24. Van
Van
W hen I was fifteen, young and foolhardy, I drove off a cliff on a four-wheeler. My friend Kenneth invited me up to his family’s vacation home in the Cascades for a mid-winter trip. After all the adults went to bed, Kenneth and I snuck out the back door under hanging icicles and pushed the four-wheelers down the powdered road until we were out of earshot of the cabin.
Fueled with little more than pilfered beer and teenage recklessness, we headed up into the snowy logging roads.
The turn I took was too sharp, and while Kenneth was able to stop in time, I flew forward, the four-wheeler catching air, and there was nothing beneath me. For a moment, only the crisp night sky and adrenaline coursed through me.
Then the panic set in.
I couldn’t see how far I would fall before I hit the cliff’s snow-covered rocks. The four-wheeler landed first, heavier than me, the crunch of metal and gears cutting through the hushed night.
Landing only a second later, with a dull crack, my body cut through the month’s worth of snow and a crack against a rock. The fresh blood cooled instantly on my head as I lay there on the cliffside, broken.
Seconds ticked by with nothing but the breaking branches under the four-wheeler and my rasping breaths, and I wondered if this was the end of me.
A bone-chilling fear invaded every pore, and I knew I would never be as afraid as that moment.
I was wrong.
The fear of falling off that cliff, of the accident that gave me seven stitches and a permanent scar on my head, of the cold snow, and of the heat of my bruising would never compare to the moment I turned onto my road to see a battered Summer. To see the blue sedan reverse out of my driveway, to see the bumper strike her, and to see the only woman I could ever love fall; bloody and broken onto the road.
My engine still running, I kneeled at her side, the hard concrete cutting through my work pants and digging into my knees.
Her face was so bloody I couldn’t tell where she was injured. As she wheezed between the rivulets of blood, distinct purple marks on her throat snagged my attention.
“Can you move? Can I move you?”
Nodding, she opened her mouth, but only a rasp of air came out.
One arm around her back and the other under her legs, I carried her to the small grassy section of my lawn.
Safely out of the road, I inspected her body. The blood was shiny on her face, and bruises were forming over her skin. Her nails were broken, full of blood and dirt. A gash on her neck poured over her shirt.
I put pressure on her wound with my hand. “Who?”
There was only one man who would do this to her.
My jaw tense, I pulled my phone out with my free hand and called 911.
Summer grabbed my hand, squeezing it as I gave the instructions for the police and the EMT to arrive as soon as possible.
With the operator in my ear, I held tight to Summer and watched as she passed out, her blood soaking into the grass.
You would think that, after years of being in and out of hospitals, I would be used to antiseptic and rubber permeating the halls. But nothing could prepare me for the drawn-out hours of waiting rooms.
As I followed the paramedics, who refused to let me ride with her, I called Devin, who called Summer’s father.
When he arrived at the hospital a few minutes after me, I recognized those same blue eyes and waved him over.
I introduced myself and told him what happened as best I could.
After an awkward fifteen minutes of silence, he turned to me. “So, you’re the one who changed her oil, are you?”
Furrowing my brow, I thought back. “Yeah, I did.”
He made an indistinguishable sound in the back of his throat as he assessed me. “I won’t tell you not to break my pumpkin’s heart because, if you did, I would be the least of your worries.”
I swallowed hard.
“But I’d stay behind her with my tire iron.”
“Noted, Mr. Townsend.”
His gaze didn’t falter as he looked me up and down, his eyes snagging on my hands and the blood over my shirt.
He leaned in closer, asking me, “What are we going to do about this piece of shit who hurt her?”
“I haven’t planned that part out yet, but I have a few ideas.”
In the moments after I saw Summer, my only thoughts were on getting her safe and healthy again.
But Cory had to pay.
While they had loaded Summer into the ambulance, I had given an officer Cory’s name and the make and model of the car and let him know I couldn’t give him a full statement until I knew Summer was stable.
The doctor approached us, her brows pulled together and mouth downturned, darting her gaze between me and Summer’s father. “She’s being brought into surgery now. There was some internal bleeding we need to repair, and she has damage to her trachea. The glass that cut her wasn’t deep, and luckily, it missed the artery by a few millimeters, but she still lost quite a bit of blood. Unfortunately, we are low on her blood type, so we’re waiting on a delivery from a blood bank in Seattle now.”
Seattle. That could’ve been an hour or more, depending on traffic and the ferry system. I needed Summer to be well sooner than that.
Standing to my full height, I stared Dr. Pearce down. “What’s her blood type?”
“B positive,” Peter said, shaking his head. “From her mother, I wish I could give mine, but I’m AB positive. I can’t.”
“I’m O negative. Take my blood.”
The doctor frowned. “This is highly irregular.”
“But can I?”
“Yes, but—” Her eyes shot down to the chart, then back at me as she bit her lip.
“Then, do it. Run any test you need to first, but take my blood.”
She shook her head in disbelief. “Alright. Let me get you set up with someone.”
I followed her, the weight of Summer’s father’s gaze on my back.
It was a waiting game. The bandage on the inside of my arm tugged my skin every time I shifted in my seat. But, for the first time, I welcomed the feeling. I did something that could help Summer. The doctors and fate were in control of the rest, but I had done something.
After an hour, Peter grumbled to himself, got up, and left me.
Five minutes later, he returned with an old work T-shirt. “Might have some grease stains on it, but it’s clean.”
I took the shirt, thanked him, and changed in the bathroom. It was too wide and short for me but better than the bloody button-down I had been wearing for the past two hours, which I tossed in a biohazard trash can.
A detective in a suit approached me, carrying a tablet with a small keyboard. He acknowledged us with a curt nod, his bushy blonde mustache not moving. “Mr. Logan, I’m Detective Rhodes.” He turned to Peter. “Peter. Good to see you, even under these circumstances.”
Peter stood, putting his hand out to shake the officer’s. “Calvin, any news?”
“Normally, we’d send a patrol officer over to have this conversation, but I wanted to talk to you in person.” Detective Rhodes motioned to the chairs beside us. “About forty-five minutes ago, a man went into the emergency department in Rosedale.”
I furrowed my brow.
Rosedale was almost an hour away from Ridgewood, on the southern tip of our peninsula and in the neighboring county.
If he had driven across the bridge, he would have made it to the Seattle side, where he might have disappeared in the larger population.
“He had substantial damage to his left eye, scratches all over his face, arms, and neck, with severe bruising on other parts of his body. His injuries are consistent with a physical fight, likely caused by someone smaller than him fighting him off. He was also covered in more blood than his injuries could cause. The staff there notified the sheriff’s office, who was able to track me down.” His gaze swung to me. “I would need a positive ID from Summer, but it would appear that Cory Thompson will soon be behind bars.”
Conflicting emotions warred in me. I was proud of Summer for causing enough damage to make him need hospitalization, but I was also angry I couldn’t get my hands on him first.
Beside me, Peter cracked his beefy knuckles, likely with the same thoughts. “Rosedale, huh?”
Detective Rhodes widened his eyes, frowning with a head shake. “Peter, he’s being observed by an officer of the Pierce County sheriff’s office. He’s not going anywhere. We can hold him on Mr. Logan’s account of the car matching the one seen driving away and his injuries for now.”
“You sure that sheriff can’t take a little break and give me five minutes?” Peter asked.
“No. He won’t. Let justice take over. For now, focus on Summer.” The officer put his thick hand out, and Peter shook it, then offered it to me. “You did a good job getting her here, son. If it wasn’t for you being there, she might not have made it.”
I couldn’t take the compliment. If I had been home earlier, she wouldn’t have been hurt in the first place. But Detective Rhodes was not the person to have that conversation with.
“Thank you, Detective.”
When he left, Peter and I were alone again, in the quiet of the ever-approaching night.
I clasped my hands together and waited for the woman I loved to stabilize.