Skipped a Beat

by Salsbury, JB

  “Yes.” I can’t help it. I’m smiling. But blood pumps furiously through me, and my sense of urgency grows. “We have to get you out—”

  “What happened?” He lifts a hand to my face. “You’re bleeding.”

  I hold his palm to my cheek. “I’m okay. Come on, we have to find the others and get them out of here. Can you move?”

  He moves slowly, but he moves, and eventually we’re both lumbering over pieces of destroyed furniture. Ryder moves easier than I do, and he staggers to the back to search the bunks.

  “Ethan!”

  I exhale in relief as I hear Ryder talk and Ethan groan. The front of the bus is a twisted mess of metal, and the windows on the sides are all blown out.

  “Where’s Chris!”

  I turn to see Ryder with his arm around Ethan’s waist. His head is hung low, but he’s moving. “He wasn’t in his bunk?”

  We do a quick scan of the space with no sign of Chris anywhere.

  I get on my knees and crawl out one of the shattered windows to the dusty desert floor. I scramble away from the bus, my eyes wide as I look up the ravine slope toward the freeway.

  “We must’ve gone off the road and flipped.” Ryder lowers Ethan to the ground next to me.

  “Why wasn’t Chris in his bunk?” Frigid fear snakes through me when I put the pieces together.

  “He’s been sleeping—ow, fuck!” Ethan grips at his rib and takes shallow breaths. “On the couch.”

  “You have a broken rib,” I tell him. “Possibly more so try to sit still, okay?” I push up as best I can on one leg. “He got thrown from the bus. We need to look for him.”

  “It’s too dark,” Ryder says as he limps around barefoot, searching the ground. “I can’t see shit.”

  I drag my bad foot as best I can to the other side of the bus and grit my teeth through the pain that makes my head spin and my stomach sick. “Chris!”

  “Chris!” Ryder calls from the opposite side.

  “Talk to us, Chris! Where are you?” I drop to my knee and drag myself along the ground, searching. I turn back toward the bus to try to determine how it rolled and figure out the best place to search when I see the impact marks on the driver’s side front. I pinch my eyes closed and push back the tears as they threaten to burst free.

  I’ve seen enough car accidents to know Charles didn’t survive the wreck. He was probably killed instantly. I can’t save him, but there’s still a chance to save Chris.

  We continue to search when a flash of white in the distance catches my eye. I scramble up the side of the ravine and hope what I’m seeing isn’t just a rock. The closer I get, I can make out a body, even a face. Please don’t let this be an optical illusion brought on by my delusional, concussed mind.

  “Chris!” I get closer, and I can see it’s definitely him

  He’s curled up on his side, his legs limp and his body twisted.

  “Chris!” I feel for a pulse. Nothing. “We heed an ambulance!”

  Ryder’s voice is right next to me. “Is he okay?”

  I hate to move him not knowing what he broke, but I have to in order to get him breathing again. “No pulse.” I roll Chris to his back and begin chest compressions.

  Ryder mumbles something beside me, but I’m too lost in what needs to be done to bring Chris back to hear what he said.

  The faint sound of sirens in the distance isn’t enough to call me off as I blow breath into his lungs.

  Thirty chest compressions.

  Two breaths.

  Time is irrelevant, pain even more so as I try to jumpstart Chris’s heart.

  “Jade,” Ryder says with tears in his voice. “He’s gone.”

  “He’s not gone!” Nineteen, twenty, twenty-one. “I’ve brought life back before. I’m not giving up until I give out.” Twenty-three, twenty-four, Twenty-five.

  Red and blue lights flash above us. There’s a rustling of activity behind me, but it’s white noise to my counting.

  “The paramedics are here,” he says.

  “Good. Tell them we’ve got an unconscious male, no pulse. Hurry!” I lean over and blow two breaths into Chris’s mouth, then go back to compressions.

  “We’ll take it from here,” a female voice says at my ear.

  “Get your hands on him now!”

  A male paramedic comes to Chris’s opposite side, his hands ready to replace mine.

  “Twelve, thirteen.” I remove my hands even though I’m terrified to, but my higher reasoning knows Chris’s chances are better with a fresh medic. I’m pulled back and cradled in Ryder’s strong arms as paramedics surround us.

  Time drags on in slow motion. I watch through a team of medics as they try to bring Chris back to life. Ryder’s steady pulse at my back grounds me as my vision blurs, and I fight to stay conscious.

  “What’s your name?” someone asks, and Ryder mumbles an answer I can hardly hear through the static in my head.

  “We’ve got a pulse!” one of them yells.

  I exhale a heavy breath and fall back into the cushion of Ryder’s body.

  The paramedic in front of me smiles. “Congratulations, you saved that man’s life.”

  When I exhale again, I sink deeper into Ryder’s embrace.

  “Ryder, if you could let her go, we can assess her injuries,” the woman says.

  Ryder’s arms remain firmly around me. “I don’t know if I can.”

  “My left ankle is fractured. I have a nasty concussion and a wound somewhere on my head, but that’s all,” I say as I do one more internal assessment.

  “Why don’t you let us be the judge of that?”

  I roll my eyes, and Ryder gently releases me while he gets his own treatment for what I’m sure is a nasty wound that will require stitches, extreme bruising, and a concussion.

  As my ankle is being stabilized, I ask softly, “The driver?” I already know, but I have to ask. Is it too much to hope he was thrown from the vehicle too?

  The paramedic’s dark eyes flicker to mine, and she shakes her head. “I’m sorry.”

  I nod as the truth I’d come to in my brain settles in my heart.

  Charles is dead.

  Ryder

  “What the fuck happened out there?” Ethan groans on the bench seat next to Jade. The three of us are sitting alongside Chris, who is flat on his back on the stretcher in the back of the ambulance. We’re all bandaged and bruised and every step sends a straight shot of lightning to my skull.

  The paramedic is loading equipment while we all sit bedside, staring at Chris’s bruised torso, swollen, cut-up face, and his arm that was broken in at least two places. He’s breathing and was groaning in pain until they hooked him up to some morphine and some other shit. Fluids maybe.

  “I think we hit the guardrail and went over nose first.” Jade’s eyes are alert and aware, and I’m blown away she was able to maintain so much focus while the rest of us would’ve been content to curl up and wait for help. If we had, Chris would’ve died. “Charles must’ve had…” She shakes her head, her hair matted with blood and splintered wood. “Maybe a stroke or a heart attack?”

  “You think he died instantly?” Ethan asks, his voice quiet and distant.

  Jade turns toward him and pulls his hand into her lap, holding it when she says, “Yes. He was probably gone before we crashed.”

  “Fuck.” I lean forward with my head in my hands. “I can’t believe this shit.” Now that my adrenaline is settling, the reality of our situation sinks in.

  I close my eyes and focus on the sound of the ambulance’s idling engine. The hum of voices around us. The tight, short puffs of Chris’s breathing. I peek at him, and he doesn’t look all that different, but should his breathing sound like that? I study him closer. His color looks a little funky too.

  “What is it?” Jade reads me instantly.

  “I don’t know. His breathing sounds funny.”

  Her eyes snap to Chris, and she pushes herself up to lean over him, putting her ear to his m
outh. “His lungs are compressed.” She rummages around the ambulance, franticly searching.

  “What are you doing? I’ll get the paramedic.” I’m halfway out the ambulance when Jade rips open a syringe with a six-inch needle. She limps up next to Chris and uses her fingers to feel below his collarbone on the side where swelling and bruising on his ribs is the worst. She angles the needle, then slips it cleanly into his body. “What the fuck, Jade?”

  Her gaze snaps to mine. “It’s okay. I know what—”

  A paramedic lunges at Jade from behind, knocking her off her feet. He drags her out of the ambulance as another paramedic rushes in to help Chris.

  “His lungs were compressed!” she says as she scrambles painfully to right herself. “He needed a needle thoracostomy, but you’ll need to insert the tubing!”

  Police rush over, and all of them have eyes on Jade.

  “It’s all right, okay?” She holds her hands up, balancing on her good leg and a toe of her bad foot. “I’m a nurse.”

  My gaze jumps to her, and my mouth gapes.

  She doesn’t look at me. “I treated the patient for a compressed lung. He was suffocating.”

  The cops wait for the paramedic to insert the tubing and then he nods once before glaring at Jade. “She’s right, but she still should’ve let us handle it. I don’t want her near my patient.”

  I drag my sore body out of the ambulance. “Ethan, we’ll meet you at the hospital.”

  His face is pale, and his eyes wide. “What the fuck was that, dude?”

  I wish I knew. I follow behind Jade toward a cop who puts us in the back of a second ambulance.

  “I’m going to need some information,” the cop says.

  He’s not the only one.

  I stare at Jade.

  Who the hell is this woman, really?

  Jade

  “Full name?”

  Fuck. I sigh and avoid Ryder’s probing glare while answering the cop honestly. “Jade Alexis DeLeon.”

  “You said you’re a nurse?”

  “Yes.” Or rather, I was.

  “I’ll need to see some ID.”

  “I don’t have one.”

  He raises a skeptical brow.

  “It was stolen from a bus station in Raleigh.”

  “Did you file a report?”

  I shake my head. “No.”

  He scowls, then scribbles something down. “Where were you last employed?”

  “Massachusetts General Hospital.”

  I see Ryder do a double take in my peripheral.

  “What’s your social?”

  I rattle off my social security number as a sense of dread settles heavy in my stomach.

  “I’ll fact-check this and meet you at the hospital.” He shuts the back door of the ambulance.

  Ryder sits quietly, his eyes wide. Most likely in shock. Other than the nasty cut on his forehead, he doesn’t seem to have any major injuries, but he did lose consciousness and should get checked out just to be sure.

  My ankle throbs, but the pain is nothing compared to the fear of what’s coming. The police will run my information and learn everything about me. Ryder will find out and realize I’ve been lying to him, and he doesn’t strike me as the type who would trust someone again after being lied to for weeks.

  I knew my time with Ryder was nothing more than a dip into a fantasy world, a temporary distraction.

  All things eventually come to an end.

  25

  Jade

  “Yep, it’s broken.” The young doctor at the Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Somewhere, California, slaps my X-ray on the light box.

  “No shit,” I mumble to myself. If the stabbing pain didn’t send me the message, the intense swelling and purple coloration sure as hell did.

  After the adrenaline of the night faded, I was able to remember how I woke up, and I identified the broken bunk was what had my leg wedged in place, my foot at a funny angle.

  “We’ll wrap that up, but you’ll need a visit to ortho once the swelling goes down to get it casted.”

  I throw my forearm over my eyes. There’s no way I’m going to be able to swing that, and I know how dangerous it is to allow a bone to heal wrong, the risk of re-breaking it is ten times worse.

  “Hey, sorry that took so long.”

  I drop my arm at the sound of Ryder’s voice as he pulls a chair up next to my bed. He has Steri-Strips on his forehead by his temple, and it only manages to make him look sexier. My heart clenches at his raw beauty and how much I’m going to miss him. Way more than I imagined I would when I prepared for our eventual separation.

  “We cleaned the cut on your head, but you don’t need stitches. As for the concussion, you’ll need to—”

  “Rest. I know.”

  The doctor gives me a tight smile. “You should also have someone close by, a friend or relative, just to make sure you don’t have any loss of consciousness, seizures—”

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “I’ll keep an eye on her,” Ryder says. His hand grabs mine.

  “You don’t have to do that.” The words come out as harsh lashes, but he doesn’t flinch. I exhale and take back my hand, needing to feel like I’m standing on my own again, having become too accustomed to his support. “I’m fine. I know what to look out for.”

  “And you’ll call if you have any concerns?” The doctor seems unconvinced. Smart man.

  “Of course.”

  He nods. “It’ll take some time to get your discharge papers together, so hang tight.”

  “Thanks, Doc,” Ryder says to the man as he exits the curtained-off room. He turns toward me, his eyes weary, and before he can ask me what’s going on, I beat him to the punch.

  “How’s Chris?”

  He blinks as if it takes time to shift his thoughts. “He’s good. Broken ribs, shattered pelvis, he’s got a long road ahead.” His eyes settle on mine. “You saved his life.”

  “The paramedics would’ve gotten to him eventually. I shouldn’t have—”

  “You saved his life, Jade.”

  “He probably would’ve been fine—”

  “We’re talking life and death. Probably isn’t good enough.”

  “I fucked up, okay?” I push a hand through my hair and wince as my fingers brush a newly formed scab.

  “Why? Because now your secret’s out? You’re a nurse, fine. Whatever. I don’t know why that’s such a big fuckin’ deal you couldn’t just tell me—”

  “I’m not a nurse anymore.” I roll my head to the side to see Ryder’s expression pinch in confusion. “I surrendered my nursing license.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “It was either that or endure a long battle in front of the nursing board that I didn’t have time for and would’ve lost anyway.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Just forget it, okay? I need to get out of here and get to my mom.”

  His expression remains pinched, but he lets it go for now. “We’re an hour out of Los Angeles. They’re sending people to come get us. Chris will be here for a while longer, so Dina’s on her way.”

  If Chris’s wife thinks this is the worst thing that could happen, she has no clue how much worse it’s going to get once she finds out about Chris’s affair. For the first time in a long time, I can think of someone else who has it worse off than me.

  Ryder sits back in his seat, his arms crossed over his borrowed blue scrubs. He clears his throat. “Will your mom be coming to get you, or…”

  I stare blindly at his chest, my eyes heating with tears. “No.”

  “Can we give you a ride then?”

  “That would be cool, thanks.”

  His eyes cloud with hurt. “You’re welcome.” He shifts forward with a hiss of pain, then tilts his head to hold my gaze. “I still want you to come home with me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Right.” He studies the floor and shakes his head. “Your mom.” His tongue flicks out over h
is busted bottom lip. “Will I see you again?”

  Those blue eyes of his refuse to meet mine, and I’m grateful he’s not looking at me when I lie and say, “Of course.”

  He exhales a sound of relief, and a hint of a smile touches his lips. “Thank God.”

  Sadness sinks in my stomach, and I close my eyes pretending to be tired even though my pulse is racing too much for sleep. Ryder remains at my side, a silent supportive presence.

  The sound of the curtain sliding open pulls my attention, and my eyes flash to the doctor who’s holding what I assume to be discharge papers. “Jade, there’s a few more things I need to discuss with you.” His face is stoic, not nearly as light as he seemed when he was giving me my X-ray report earlier. He nods at Ryder. “If you wouldn’t mind stepping out?”

  Ryder doesn’t budge. “All financial obligations are being handled by our record label. Our insurance will cover everything.”

  The doctor looks at the papers in his hand. “Yes, I have all that information, but there’s one more thing I forgot to discuss with Jade, and HIPPA requires patient privacy.”

  Ryder reluctantly stands and squeezes my hand. “Don’t sign anything you don’t understand. We have lawyers and insurance people to handle all that shit, cool?”

  “Yeah.” I nod, grateful I won’t have to spend the rest of my life making payments on a hospital bill.

  The doctor closes the curtain behind Ryder and pulls a rolling stool close to my bedside. “Before the X-ray, you were asked if there was any chance at all that you might be pregnant.”

  “Right. There’s no chance.”

  He frowns and studies the papers in his hands. “Huh. When was the date of your last period?”

  “I don’t know, um…” I think back to my few weeks of homelessness. I remember needing to use the pads from the homeless shelter. I hadn’t used those things since I was fifteen years old. That was, what? Three plus weeks ago? “A month ago, give or take.”

  He scribbles something down. “And it was a normal period.”

  “My period was light. I figured it was from stress.” And malnutrition. Cold washes over me, and my pulse pounds in my already-throbbing head. “Why?”