We’re halfway down when Jada charges through the front door with the stretcher. She gives me a strange look, no doubt wondering why I’m still on the stairs. Noticing my hesitation, she climbs up to my position and starts guiding me down. Her hand is on my arm, and I feel relaxed enough to take a deep breath. I have all the trust in the world in her. Jada would never let me fall, no matter how much I make things difficult for her.
“That’s it, Adam. One more.” Buoyed by Jada’s encouragement, I feel my shoe hit the carpet as she wheels over the stretcher. Lightly, I lay the man down while Jada secures a strap around his legs. Together, we head for the ambulance with the wife trailing in our wake.
“I think I should drive.” Jada’s not criticizing me outright, but it’s clear what she’s implying. And even though she’s right, it rankles me somehow to give in to her. I smoked that weed hours ago. I’m fully capable of getting us to the hospital in one piece. But then I remember why she became a paramedic and what happened to her high school friend. She has every reason not to trust me and be overly cautious, especially when it concerns the safety of other people, not just ourselves. But my stubbornness wins out.
“No, I got it.” Hoisting myself into the back of the rig, I reach down for the stretcher as Jada collapses its legs. The wife hovers in the background as the man moans. “Sorry to be jostling you around, sir. We’re almost ready to depart.” I extend my hand to the woman to help her aboard, and Jada climbs in on the opposite side. My body grazes Jada’s as I hustle by her in the cramped quarters. My mind is going a mile a minute but hearing her breath catch makes me forget everything but her. This isn’t the time or the place, but I squeeze her hand before jumping out the back. Her eyes lock with mine as I slam the doors shut.
Distractedly, I place my hair behind my ears and hop into the driver’s seat. We’re only about ten minutes away from the hospital. This call is as routine as it gets. I could do this run in my sleep. I’ve done it so many times. I shift out of park and head toward the downtown. And that’s when the fireworks begin.
Several of the alarms begin to beep in the back, and I crane my neck to see what’s going on. “He’s crashing,” Jada yells as she hurries over to the defibrillator. Cracking open the case, she grabs hold of the paddles, rubbing them together while urging the wife to open her husband’s shirt. Checking to make sure she has a full charge, she braces herself against the side of the stretcher as I make a sharp turn. “Clear!” she screams as the wife backs away into the corner.
I hear the thump of the body as the shock raises then lowers the man from the stretcher. I listen plaintively for the beeps to resume, but they don’t. Jada tries again. “Clear!”
And in that split second, I take my eyes off the road to look over my shoulder at what’s going on in the back…and disaster strikes. I run a red light, and even though the siren is blaring and the lights are flashing, a car plows right into me. I punch the brakes and we come to a sudden stop. The stretcher flies forward and strikes the dividing partition as Jada cries out in pain. I groan when the seatbelt digs into my ribs. Equipment falls off the shelves in the back, and something loud hits the floor.
I’m momentarily shell-shocked as I try to make sense of things. There’s a Honda Civic wedged into the passenger door. I can see the driver through the window and he appears to be okay. He’s conscious and moving around. There doesn’t seem to be anyone else in the car with him. Triaging the situation, my attention turns to those I am with. Even if they’re not hurt, we still need help. There’s no way this ambulance is going anywhere now.
Hurtling out of the cab, I run to the back and pry open the rear doors. The first thing I see is that the man is still on the stretcher. He didn’t fall off, but his wife is clutching her arm and sobbing on the floor. Jada shakily stands up with the discarded defibrillator at her feet. But it’s when she turns her head that I let out a gasp. The whole left side of her face is burned, most likely by the hot paddles.
Injured or not, Jada steps over the strewn equipment and reaches for the man’s wrist. “Thank God, there’s a pulse.” There’s a deadened quality to her voice that I’ve never heard before. She’s still functioning and doing her job, but I don’t know how. She starts inching toward the woman, but I hold up my hand to indicate that I’ve got it. But she challenges my authority. “From here, it looks like a compound fracture. We’re going to need help getting these two out of here. Go radio for assistance.”
And with that, I realize beyond a shadow of a doubt that it’s over between us. My stupidity, my weakness, my immaturity—all led to her being injured by yet another person in her life driving under the influence. I’ve lost her for good. There’s no coming back from something like this.
Grabbing the comm, I hit the receiver button. “Unit 365 requesting backup at the intersection of Cherry and Monroe. Over.” The man in the Honda Civic is outside his car inspecting the damage. I should have gone over to check on him, but I didn’t. The violations against me are stacking up. There’s no way in hell they’ll let me remain a paramedic after this display of misconduct.
“Unit 365, what is your emergency?”
And the words I’m dreading to utter pour from my lips. “We were involved in a one-car accident heading westbound to General. The patient was in cardiac arrest but is currently stable. A passenger has a broken arm, and my partner is severely burned.” It kills me to admit that last part. What if Jada needs plastic surgery? What the fuck have I done?
“Are there any people outside the ambulance requiring medical attention?”
“Negative.” The guy with the Honda Civic is obviously okay as he hits the roof of his car with his fists before issuing a string of profanities in my direction.
“Are you gonna pay for this, motherfucker? You’re the one who ran the red light, and now I’m late for work. How the fuck am I going to get there now?” His rant escalates, but fortunately the approaching sirens muffle his outrage. Leave it to me to slam into someone with anger management issues.
Reluctantly, I get out to meet the arriving team and my heart lurches when I see that it’s Chuck and Brickhouse Bonnie. Shit. Chuck sold me the weed. It’s not going to take him long to rat me out to his uncle. I’m caught in a trap of my own making with Chuck holding all the cards. My fate is in his pudgy little hands. I think I’m going to throw up.
Chuck whistles through his teeth. “What the hell happened here? My uncle is gonna flip when he finds out about this.”
Bonnie takes in my stumbling gait but doesn’t comment. Her stony expression says it all. Instead, she heads directly for the stretcher, assisting Jada as she lowers it to the ground. “Chuck, get your ass over here and help me get this man onto our rig.”
“Duty calls. Oh yeah, that’s right. You don’t know anything about that, do you? You’re too busy getting high and damaging my uncle’s property.” Roughly, he grabs me by the upper arm before continuing. “And don’t even think about telling him where you got that shit because he’ll never believe you. You’re my boy now, O’Malley. My little bitch who’s gonna do whatever the fuck I say.” He shoves me away from him and I nearly hit the ground. Looking up, I catch Jada staring at me from the back of the ambulance. She saw Chuck push me but thankfully she’s too far away to hear what he was saying.
Bonnie and Chuck wheel the man into their ambulance as Jada applies a temporary sling to the woman’s arm. The bone is poking through the skin and she’s in a great deal of pain. Jada’s comforting her the best she can, but no one’s even examined her burn yet. Guiding her over to where her husband is, Bonnie directs Jada to place the woman in the front seat so that she doesn’t have to climb in the back. Chuck smirks at me before closing the rear doors. He’s right. I’m his bitch now, and there’s nothing I can about it. I have to keep my mouth shut so I can hopefully hang on to my job.
I don’t think they’ll hit me with a breathalyzer or a blood test to check my sobriety. They’ll probably just assume I was rushing to the hospital
and showed poor judgment when I ran the light. They’ll give me a slap on the wrist and tell me to be more careful the next time.
I’m lucky. Jada was able to get the man’s heart beating again before the crash. He didn’t die on account of me. I seriously injured his wife, and I feel terrible about that, but she’ll survive. The guy who hit me is pretty irate but physically he’s fine. The thing I can’t live with is that I may have permanently disfigured my partner. I’ll never forgive myself for hurting Jada.
I walk over to where she is standing. Her cheek is red and swollen, but there are no blisters. That’s a good sign. It looks like it may be just a first-degree burn. She has a good chance at making a full recovery. But whether our relationship will survive is another story entirely. Her expression is devoid of emotion as I examine the injury to her face. It’s like she disappeared inside herself somewhere.
A police car rolls up and the officer begins directing the traffic that has crawled to a standstill. He yells over to me amid the honking and swearing issuing from the stopped cars. “Kid, if you can get that thing off the road, it’d make my job a hell of a lot easier.”
I raise my arm to let him know that I heard him. But Jada’s wound needs to be rinsed with water and covered with a bandage to prevent infection before I can get her to the hospital. The only problem is I can’t do two things at once.
“Just go, Adam. I’ll take care of it myself.” Jada hops into the back of the ambulance and begins rummaging through our supplies. Now I really feel like a jerk. I’m a paramedic. I’m supposed to take care of people who are injured, and I can’t even help my own partner. Furious with myself, I close the doors and get behind the wheel. The Honda Civic is apparently okay. It’s already parked on the shoulder of the road. And the guy is giving the cop an earful as he tries to wave motorists around the downed ambulance.
The engine roars to life. Hopefully the front tire will stay on long enough for me to get the ambulance out of the way. It seems like it’s riding okay. Hopefully all that’s wrong is the giant dent in the passenger door. At least he didn’t hit me head on.
Once traffic is moving smoothly again, the cop takes our statements separately. I pop a piece of gum in my mouth before it’s my turn. He doesn’t notice anything on my breath, and the subject of being under the influence of drugs or alcohol never comes up. He tells me he can talk to Jada later if he needs more information and that I’m free to go. I can’t believe I’m actually getting away with this.
“Jada, we’re only five minutes from General. I think I can make it over there.” She overheard every word I said to the cop, but she didn’t interject with any accusations. She covered my ass.
“Do what you want, Adam. You always do.” Her remark cuts like a razor blade across my heart. She’s utterly within her rights to chastise me. I deserve it, but it hurts like hell to know I’ve lost her faith in me.
We don’t talk for the remainder of the ride, and when I get out to help her down she holds up her hand. “Don’t. Just don’t.”
“But I’m going in with you.”
“No, Adam. You’re not. I’m going to call Simone and have her pick me up.”
“Jada…” I reach for her hand, but she pulls away.
“Get out of here, Adam. I don’t want you anywhere near me.” Her brown eyes are like daggers shattering whatever sense of camaraderie we may have established during our partnership. Now she can’t stand to look at me.
I watch her slowly move through the ambulance bay and into the emergency room. Fine, I’ll let her walk away from me this time, but there’s no way I’m letting her walk out of my life. I’ll do anything it takes to get her back. Anything.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Jada
The morning’s paper has a picture of Adam standing by the ambulance, clearly distraught. The headline screams, “Ambulance down!” The article lists the names and ages of everyone involved. There’s even a quote from the guy who hit us saying that he’s going to sue Tri-County Ambulance for reckless endangerment even though he didn’t have a scratch on him. The only damage he sustained was having the front bumper fall off his car. That’s it. He certainly didn’t have half the skin on his face burned off.
I swallow another pain pill with my second cup of coffee. The constant throbbing is excruciating, but the ER doc doesn’t think there will be any scarring. The defibrillator paddle was only against my skin for a split second when I was thrown to the floor. But right now, it doesn’t look that great. Whoever heard of a black girl with a hideous sunburn…on one side of her face?
I study the photo again, bending down to examine it closer. Adam’s gaze is unfocused. I know what to look for so to me he appears stoned. But no one even considered that as the reason behind the crash. Everyone just assumed he was driving too fast in order to get the elderly man to the hospital. And it’s a good cover story. Perfect, actually.
All night I tossed and turned, struggling over what to do. Adam can’t be allowed behind the wheel of an ambulance, not until he straightens himself out. It’s not only about me. He put other people’s lives at risk as well. And I won’t stand for that. I have to speak up.
Cradling my phone in my hand, I make the call.
“Mr. Talbot? Hi. It’s Jada Martin.”
“Jada, my dear. How are you doing?”
“Okay, I guess. It’s going to take some time.”
“Yeah, that’s what I said to Adam.”
My breath catches in my throat. Why was Adam talking to our boss? Did he get fired? Did he do the right thing and confess that he was driving under the influence?
“You heard from Adam?”
“He called to apologize for the accident, but I told him not to worry about it. Sometimes these things happen on the job. That’s why I have insurance. It’s certainly not a low risk profession.”
It doesn’t sound like Adam confessed. And once again, he disappoints me. He’s so much better than this. I never expected him to kiss Talbot’s ass. What a coward.
“Too bad he wasn’t the one holding an electrical charge in his hands.”
“Jada, we all feel terrible about what happened to you—Adam most of all. He went on and on about you.”
“Did he?”
“Of course he did. I knew when I paired up the two of you it was like a match made in heaven. He flies by the seat of his pants and you follow the book to the letter. You’re such a balanced team. And after the two of you take a little breather, you’ll be raring to go when you get back from North Carolina. Adam told me about his brother’s wedding, and having a few weeks off is just what you need right now. By then I’ll have your ambulance fixed and it’ll give you enough time to recuperate.”
My head is spinning. I can’t believe this. Adam went behind my back and used his brother’s wedding as an excuse to cover his tracks. Like hell I’m going anywhere with him. I never want to see him again. I was calling Talbot to ask for a new partner, but how can I do that now? I’ll look like a complete idiot.
“Wow. That’s unbelievable. Thank you, sir.”
“Jada, you just concentrate on getting better. You hear me? You saved that old man’s life under some very difficult conditions. I couldn’t be more proud of you…and Adam too, of course.”
Now I’ve heard everything. He’s proud of Adam for nearly killing the lot of us. The rage within me is boiling to the surface. I have to get off the phone before I say something I’ll regret.
“Mr. Talbot, I’m sorry to cut this short but….”
“No, Jada. It’s okay. I understand. You’re probably in a lot of pain. I won’t keep you any longer.”
“Thanks, sir. Goodbye.”
I stand in my kitchen, flabbergasted. I knew Adam was smooth, but I didn’t think he was a lying bastard. I’m going to have to figure something out. There’s no way in hell I’m going to remain his partner.
I jump when I hear a knock at the front door. Simone ran to the drugstore for me, and she has her keys. Who the heck c
an it be? I’m a mess and I don’t feel like facing anybody today. I can’t imagine how much it’s going to hurt to take a shower later even with the bandage on.
Begrudgingly, I open the door, and standing there is Adam.
Despite how mad I am at him, my stupid heart does a somersault when his blue eyes meet mine.
“Before you shut the door in my face, hear me out.” He positions his foot to prevent me from doing just that. I cross my arms in front of chest. I’m in no mood for his excuses. They may have worked on Talbot, but his charm has no effect on me. I know the truth.
“You have a lot of nerve coming here.” I glare at him and it appears he’s out of breath. He’s wearing athletic clothes, a blue mesh outfit that brings out the color of his eyes and shows off the muscles in his arms. His hair is falling around his face and there’s a thin layer of sweat covering his brow.
“Jada, I ran all the way over from the gym to see you. I spent the night in my car because I was too shaken up to drive home. I can’t get behind the wheel after what happened yesterday.” He appears sincere, but I’m not buying it.
“Funny, Talbot thinks all you need is a vacation to get your head on straight. It must be nice to have the boss wrapped around your little finger.” I’m beyond disgusted with him. I never pegged him for a master manipulator, but then again it’s probably just because he duped me as well.
“Are you gonna let me come in? Or are we going to have this entire conversation with me out here in the blazing sun?” He doesn’t even wait for an answer. Instead he pushes his way inside and stalks toward the kitchen. By the time I catch up he’s pouring himself a glass of juice from my refrigerator.
“Make yourself at home, why don’t you?” Already I’m running out of energy to argue with him. He’s so draining sometimes, and the pain pill is making me woozy. I retake my place at the table and sip my lukewarm coffee.
Come What May (Heartbeat) Page 15