I memorize her.
The pitch of her shoulders. The height of her. The exact shade of her hair in sunlight. The shape of her hands wrapped around a juice box. The way she looked at me when my fingers were on her throat and she didn’t flinch.
Sadie.
They lift me out and onto a stretcher. The pain hits properly for the first time as they move my arm, a hot bright line from my shoulder to my elbow, and I bite down on it and don't make a sound. The paramedic on my left whistles low.
"You've got a hell of a pain tolerance, man."
"Mm." It’s a sound but it’s all I can manage through the searing pain.
"Your arm's going to need stitches. Maybe twenty or so,” he observes as he wheels me towards an empty ambulance.
I turn my head as they roll me the short distance.
I see the exact moment she feels it, the way her shoulders go still and her chin lifts. She turns her head slowly, as if she doesn't want to, and her eyes find mine across the wreckage the way mine already found her.
Her face does something small and complicated, a tightening around the mouth that could be fear or could be something else, and her hand closes a little tighter around the juice box.
I hold her eyes until the stretcher clears the ambulance door. Then she's gone from sight, and I'm figuring out how to see her again.
