Expressionate

by Lucy Smoke

  “BLAKE!” My shout is hoarse, and I can feel myself choking with shock. There is a faint hum against my fingertips. Yes. A pulse. I start pumping on her chest. One. Two. Three. I breathe into her mouth. Please. One. Two. Three. Breathe. One. Two. Three.

  “BLAKE! CROSS! SOMEONE!” Breathe. Come on, Love. Please breathe. She’s not breathing. I hear a pounding behind me. One. Two. Three. Come on. Come on. One. Two. Three. I hear voices and then I know they’re behind me.

  “What happened?” Blake’s voice overlaps Cross’s intake of breath.

  “Fucking Christ,” Cross says, shocked.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  “Call an ambulance,” I say quickly. Not now, Love. Why now? One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  “Come on, Love,” I plead as I pump my hands against her chest. If there is a pulse, she’s alive, I remind myself. If there is a pulse, she’s alive. But, if she doesn’t breathe soon, she won’t be.

  One. Two. Three. Breathe. I can hear Blake barking into a phone. I can hear Ally asking what’s going on – she must have heard me yelling. I can hear Cross telling her to stay in the hall. I’m wrecked. I can’t think of anything, but the way Love’s lips are turning blue. Please. Please. Please.

  “Keep doing that, Tax,” Blake says from the door. “Don’t stop, no matter what.” Like I would even consider it. One. Two. Three. Breathe.

  The ambulance arrives. EMTs walk in and are shocked when they find me still pumping on her chest and giving her my breath. They bend down and check her faint pulse. It’s so slow. I can feel how cold she is when our lips touch. I beg her not to give up. Please, for me.

  They lift her onto a stretcher and I climb on top, pumping on her chest and breathing into her mouth. Now that I’ve started, I can’t stop. Someone calls out that they found sleeping pills on the bathroom counter. Suicide? No, she wouldn’t. But I know she would. I’ve been there, I’ve tried it. I was too wimpy to go through with it. And I don’t care if it makes me a wimp now, but there is no way in hell that she’s going to leave me like this.

  We get to the hospital and I trust that Cross and Blake will look after Ally. I’m too broken right now, shattering into millions of pieces even as I pump up and down on Love’s chest. Tears blur my vision. They’re telling me to let up. To get off the stretcher. They need to move her. But what if she dies? What if I stop and she dies? Water finally starts to dribble out of her mouth as they move her, more and more coming up. At least she’s not drowning, but what about the pills she took?

  The nurses and a doctor trade her over to a table and they push me to the back of the room. My back hits a wall and I slide down. Her pulse is now visualized in front of me on the heart monitor. It stutters for a moment and finally stops. No.

  I feel a hand on my arms pulling me up. No! The word echoes in my head, burning through me. A rejection. A hollow hope. A dangerous plea.

  “Need a crash cart in here!” someone yells. They pull out those electric shocker things, the flat, hand sized metal irons. I’ve never seen them except on a television before. What if they hurt her? I think.

  “You can’t be in here,” a nurse snaps, pointing towards the door.

  “I’m not fucking leaving,” I growl. My eyes are burning. The tears fall. I don’t care. One. Two. Three. Go. They press the irons to her chest, shocking her, and I jump at the sound. Her chest rises quickly and then falls, not lifting again. White lab coats and blue scrubs surround me. Like fucking robots, none of them seem to show any emotion as they work. They don’t react, as if the girl lying on the table right in front of them isn’t the most beautiful, sad creature to walk this Earth.

  I can’t do this. I can’t see her die. “Again!” I scream. The nurse from before frowns at me. I watch the doctor press the irons to her chest again. I bow my head with my hand over my eyes. I can’t let go. Please, God. I can’t let go.

  “Do you want me to call hospital security,” she warns. “You need to leave.”

  “I can’t leave her.” Maybe it’s something in my voice – the way it cracks as my whole chest cracks. Still there’s nothing. When the doctor shakes his head at the nurses across from him, I fucking lose it. I storm over to the doctor and grab the front of his lab coat. “Do. It. Again.”

  “Call hospital security!” someone yells.

  The doctor stares at me. “Do it a-fucking-gain!” I scream.

  Only when he nods do I release him. The nurses stare at me. I know that they’re scared, they refuse to get closer, probably waiting on security. I back up against the far wall, my arms around myself. She has to live. He preps the irons. I can’t lose her. Presses it to her chest. I look up to the ceiling.

  “Please,” I whisper, “don’t take her.”

  One. Two. Three. Again, no heartbeat. I can’t breathe. I gave her all my breath and I find myself stumbling backward. This can’t be happening. I don’t want this to happen. One. Two. It’s not going to make a difference. Three.

  Thump.

  I lift my head.

  Thump. Thump.

  There it is. Her heart is beating again, echoing throughout the room, drowning out the other noises. The doctor starts barking commands, the nurses quickly complying. My gaze focuses in on the black monitor at the side of the bed and the lines that emit the visual of her life.

  Thump. Thump. Thump.

  More water comes out of her mouth and the doctor and nurses rush to push her on her side so that she can throw it up. I’m shaking so bad I finally let someone, not a security guard surprisingly, but a nurse, lead me out of the room. The hall is white, and I smell disinfectant everywhere. The stench clings to everything I pass, and soon it clings to me too. I can’t keep steady on my feet.

  When I come to the waiting room, Blake is there and so are Ally and Cross. Ally’s face is tear stained and she throws herself at me when I come in. I wrap my arms around her, holding her tight. I can’t lose these girls. I can’t.

  “It’ll be okay, man,” Cross says. There are circles under his eyes.

  “What happened?” Ally asks.

  I don’t know.

  “I don’t know,” I say again out loud. “I don’t know.” I let go of Ally and lumber further into the waiting room. I collapse into one of the chairs and hang my head in my hands. Her heart is beating. She’s alive. At least…she’s alive. If she’s alive then we can fix this—whatever this is.

  26

  Love

  I open my eyes, and, for a moment, I fear that I'm blind. Everything is white, but nothing is identifiable. There’s just a bright light, shining directly into my eyes. Then, my vision clears, and the white ceiling above me comes into view. The light is the sun spilling in through the window. The sounds of beeping and feet shuffling along tiled floors are like slow whispers trying to reach me while I hover just beneath the surface of a pool of water. Water...why does that remind me of something bad? Something...my eyes open wider when I realize where I am. A hospital. A figure lingers in my peripheral vision.

  "Love?" I blink, and Trisha's face moves closer.

  I open my mouth on a croak. "Trish?"

  Trish turns away. “She's awake!" I don't know who she calls to, but as soon as she’s alerted someone, she's back. Her hands reach out, one arm wrapped and white against the dark navy color of her t-shirt. How long have I been out? Who brought her clothes? Another figure fills the doorway.

  "Hey, how're you feeling?" she asks, propping her hip on the bed closer to me.

  I try to sit up, and she helps by reaching down and pressing a button to move the hospital bed to a more comfortable position. "I should be asking you that," I say. I flinch at the stinging pain in my throat. It feels like I've swallowed gallons of salt and every particle is etched into the skin of my esophagus. "What happened?"

  She frowns, sucking in a breath, and I realize who the person is as they move closer. "You apparently fell asleep in the bathtub," Anne says through pinched lips. It's clear by her stiff posture and her icy glare that she is
irritated with being here. I don't know why she’s here in the first place.

  “Where’s Dad?” I ask. If Anne’s here for me, then it’s only because he is too. Unless…I shoot a glance at Trish, who watches me with focus, avoiding her mother’s presence.

  Anne sniffs with her answers. “He had more important things to do than to deal with his idiot daughter. That is a mother’s job.”

  I watch the small ticks in her face – the throb of her pulse in her forehead, the little curling of her lips as she looks down at my hospital gown, and the whitening of her knuckles as she squeezes her purse to her chest and moves across the room to the window. I don’t bother to tell her that she’s not my mother. But the more curious question is – why does she think that I fell asleep in the bathtub?

  I glance down at my lap, my hands shaking. Maybe when Anne is gone, I should finally come clean? I should tell Trish. My stomach churns at the thought of how she might react, how weak she might think of me, how she might tell me that I was right. I take a deep breath, preparing to ask Anne to leave when Tax steps into the room and all of the air in my lungs evaporates, leaving nothing but a bone-deep tension lingering in the space between us as his eyes meet mine. He knows. I can tell by the sharp darkness circling in his angry, ocean eyes. My heart thuds against my ribcage. Embarrassingly enough, the monitor picks up speed in response. All eyes move to it and when my heart doubles once again, galloping in my chest, their eyes collectively turn to my face.

  "I-I—" I glance to Trisha, avoiding the steel gaze lingering on my reddening skin from the doorway. "I'm okay?" I choke out, trying, desperately to seem normal despite the rioting monitor.

  Trish turns her head and looks over her shoulder. When she sees Tax, her body stiffens, and she slowly turns back to me. "Your, um, boyfriend found you," she says, rising fully to her feet. "I'll let you guys..." Trish looks to Anne and nods to the door. Anne merely huffs and leaves without further comment.

  "Trish." I reach for her hand and try to talk despite the pain in my throat. "What—" I look at her – the bruises and the darkness I can see in the back of her eyes. "How—" I lick dry lips. "Are you okay?"

  Trish presses her hand against mine and smiles. I hate it. Her lips are curved up ever so slightly, but there is no expression in her eyes – no life. "The doctors said I was good to go home," she replies. "I was discharged a little while after you came in, and mom went and grabbed me some clothes. But we can talk more later, okay?

  "I'm okay, Love. I'm worried about you now. I've been here since you came in. I can stay if you want, but I was about to go back – I’m staying at a hotel.” A shadow crosses her face. She lowers her voice. “I can’t go back to the house right now.”

  I nod. "It’s okay.” I squeeze her hand. “Go, get some rest.”

  "Okay," Trish says. "Then I'll be back. I love you."

  "I love you, too," I say as she pulls her hand from my grip and moves towards the door. She nods to Tax on her way out. The snick of the door latching behind her echoes throughout the cold room.

  I can't meet his eyes.

  I don't know how long we stay like that – me, sitting upright in the hospital bed, and him standing by the door, watching me. It could have been minutes, but it feels like hours, days, years of waiting for him to approach me. To say something. Danny’s words roll around in my head. I’m worthless. I’m a whore. Tax will never understand the way Danny could. I force myself away from my thoughts, the slight burning in my throat and the ache of my chest reminding me of what I almost did. When Tax does finally take that step forward, I almost flinch at how loud the ricochet of sound from his shoe on the tiled floor rebounds around the room.

  I have to say something – knowing he’s the one that found me, thinking about the last time we saw each other – what we did. I can’t just sit here and say nothing.

  “I didn’t do it for you,” he says before I can even think of something suitable. The hoarseness of his tone is like a string – pulling my head up and his blue eyes catch my gaze. The pain reflected there is dark, holding me captive. “I didn’t lie for you,” he repeats.

  It hits me. “You told them I fell asleep in the bathtub.”

  He nods. “They thought you were trying to kill yourself – I told them you regularly took sleeping pills and sometimes you forgot if you took them or not.”

  “That’s not what happened,” I say.

  Tax’s anger fills up the room like a balloon. Squeezing against me even as I lie across the room from him. “I know.” Those two words are so powerful, they punch me right in my chest.

  “Then…” I fist my hands in the cold sheets. “Why did you lie?”

  “Because I didn’t want it to be true.” His eyes catch fire, burning into me. "I lied for me."

  “She shouldn’t have believed you,” I say.

  "Somehow, I knew you wouldn’t have a record.” Tax moves closer to the bed. “And you didn’t. You’ve never seen a therapist. You’ve never had any sort of medication or anti-depressants.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Oh, I fucking know it doesn’t.” I flinch at the savagery of his tone. After a hard, silent moment, he continues. “They pumped your stomach."

  I swallow, acid bubbling in the pit that is my stomach. Silence echoes in the cold hospital room.

  “Well?” Tax steps closer, standing beside the bed now. "Are you going to say anything?"

  My breath shudders in my chest. When I look away, I’m shocked by the violent edge with which his feet eat up the distance between us as he reaches forward – placing one palm flat on the bed and gripping my chin with the other, tilting my face up.

  “Don’t you fucking look away from me, Lovely. If you don’t have to answer to anyone else for what you almost did, then you’re at least going to answer to me. Say something.”

  I’m sorry feels so cheap. I can’t say that. I blink hard, against the burn in my eyes. “I…” I clench my teeth, biting down so hard that I can feel the ache in my jaw. “I thought I couldn't do it anymore,” I whisper. “What happened to Trish, I saw the signs, but I didn't push hard enough. What happened with you – I needed you last night and I was weak and I let…” I’m scared to tell him about Danny. I don’t want to set him over the edge. When I thought, before, that I wanted to keep him in the dark with me – I was wrong. I want him to be free. I want him to live in the light.

  “You let what, Lovely?”

  Silent tears track down my face and he wipes them away with his thumbs when his hands come up to cup my cheeks.

  "Lovely..." My name is a prayer on his lips, "it’s okay,” he whispers. “No matter what, I'm here for you. You get that, right? It’s not your fault.”

  “Then why does it feel like it?” I choke on the question as more hot tears burn trails down my cheeks.

  His eyes soften. “Because, baby, you take it all in on yourself. All the shit other people say—all the shit they do, you make it your fault. You listen to them—to people who don’t fucking matter, to people you don’t even give a shit about because they scream at you the loudest. But don’t you fucking listen to them. You listen to me, baby. Listen to my words—It. Is. Not. Your. Fault,” he whispers them.

  My breath shudders in and out of my body as the quiet words filter in. He’s right. I do listen to them. Anne’s words are always so cutting, so loud. His are quiet—almost difficult to hear, but I hear them. I listen to them. I take them in and I cradle them close. I like these words. They ring with truth and they ring with safety and love. Something I haven’t felt…in forever. I look up at him and, slowly, I nod.

  Tax smiles and my eyes drift down to the small bruises and cuts across his knuckles as he touches me then up to the raised bruise on his face. Those marks tell me he isn't unaffected by me, that he’s still angry even if we’re working it out. He still needs to find a place to unleash his anger, but despite that, he’s here. He came for me. He saved me even when I shoved him away, even when I hurt him
. I don’t understand it. Why?

  I don’t realize I’ve spoken aloud until Tax releases my face. He lets me drop my eyes, but he doesn’t move away. Instead, he gets closer, sliding onto the bed, reaching out to me with both hands. He cups my face, and the heat of his palms warms my skin. “Love.” He leans forward, his forehead touching mine. The wetness of my tears lingers in my lashes. "You're everything to me, baby. I don't fucking know how, but you crawled under my skin, and I can't get you out." He inhales sharply before releasing. "I don't want you out. You're perfect inside me. You're perfect everywhere. I almost lost you. You coded."

  And I put him through that. I’m not worthy of his protection, his forgiveness. I’m a broken disaster. But the more I let him touch me, the more I think...maybe one day I could be better. If Tax can love me, then can’t I love him? Together, with him, I feel a balance – a peace – I didn't know was possible.

  “Tell me,” he says. “Don’t you fucking shut me out like you did. I can’t – I won’t do that again. You and me, Lovely. We have to be honest with each other. I’ll tell you everything. All of my past, everything I’ve ever done, things both far back and…recent.” Through blurry eyes, I watch how he bites down on his bottom lip. I can’t really see a lot of his face with how close he is – his forehead pressed to mine. “Just don’t ever fucking put me through that again. I thought I was going to lose you.”

  “Tax.” His name is a whisper, a promise, a prayer. He pulls away and moves up the bed, and I slide to the side to allow him room. I give him all of the room there is. He lays out and yanks me closer until I’m nearly on top of him. It is the safest place for me, I think. Because when he’s around, all of the pain and darkness inside quiets for a fucking minute. I don’t know what it is about him. He drives me crazy, and he makes me feel whole. "I won't," I promise him. I’ll tell him about Danny eventually. Maybe once I’ve healed, maybe sooner. But right now, I just want to be with him.