“It’s just getting late. Cara’s not back yet and I’m getting worried.”
“We can go look for her.” I try to lean up but the pain bursts again and it feels like I’m on fire. I groan and cry out. Andrew’s hands are on me, holding me. The wooziness returns as I lie back.
“Stop. You’re not moving anytime soon.”
“We can’t stay out here forever. We need to get somewhere safe, somewhere inside.” We have to clean the wound and get someplace warm. We can’t be out here when it starts to rain. And then there’s the Fort Caroliners—the farther we are from them, the better.
“We will, but right now you have to wait here.”
“No,” I say. He’s gonna argue with me, I know it, but I also know I’m right, so I talk over him. “I won’t move, but we need to figure out a way to move me. You have to build a stretcher.”
“I can do that. I have pinecones and a sock, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
I chuckle but it causes pain. “Stop trying to make me laugh, it hurts.”
“I’m sorry. How do we make a stretcher?”
He’s got me there. But this could be good; he needs something to do. “Go find some branches around the same length as my body.” As he stands, it’s as if he’s happy to be busy and not just waiting around.“Hold on. Put our packs near me. Let me see what we have to work with.”
He unzips them and sets them down next to me.
“Hey,” I say as he stands again. He looks down, determined, on edge. “Kiss me.”
Just like that, all the fear and worry melts from his face and he smiles. He drops to his knees beside me. His lips are soft, gentle. He leans back and smiles at me.
“I love you.”
“Stop saying it like I’m dying.”
“You have a hole in your stomach.”
“It’s only a flesh wound.”
Andrew laughs, mission accomplished. I want him focusing on something else because the chances are extremely high that I really am going to die. I’ve been shot, we have no supplies, we have no antibiotics, antiseptic, gauze, bandages. We have water, but it’s supposed to be for drinking, and once it’s gone we have nothing else.
Andrew squeezes my hand once more before he’s off.
I want to take a look at my wound to see how bad it is, but I’m terrified to move the jeans and T-shirts packing it. If it’s not clotted properly, I could bleed out before I even get a chance to tie it back up.
I’m lucid enough now to be very, very scared. My mom had to take care of gunshot victims when she was doing her ER rotation in Philly. Most of the time the only way a victim survived was luck. They were lucky to get to the hospital fast enough, they were lucky the bullet missed the major arteries and organs, they were lucky they didn’t have a rare blood type.
My blood type isn’t rare, but there are no hospitals, and there’s no way to figure out if the bullet hit an organ until I go septic and die.
I run all the possibilities through my head. I could bleed out when he moves the jeans, I could have a ruptured liver. Then there’s secondary infection.
Stop. I need to stop.
Andrew is coming back; I hear his footsteps. I have to be brave and help him. I can’t die like this, not so soon after realizing he was what I wanted. Everything in the world’s gone to shit but he’s still here.
I want to be, too.
Andrew comes bounding over to me holding three large sticks bigger than me. “How are these?” He lays them down next to me; there’s one that’s much too short but the other two are perfect. He throws the short one aside.
“Perfect. Help me look through the packs. Let’s see what we have to make the stretcher out of.” It’s only our clothes, but I’m trying to buy time. We can use a sleeping bag, but I don’t know how to attach it to two of the sticks so I won’t fall off.
“We could cut some shirts into strips and tie them across the sticks like a ladder,” Andrew says.
“Yes. Do that.” He takes out a shirt and holds up the sleeve; he looks like he’s about to rip the shirt, but he stops.
