.”
I grinned. Only this time, my grin didn't reach his lips.
He stared down at me, every trace of emotion wiped from his features. There were only his ink eyes. The gateway to the truth he couldn't speak.
My smile disappeared.
I wanted to feel what he felt, wanted to look into his soul. But all I had left was his dark blue thread, which continued to entwine itself around me, just as mine did with him.
There were traces of blood on his neck.
I wanted to wipe them away, but I felt too sluggish to get up.
“I'm sorry about all the blood...”
He immediately looked out the window and began to button his shirt.
“Don't worry about it. I'm glad you came here. I don't even want to imagine what would have happened if you had run home... or tried to treat yourself.”
As the office began to grow cold, he closed the window before turning back to me.
“Would you mind explaining how that letter opener ended up in your hand?”
Any memory of earlier weighed too heavily to relive in my mind without turning into a weeping pile of shards.
Right now, I just wanted Davian, wanted his closeness, wanted him to distract me.
“I'm clumsy.”
At least that wasn't a lie.
“But... how...” He looked at me intently, then raised his eyebrows. “Do I have to worry about you all the time now?”
I smiled crookedly.
“You'd be the first.”
And again, he just stared.
Was I too honest? Was I perhaps really drunk? Drunk on the moths in my stomach?
Sighing, he stepped past me and put the first aid kit away, jotting something down on a notepad, and I leaned back, closed my eyes, ready to drift off into my dream world.
“Hey.”
Blinking, I found Davian standing at the edge of his desk, his eyebrows raised.
Such a handsome man.
A weary smile touched my lips.
“I have to keep you awake. You can sleep tonight once your circulation has regulated.”
“But I’m so tired,” I whined.
“Should I take you home? You can keep yourself busy there. Write...”
I raised both eyebrows, then my bandaged right hand.
He smiled apologetically.
“I have a better idea.”
I leaned forward carefully, straightened up, and Davian immediately grabbed me under the arms, but I quickly found my balance.
“Take me to the graveyard.”
How can I be your oxygen
when my own lungs are so corrupted?
– Leaking Batteries Diary