5. Morgan #2
“While Seb pushed the cart away, oblivious, you said, ‘Your secret is safe with me.’ I believed you because you always made me feel safe. Then your cute ass skipped along ahead to intercept Seb when he picked a frozen combo pizza. ‘Let’s get pepperoni too.’ Because you knew that I hated mushrooms.
“That’s when I fell in love with you, and I’ve loved you every day since.
Thank you for seeing the sadness beneath my anger, for continuing to love me even when I was an asshole.
Your unconditional love was the first I ever felt.
I wish I had acted then instead of pining over you for years when I knew you were pining too.
I wish you could tell me when you fell in love with me too. ”
A few minutes later, Javi returns and helps me dress in warm layers. The door opens. Alejo dips his head in, breathless, dripping water onto the floor, eyes rimmed red. He darts a look to me and Cole.
“Lawrence told me to grab the gear to climb the crow’s nest.”
Javi rummages through a trunk, then passes it to him. “Tell him to be careful. You be careful too.”
The door closes. Cole’s pulse speeds from a slow march to a fury.
“What’s wrong?”
Javi doesn’t answer as he pulls the blankets down and reveals an IV on Cole’s other arm, connected by tubing to a bag of fluid hanging on a coat hook.
How did I miss that? He stands and unrolls a clamp on the tubing that makes the fluid drip faster, then runs the blood pressure cuff connected to the AED machine.
It takes less than a minute to finish. Ninety over thirty-eight.
With calm precision, Javi dumps a syringe from a purple cardboard box and injects a small amount into Cole’s IV.
“It’s the cold stress and blood loss. He stopped breathing the last time he did this, but it will be a lot easier to get him back with you here to help.”
He pulls out an Ambu bag from his medical kit. We learned how to use it when he made us all get CPR certified. Cole said it looked like a blue buoy.
A wave smacks into the Briar’s stern, nearly throwing me on top of Cole.
Javi connects the Ambu bag to the oxygen tank and hands it to me. “All you have to do is seal the mask tightly to his face and squeeze, then count to six, and squeeze again.” He tilts Cole’s head back and demonstrates. “See how his chest lifted? That’s how you know you did it correctly. Try it.”
I take the bag. It’s surreal. I think I’m dissociating. This isn’t Cole. I’m not learning how to save his life. I’m squeezing a blue buoy and that’s it.
“Perfect. If his heart stops, I’ll do chest compressions. If I have to shock him, you can’t touch him anywhere, okay?”
“You said this happened before?”
He nods. My mind races away with the thought of him performing CPR on Cole, breaking more ribs and battering his body as he tried to revive him.
“Maybe we should let him go. I don’t want to hurt him even more.”
“I don’t want that either, but the Coast Guard is ten minutes away. We have to try to get him to the helicopter.”
“Okay.” I exhale.
Javi kneels beside the monitor, watching Cole’s EKG.
“You gave Cole a chance,” I say. “If you weren’t here… Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet.”
Helicopter blades rumble overhead.
“Is that the Coast Guard?” I ask.
“Yeah. If we can hear them over the storm, they’re close. Go pack a bag. You need to go with him and get checked out too.”
“What about Seb?”
“Wes took care of it. The rescue swimmer will stay here and help with the search until the second helicopter reaches us. The boats in radio range are on the way too.”
Thank god I can depend on the crew to lead when I can’t. I kiss Cole’s forehead and memorize his features.
“Get up slowly.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
I throw clothes in a backpack at random, both of our toothbrushes, Cole’s glasses, and an extra pair of his contact lenses.
Maybe that’s too optimistic. I mean, of course it is.
But I want to be superstitious right now.
Maybe if I bring the things Cole needs, he’ll survive to use them. I hurry back out to the hall.
“You look like shit,” Javi says. “Sit back down by Cole.”
He tosses me a Gatorade. I twist the cap off, bring the bottle to my lips, and…
Alarms blare from the AED. The drink falls from my hands as I rush to grab the Ambu bag. Cole’s pallor shifts to gray.
No. This isn’t happening. He can’t die.
Javi frowns at the scribbles on the heart monitor.
“Shock advised,” a robotic voice says.
I lift my hands, and he presses the button on the machine. It’s so anticlimactic. On TV, the doctor rubs electric paddles together, and the patient jolts off the bed, zapped to life like Frankenstein. But Cole’s body twitches more than jolts.
“Take the mask and do what I taught you,” Javi says, starting compressions. It’s so violent, I have to suppress the urge to scream at him to stop.
I apply the mask to Cole’s face, and squeeze the bag, chanting one-two-three-four-five-six-squeeze inside my head. We continue until the robotic voice says, “Stop compressions. Analyzing rhythm.”
Javi pushes more medicine into Cole’s IV.
The robot says, “Shock advised.”
I scoot backward and out of the way.
Cole’s body twitches. I don’t realize I’m holding my breath until the flat line on the monitor spikes with the precious sound of his heartbeat.
“You’re doing a great job helping him breathe. Can you keep doing it?”
I nod. One-two-three-four-five-six breathe.
Another wave crashes into the Briar, this time on her starboard side. The hull groans in protest, and the force of impact teeters us to port. I’m still so weak, it’s hard to keep the mask in place over Cole’s face, but I manage.
I can’t worry about the storm pummeling the Briar. I can’t think beyond counting because then I’ll have to acknowledge that Cole almost died and it took two shocks to revive him.
One-two-three-four-five-six breathe.
The rescue swimmer from the Coast Guard arrives, and helps Javi get Cole onto a backboard. Javi took over the Ambu bag, but inside my head, I’m still chanting, one-two-three-four-five-six breathe. Cole, please don’t leave.