by E. J. Noyes
I lean back a little, suddenly aware of how close I am to this stranger. “Name?” Social conventions feel foreign, and I’m surprised at the gruff uncertainty in my voice. Clearing my throat, I try again, making the effort to be softer this time. “What’s your name?”
“Olivia,” she whispers. The word catches and she coughs a few times, her hand moving too late to cover her mouth. “Sorry.”
“Olivia,” I repeat. The word feels like caramel fudge in my mouth. Comforting, warm, and soft. I swallow, like I could be nourished by her name. “We can’t stay here.” Glancing up toward the dwelling, I add, “The house is about a hundred yards away, just up that slope.”
“I don’t think I can walk that far.”
“And I don’t think I can carry you,” I finish. “But…I have a cart and a four-wheeler I could use to move you?”
“Okay, thank you.” She slides a shaking hand underneath mine, placing it against her wound. With her other trembling hand, she’s trying to unfasten the straps on her pack.
I crouch, my own trembling hands hovering useless in the air. “Can I help?”
“Please,” she says, and I unclip the harness so she can wriggle out of it. She shifts slightly and is unburdened. Her delicate, arched eyebrows arch further. “I’m freezing, do you mind if we move?”
I’ve been staring. “Oh, yes. Sorry.”
Olivia nods, her eyes falling closed. I allow myself another moment to study her features while she can’t see me, then I get up and jog on wobbly legs to the equipment shed. Adrenaline and fear make my hands shake even more, and it takes a minute to hitch the cart to the ATV. The four-wheeler bumps and side-skids over the rough, snow-muddied ground as I race back. Worried about accidentally running her over, I slow down to a crawl and roll the ATV back and forth to get it onto a flat part as close as I can to her before I cut the ignition. “How’s your leg?”
“Hurts.” She opens her eyes and glances down. “But I think the bleeding is slowing.”
“Good,” I say because I can’t think of anything else. Bleeding. I’m suddenly aware that I have her blood on one of my hands, tacky and uncomfortable. I pick up a handful of snow to clean it off.
Olivia grimaces when I help her stand, wrapping her arm around my shoulder for support. She doesn’t complain when my arm automatically slides around her waist. She’s about my height but curved and more solidly muscular than me. I feel the tensing of that muscle underneath her red soft-shell jacket and for a moment I imagine the sensation under my hands or how she would feel on top of my sinewy runner’s body.
A flash of arousal stuns but doesn’t surprise me. This isn’t the time for that, Celeste. My body pays no attention to the inappropriate timing and my arousal blooms, smoothly winding its way through my body. I feel it everywhere, heating hidden recesses long abandoned, a contrast to the wind chill outside my body. But I can’t do anything about it, about the cause. Not now. Not here. Maybe not ever.
With some tricky maneuvering we manage to get her settled safely into the cart, and aside from the sharp gasps that rise over the engine sound with every jolt, she’s mostly silent for the journey. Riding as slowly as I can to keep her comfortable, I mentally trawl through the wording of my contract, trying to remember if there’s anything about this…scenario. I read every single word of that contract and know they can adjust my payment as they see fit, but only under certain clauses and by reasonable and appropriate amounts which are clearly laid out. There was a list of reasons to extract me or short-pay me, including illness requiring hospitalization, natural disaster, outbreak of disease or nuclear warfare, but I don’t recall any clause saying: If you shoot someone who is trespassing and then help said person we can reduce your payment.
Even though I didn’t do this intentionally, they could reduce my compensation because I did something I shouldn’t have, and ruined their data as a consequence. No matter. I think I would give some of that money up if it meant I could spend just one week talking to this real person. Even for just one day. But I can’t have that.
None of what I feel or want matters because I have to tell them, and not just as an afterthought in a log because she isn’t a false thing that I have to record. Is she? I see her. I feel her. I hear her. She’s real. She has to be, because if she isn’t real then I’ve lost all traces of sanity.
Chapter Five
I deposit the person—no, she’s a woman and her name is Olivia—on the couch and run back outside to put the ATV away and collect her backpack and my rifle that I’d completely forgotten about. Her pack weighs maybe thirty-five pounds and has snowshoes, a foam sleeping mat, and a tent strapped to the outside. Serious business. It takes me a few attempts to lift and then swing it up onto my shoulders, and I keep expecting the cameras to swivel in my direction and catch me in the act. The thought makes the back of my neck shudder like bugs are crawling over it. I kick snow over the blood and rush as fast as I can with my load back to the dwelling, where I dump the pack just inside the door. Rifle placed in the safe, locked for the first time.
She’s still where I left her, but now slumped to the side with her head tilted to rest against the back of the couch. Her eyes open slowly, like those creepy dolls with creepy sliding eyelids. Though watchful, she seems calm, and I wonder what sort of person trusts a stranger so willingly. Especially a stranger who shot them.
Olivia straightens when I come closer. “Is everything okay out there?”
“Mhmm. I got your pack.”
“Great, thanks.” She peers at her thigh. Peers at me. “I, uh…I need you to help me with my leg. If the bullet is in there it will need to come out, and the wound cleaned and dressed. There’s a first aid kit in the top compartment of my pack.” Her voice is low and surprisingly clear, that slight accent skirting the edges of her words. Melodic. Mesmerizing. “It may be best if we go to your bathroom, it’s going to be messy. Then I’ll need to borrow your phone too, please.”
She’s not crying anymore. There’s no crying in—stop. I blink hard to dispel the refrain rattling though my head. “Sure. I have a first aid kit you can use. Give me a moment.” I say nothing in response to her comment about needing a phone. Nor to her saying I might need to help her extract the piece of metal I put in her.
On my way down the hall, I yank the door to the computer room closed. Nothing amiss, nobody here, carry on. In the cool basement, I paw through the container of medical equipment, pull out my first aid kit. There’s no cry—stop, shut up. I jump up and down, shaking my arms out. Out, out, out! Three strikes and you’re outta here!
“You’re a terrible ten-pin bowler, Celeste,” Heather reminds me. “I don’t think you’ve ever bowled above a hundred-fifty game.”
“Thanks, I know. Wrong kind of strikes though.”
There’s a box in my medical supplies with ANTIBIOTICS written on the lid in permanent ink, and opening it reveals stacks of smaller red and green boxes. Olivia will be here for at least a day until they can organize her extraction, and starting a course of these pills is a good idea. I flick through my first aid manual and find the entry marked Antibiotics. I’ve never had cause to use any of these and everything in the manual is simplified for non-doctors like me. Red for sore throats, earaches and the like. Green for open wounds, deep cuts, abscesses or boils. I set a green box on top of the first aid kit and carry my loot upstairs.
I leave the first aid things in the bathroom, then rush back to the lounge area. I’ve only been gone five minutes, but my nerves are sparking like I want to jolt and twitch and yell. I keep waiting for someone to jump from the shadows and accuse me of doing something bad. Olivia’s stripped off her jacket and tossed it over one of the kitchen chairs. We stare at each other in silent appraisal. She pulls off her beanie, setting loose dark, curly hair that falls around her shoulders.
I break first. “Come on, the bathroom’s this way.”
She’s wobbling as I half-support, half-carry her up the hallway. My body tingles, maybe just a le
ftover symptom of the implant shocks. No, I don’t think so. It’s her touching me. Olivia hops over to rest her butt against my sink and begins to unfasten her pants, pushing them down carefully. I look away, but I don’t want to.
My hands and eyes are suddenly very busy with the first aid kit. The thought of having to clean an open wound makes me shudder and a touch of queasiness churns in my stomach.
“You can do it, Cel. And this is nowhere near as bad as that glass cut,” Riley reminds me.
Teeth clenched to stop myself from replying to my sister, I close the first aid box then shuffle over and open the cabinet beside the mirror. “I have Motrin and Tylenol to help with the pain. I’m sorry, nothing stronger.”
“Thank you. I’ll take a couple of Tylenol.”
Still turned at an angle away from her and her gory leg, I pass her the box and she swallows the gels without water before passing the packet back. Fabric rustles. “Hungh, I think the bullet just grazed me.”
Without thinking, I glance over, starting at her face and moving down until I come to black panties. Panicked, I shift my gaze from her underwear. But I go in the wrong direction, looking down to her blood-smeared thigh. Suppressing a gag, I turn my eyes from the gore. “That’s something then, I guess,” I say hoarsely to the floor. “So, what’s the plan?”
“I think I’ll wash it out in the shower first. Is there any antiseptic liquid or wipes in that kit?” She leans heavily against the sink.
“Uh, I’ve got…hydrogen peroxide and saline?”
“Saline will do. Could you please take off my boots?”
Nodding, I crouch down and untie the laces of her leather hiking boots. Sometime earlier today she put on her shoes and double knotted them. For some reason this simple, normal act makes me want to cry. The right boot slips off easily but the left is harder because I have to try and angle it off her foot while she’s hopping to keep weight from her injured leg. Sharp inhalations. Muscle tight and trembling with strain. Under the blood, the skin on her thigh is goose-pimpled.
Burning shame fills my chest. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I could have killed her.
“It’s okay,” Olivia murmurs. “Not your fault. Obviously I went somewhere I shouldn’t have. And it’s just a minor wound, really. Should heal just fine.”
“Pardon?”
“It’ll be okay. You don’t need to keep apologizing.”
But I didn’t. Did I?
I stand up again as Olivia wriggles the rest of the way out of her ruined pants. She pulls her long-sleeved button-up and the thermal underneath over her head. Quickly, I turn around but not before catching sight of a plain white sports bra along with her curves and bare skin. She’s toned, but not hard. The heat spreads from my chest to my stomach. “Do you need any help?” I manage to ask.
“No, I think I’m good. But could you maybe hang around in case I pass out?” The sound of her gasping and cursing rises above the shower.
“Mhmm.”
An hour ago I was totally alone, as I have been for over three years, and now there’s a woman almost naked in my shower. I feel differently about it than I would have expected. I should be excited or pleased, but instead I feel anxious and frightened. It’s not my fault. Over and over I repeat those words in my head, hoping they’ll stick.
The water shuts off. “May I please have a towel?”
“Mhmm.” I sidestep over and pass her one through the open glass door. “How is it?” My eyes pay no attention to my loathing of blood, fixating on the now-clean wound. It does look more like a rough graze than a hole—a ragged tract almost four inches long and a quarter-inch deep, as though the bullet skipped across her skin like a stone over water. The proverbial just a flesh wound of old westerns.
There’s a slight tremor in her legs as she pats her thigh, then dries the water that’s splashed up onto her torso. “Stings like hell but I imagine it’s going to feel a whole lot worse when you put that on it.” She gestures to the bottle of saline in my hand.
My voice squeaks up when I force out, “Me?”
“Yes. I can’t get the angle right to clean it thoroughly and keep my balance on only one leg.” She reaches up and hooks her fingers over the top of the shower screen, the muscles in her arms taut.
My words won’t come out. I swallow hard, working my jaw back and forth a few times to shake them loose. “Just so you know, I…uh, I’m not great with gory stuff.”
“It’s not that gory.” She smiles. “Just squirt that saline into it and make sure you get it everywhere. Can you put on some gloves please?” She’s direct, but not obnoxious or forceful—simply a woman who knows what she needs and wants, and knows how to communicate that to people. “You’ll be fine, trust me.”
The woman that I shot is soothing me. I make a noncommittal gurgling sound, wash my hands and pull on the gloves from the kit. My curiosity is overwhelmed by my aversion and I gag when she tells me to pull the edges of the wound apart to get the saline solution everywhere. Unsurprisingly, her directions are now pushed through clenched teeth and I feel another flash of shame. This is me. I did this.
“Not everything is about you, Cel,” Riley tells me.
“This is,” I mutter.
“What was that?” Olivia asks, her voice tight.
“Nothing.” I squeeze the bottle to get the last of the liquid into the wound.
“Liar,” Riley singsongs.
“Good,” Olivia whispers over the top of my sister. “Can you help me sit down on the toilet please?”
I set a folded towel on the closed lid and stand stiffly, uncertain as to how to help her best. Olivia takes charge, grabbing my biceps hard and using me for balance while she steps out of the shower and drops heavily onto the toilet. “Thank you. Now, can you use some gauze swabs to dry the skin around it?”
I do, and the whole time her hands hang by her sides, clenched into fists. “Good, that’s good. Now, the uh…” She swallows convulsively. “The uh, Neosporin and a dressing.”
I clamp my molars together as I whack a whole heap of antiseptic cream along the bullet tract. Blargh. I’m as gentle as I can be but Olivia’s leg is tense and her breathing short and shallow, almost panting. She looks pale. I feel paler.
“You know,” she pushes out around breaths. “You haven’t told me your name.” Classic distraction technique. Clever.
I glance up. “Haven’t I? It’s Celeste.”
“Celeste.” Saying my name seems to relax her. “That’s really pretty. It suits you.”
“Mother used to like looking at the night sky when she was fucked up. Sometimes, she’d call me Celestial.” Shit, why did I just say that? I may as well have just told her my entire stupid life story.
The look Olivia gives me is so incongruously gentle that my eyes prickle. I blink and clear my throat, trying to get rid of the lump that’s suddenly formed there. When I stick the dressing on her thigh, wrapping it firmly in place with a crepe bandage, my hands are still shaking. “I think this is done.”
“Thanks. Looks great. I just need a moment before I can stand up.” She’s inhaling deeply and noisily, her eyes half-closed.
I stand to the side, not knowing if I should offer to assist or if she even wants me to. Everything in my head feels wrong and it takes me a few moments to think of the right wording. “What do you need?”
“I think I should lie down.” She sounds woozy, almost intoxicated.
I stare until the thought pops into my head that I’ve missed the social cue. She does want your help, Celeste. “Oh!” I hold out my hands and when she takes them, I pull her up from the toilet. As gently as I can, I wedge myself under her arm and together we shuffle to my bedroom, so close and in sync we could be competing in a three-legged race. Still only in underwear, her bare skin is against my body, warm and enticing. I’m grateful for my clothes and the barrier they keep between us, but at the same time I hate them for keeping her skin from mine.
Olivia twists sideways to look at me. “I’m g
oing to mess up your nice neat bed.”
“Doesn’t matter.” I help her to the other side, not my side, and when I try to get her down onto the mattress it ends up an uncoordinated juggling act where we’re face-to-face and I’m almost hugging her. My breath catches and I drop her onto the bed. “Shit, sorry.”
Her face is contorted. “It’s okay.” She lies still on top of the covers for half a minute, then worms her way under my duvet, the movement slow and clumsy.
“Are you comfortable?”
Olivia nods weakly as I tug the covers up over her bare stomach. “I’ve got something for you,” I tell her. “I’ll be right back.”
Safely out of sight outside the room, I cover my face with my hands, leaning back against the wall. What am I doing? This isn’t candy I’m hiding in my bedside table. This is a person. This is something I’m not allowed. This is something that could get me in trouble and has probably fucked up a long and very expensive scientific study. It only takes another few seconds for me to hit full panic mode. I yank the front door open and stumble outside.
Mother follows me. “Jesus Christ. Chill. You’re always so fuckin’ dramatic.” She drags on a cigarette, the inhalation sounding obnoxious in my ears. Mother coughs wetly. “Gonna calm the fuck down, or do I need to give you some time locked up in the cupboard?”
“No! Please don’t. Don’t do that. I’ll be good, I promise. I’ll be quiet.” Anything but that. Noisily, I suck gulps of air down into my lungs. It’s so cold it almost hurts, and I imagine bits of my lungs turning to ice. Though I’m shaking without my jacket, I bend down to take a handful of snow and scrub it over my face.
The temperature shock has the intended effect, disrupting my panic so I can think. I wait a little while longer until my fear has been pushed down enough for me to jam a lid on it. Okay, what was I doing? Why did I leave Olivia again? She needs something. It’s, uh…the antibiotics. I rush back inside and slam the door on Mother.
I take a banana, a glass of water, and the small green box into my room. “Here’s a banana. Delivered fresh this morning.” Trying to sound cheerful and enthusiastic comes off as a little deranged, like I shot you but here, have some fruit to make it better! “I’ve also got some antibiotics. I just thought it was a good idea, to get started as soon as possible. Because, um, infections…suck.” So suave, so great at social interactions.
