CRUSHING ON THE BILLIONAIRE
Part 3
By: Lola Silverman
Copyright © 2015
All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 1
The beep of a heart monitor only served as a reminder of our bodies’ fragilities. The sound itself was so insignificant, a mildly annoying chirp. If the beep missed one beat of the rhythm, if it slowed too much, if it should—God forbid—stop, a team of concerned people would spring into action, ready to respond and assess and restart, if need be.
That beep was so tiny, and yet so important. I watched the visual representation of it, trying to discern what was going on based on the peaks and valleys of each chirp. I wondered if I could bother one of the bustling people to come and explain it to me, explain why this had happened, what was going to happen, and what I needed to do.
The only thing that I could do—at this point—was thread my fingers through his and watch his heart beat.
I’d been trying to come up with the right word to describe this situation, but I just didn’t have the vocabulary for it. “Awful” was accurate, but just didn’t seem to do it justice. “Debacle” crept closer, but it seemed like it could be trite. I could see someone who worked at an office describing their workday as a “debacle” because a meeting didn’t go well, or a deadline was missed, or there was a miscommunication on a delivery and now something wouldn’t be received on time. “Debacle” could mean lots of things to lots of different people—depending on their experiences, depending on the things that made them upset, depending on their dispositions. The word was highly subjective.
There wasn’t a single word that could describe holding the hand of someone I loved while a machine counted his heartbeats. I didn’t want there to have to be a word. No one deserved the burden of trying to describe this.
The gunshot. The blood. The screaming—no, my screaming. The frantic call. The flashing lights. The questions I couldn’t quite answer.
It was my firm belief—now—that the mind does what it can to protect itself when presented with a horrible situation. It shut down as far as it could but still allowed me to do what I needed to do to survive and to help Shawn and Patrick. My mind hadn’t allowed any thinking, any sort of analysis of the situation or my feelings on it. That had probably been a blessing at the time, but it was like trying to recover the memories of a dream I’d had several nights back. I wanted to study what had happened. I wanted to figure it out.
The three of us had all been in the foyer, having it out…again. It wasn’t meant to be a fight. I’d told Patrick everything about Shawn, about how I was concerned he was doing drugs and drinking too much. It was supposed to be an intervention, a way to show Shawn that we had taken notice of some of the poor decisions he was making, a way to encourage him to admit he needed help.
He had brought a gun and pointed it at his head. He was in far more dire need of help than Patrick and I had thought.
Here was where things got dicey in my own recollection, where my brain had closed certain doors to protect itself.
Shawn’s finger had been firmly hooked through the trigger, ready to take his own life rather than face what it had become, and Patrick had lunged at him, intent on doing whatever it took to save his son from himself.
The gun went off exactly once—a deafening bang—and I’d screamed reflexively. I’d never been so close to a gun when it’d been fired, and it was so loud that it made my ears ring, making it hard to hear or interpret anything. Patrick and Shawn both fell, blood on them, and I fell to my knees with them, the gun sliding across the floor until it came to rest right in front of me. I picked it up and looked at it, burning my fingers on the still-hot barrel. I was hardly able to raise my eyes to look at Patrick and Shawn, unwilling to see who had been on the receiving end of the bullet.
When I did look up, the gun still curled loosely in my fist, I couldn’t process what I saw. There was blood on the floor, blood on both of them, and both their faces were ashen. Had they both been hit? I crawled over to them, doubting whether my legs would support my own weight—yet taking care with the gun.
Shawn had been the one at the most risk, belligerent and clearly ready to do something drastic. His eyes were closed, face pale, breathing shallow. However, I couldn’t find a wound. That left…Patrick.
Someone with a fully functioning brain wouldn’t have been able to deal with the sight of a bullet wound through the chest of the man she loved, but my brain was protecting me. I smashed my fist into the hole, putting pressure on it because that was what I’d seen in a movie once, and I examined his face. It was gray, the brow knit, and I knew he was in pain. I knew that I was hurting him, that something terrible had happened because of me, and that above all, he needed help. He was still breathing, but it was labored, wheezing. I wondered just where that bullet had plowed through; I wondered if one of his lungs wasn’t working.
I put the gun by Patrick and crawled back across the foyer for my tote bag, which I’d dropped in the tumult of the man I loved getting shot in a struggle with his son. I couldn’t keep repeating that in my head. If I dwelled on that too much, I would lose all ability to function, to do what I could to deal with this situation. My brain gladly shut it down, helping me focus on finding out where my phone was.
Dialing 9-1-1 was strangely surreal. I didn’t know what I would even say until I heard the words coming out of my own mouth.
“Please send someone quickly to my location,” I said, my voice shaking. “Patrick Paulson has been shot in the chest in a struggle. He is bleeding and unconscious. His son, Shawn Paulson, is also unconscious, but not bleeding.”
I glanced over at Shawn as the responder said something to me and my eyes widened. His chest wasn’t falling up and down anymore, and there was white foam coming out of his mouth. I quickly relayed this updated information to the responder and set the phone down before scrambling back over to his side.
“What is the matter with you?” I muttered, scooping the white foam out of his mouth with my finger, thinking that it was somehow obstructing his breathing. “What is happening here?”
I wasn’t expecting an answer, and I knew he couldn’t answer me. I rolled him on his side and pounded him on his back. If I attempted CPR, would he choke on that foam? He coughed once, and I took it as a good sign, pounding even harder.
The sound of approaching sirens cut through my concentration, and I glanced back at Patrick. There was blood pooling all around him; he couldn’t lose that much blood and be all right. I needed to go back and press on the wound, press against the flow of blood leaving his body. He needed that blood. He couldn’t lose that much.
I was faced with a choice that would’ve broken my mind if it hadn’t already been operating at a diminished capacity for advanced reasoning. Did I leave Shawn here to suffocate to death while I helped Patrick, or did I let Patrick bleed out while I forced air into Shawn’s lungs?
There wasn’t a choice here. I wasn’t going to make one. It was ridiculous to be asked to, to think that I needed to. I dragged Shawn across the floor—none too gently—until he was lying right next to Patrick, both of them within an arm’s reach. I thought to slide the gun
farther toward Patrick, even though neither of them were in any condition to finish what had been started.
With one hand, I continued to beat on Shawn’s back, making him cough and splutter. With the other, I pressed down on Patrick’s wound, working to stem the flow of whatever blood remained in him. I didn’t know how much that would be. There was so much of it on the floor, seeping into the knees of my jeans. I was covered in it. We all were.
The first responders entered the house without preamble; the door was still unlocked from when I’d arrived and found Shawn and Patrick in an intense discussion. I wondered if the horrible outcome of this derailed intervention would have been any different if I simply hadn’t shown up. I felt that my presence here was a distraction, a provocation. Maybe I’d driven Shawn to react so terribly. Maybe if it had just been a one-on-one discussion with his father, it would’ve turned out just fine. Patrick would’ve told Shawn to stop screwing up his life, Shawn would’ve told Patrick to stop screwing me, and I could’ve stayed far away from this carnage.
Maybe none of it was worth it. Maybe this blood on my hands shouldn’t have had to happen for me to realize it. If I was really at fault for all of this, then maybe I’d been the selfish one. I should’ve removed myself from the situation before it had gotten to this. Shawn and Patrick were family. They’d gotten along just fine before me. I was the odd person out. I was the problem.
One of the first responders removed me from my duties, pulling me away from Patrick and Shawn. The rest of them converged, examining and attaching tubes and masks. I tried the best that I could to describe what had happened, but my teeth chattered so badly that I had to keep repeating myself. The EMT who’d pulled me away wrapped me in a fuzzy blanket, and the only thing I could think about was that I was going to get it dirty with foam and blood.
“Shock,” I heard the EMT murmur, the only word I understood from the ringing that continued in my ears, the echoes of the gunshot still playing across my mind. I hoped it would go away soon. I couldn’t live the rest of my life with the sound of a bullet rushing toward Patrick in my ears. But shock? That was so off base that it was laughable. I hadn’t licked my finger and stuck it in an electrical outlet. I hadn’t gone fishing inside of a toaster with a fork. There wasn’t any way that I had been electrocuted or shocked whatsoever, but then it hit me. I was in shock over the situation, or at least, that was what they thought. I wished there was a way to explain that I wasn’t in shock. My brain had just closed a few doors; it had shut down to the most basic capacity in order to protect me.
But as I sat apart from all of the activity—away from people pressing on Shawn’s chest and others putting Patrick on a backboard and carting him out—my brain began to open back up. I really was at fault. I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t be with Patrick. I should stay away from Shawn. This was all my fault. The ringing faded away, and I started hearing what was going on.
“Surgery immediately,” one of the technicians was saying about Patrick as they left with him. “Needs to be stabilized.”
“Do you know if he took anything?” another technician asked me, hovering over the group working on Shawn.
“This was only supposed to be an intervention,” I said. “He’s been using drugs. I know that. But I don’t know what he took—or if he took anything. Maybe. I don’t know. He tried to kill himself. He had the gun pointed at his head, but Patrick—that’s his father, the other man—Patrick pulled the gun away at the last minute. Jesus.”
Everything came rushing up. The EMT who’d put the blanket around me dipped my head forward until it was between my knees. I was gagging and spitting, certain there was vomit in my immediate future, but I hadn’t had anything to eat yet today. I just felt sick and weak and certain of my culpability.
“Can she answer questions?”
“I don’t know. It might not be a good idea. She’s clearly in shock.”
People were talking about me. I shrugged off the technician’s hands and sat up. It was clear the vomit wasn’t going to happen. That meant I just needed to get over my nausea and get on with the business at hand.
The police had arrived since my head had been down, and Shawn had been carried out.
“Do you think they’ll be okay?” I asked the EMT, feeling numb again, cold.
“We think the younger one—Shawn?—was overdosing,” he said. “He had been taking drugs previously?”
“That’s right.” I felt sick again, but soldiered through it. “I don’t know what, or how much, or in what capacity. We’d…fallen out of touch recently. But this was supposed to be an intervention, like I said before. Patrick and I were trying to help him. None of this was supposed to happen.”
The police officer took my statement as other personnel filed in, bagging the slug of the bullet that had rolled under a table, snapping photos of the congealing pool of blood.
“Can we call you if we have any other questions?” the officer asked politely.
“Yes, of course,” I said quickly. “Anything I can do to help.”
“Was this a situation of a love triangle?” he asked suddenly, catching me off guard.
“A love triangle? What is that supposed to mean?”
“What were you doing here?”
What was I supposed to say to that? I kept it as ambiguous and honest as possible.
“You’re going to have to ask Shawn why he brought the gun,” I said. “I can’t speculate about that. I was here because Shawn’s my best friend. Patrick is my…my boyfriend.” It felt weird to put that label on it. It somehow diminished what we had. “We’re dating each other. Like I said, we wanted Shawn to start taking care of himself. That’s why I was here. For support.”
The officer thanked me and I was free to go—covered in blood, without transportation. That’s when I noticed that the driver of the car who’d collected me at Patrick’s behest was still in the driveway, smoking a cigarette and leaning against the door.
“What are you still doing here?” I asked, walking toward him, still wrapped in the blanket.
“I heard everything,” he said, shrugging. “Figured I’d stick around to give a statement.”
“You heard everything?” I asked, peering at him. “Why didn’t you come in and try to help?” Two pairs of hands would’ve been so much better than just my own set. I could’ve focused on just Patrick—or just Shawn—and maybe they wouldn’t have been in such dire straits by the time the first responders arrived.
“I stayed out here and called an ambulance as soon as I heard the gunshot,” the driver reasoned. “It didn’t take them very long to get here, and I didn’t want to intrude. Honestly, I didn’t want to be anywhere near trouble. I’m on probation.”
My shoulders sagged. He wasn’t at fault. I was the guilty party. I let my anger towards him go.
“Would you mind giving me a couple more rides?”
“Anywhere you need to go,” he said, flicking his cigarette away. “I’m sorry all of this happened to you. No one needs to go through that kind of shit.”
“Thanks,” I said uncertainly, sliding into the backseat as he held the door open for me. I kept the blanket closed tightly, not wanting him to raise a fuss at my bloody clothes. I was just grateful I still had the wheels at my disposal. I didn’t think I could make it back on public transit—looking the way that I did—all covered with blood.
We stopped first at my apartment so I could shower and change, then he ran me to the hospital where the ambulances had taken Patrick and Shawn. The driver gave me his business card.
“The Paulsons have helped me out a lot,” he said. “Just give me a call when you need something or need to go somewhere. I’d like to pay it forward.”
“I appreciate that,” I said, slipping the card into my tote bag.
I didn’t know what I was doing here—except that I didn’t know of anywhere else to be. I figured out where Shawn was; he was stabilized, but under police guard, strapped to a bed. He’d taken pills, they told me, ne
arly a bottle full of pills he’d gotten from God knew where, and that was what he’d overdosed on. Patrick was in surgery still, and I didn’t know if that was a good sign or a bad sign. I was invited to sit and wait, but it was difficult.
“What’s going to happen to Shawn?” I asked the officer sitting outside his room. I wasn’t allowed to go in.
“Typically, he’ll be held here for observation for seventy-two hours,” the officer explained. “Then, depending on the results of several evaluations and his health, he’ll be released, be jailed, or be institutionalized.”
I didn’t know which of those possible outcomes I’d prefer. Of course, I didn’t want to see my friend jailed, but I feared what would happen to him—what he’d do to himself—if he were released. It was a difficult situation.
“Loren?” I turned around to see a nurse. “Mr. Paulson is out of surgery, now. You can see him if you’d like.”
That was good news, welcome news. He looked so fragile, sleeping there, a machine keeping time with his heart. I held his hand, smoothing the skin around the IV needle, threading my fingers through his, willing him to get better, to be better.
He’d just had a traumatic experience and surgery, so I knew Patrick wouldn’t be waking up any time soon. The beeping of the heart monitor was my only company. What would I even say when Patrick woke up? Sorry that his son shot him? Sorry that I caused this entire situation by not walking away from our relationship? There wasn’t anything I could think of to say to remedy this situation.
I stayed there until a nurse kicked me out, telling me to go home and come back tomorrow during regular visiting hours. I wanted to be there, and didn’t want to be there…equally…when Patrick woke up. Not only had his son done him grievous injury, but Shawn had also set out to kill himself, one way or another. What could I do to comfort him after this? He had to blame me in some capacity. And he would absolutely blame himself.
Crushing On The Billionaire (Part 3) Page 1