Stay alive. C’mon, just stay alive.
A rib gives way.
“Fuck.”
My stomach rolls.
“C’mon, man. Not today.” I look down at his pale face and blueish lips. His blond hair falling over the darknesssurrounding his eyes. There’s a too-big striped long-sleeved shirt hanging from his frame. The tinge of recognition twists me up even more, though I can’t place him. “You ever been to Alaska? Seen the Northern Lights? They’re hella pretty man. You don’t want to miss that.”
I’ve never seen them either.
My chest goes tight.
“Don’t give up.”
Eyes sting as my mind races me right back to a night a long, long time ago.
An orange bottle.
So much vomit.
Pain.
I shake the thought right out of my head and hum the lyrics to the song. Gotta get the job done. Get him to the ambulance. Get him the help he deserves.
“Hatley!” I call out on a shaky breath when I hear him clamoring through the window. I’d look, but something about this stranger on the floor makes me feel like I shouldn’t look away. Like Ican’t. If I do, I might miss something. Like maybe I might lose him. “Check the bottles.”
“Shit. Narc, Narc, Narc.”
I lean back when Hat dives in, shoving the nasal tube into the guy’s nose holes and spraying.
One dose.
No response.
Second dose.
I rub his sternum, then check his pulse.
“C’mon. C’mon.C’mon,” I chant with my heart in my throat.
My hands shake when Hatley administers a third and taps his too-pale cheeks.
Three is it. It’s all we’re allowed to give to one person at a time.
Please be enough.
Two fingers to the pulse, I grab Hat’s forearm and still us both.
One beat passes with nothing.
Another and I’m holding my breath.
“C’mon, man. C’mon,” Hatley mutters next to me and slaps the guy’s cheeks again, a little harder this time.
I’m frozen over him, kneeling in stomach acid, and desperate for this guy to take a breath. Just take another breath. One more—
There’s a faint pump beneath the pads of my fingers and relief floods me.
