Resuscitate Me

by Leddy Harper

  Twenty minutes later, I sat on the edge of the bed and waited for him to come out of the bathroom. I’d gotten dressed, made the bed, and picked up his discarded clothes off the floor.

  “Ready, baby?” he asked when he found me waiting for him.

  “You’re going out of your way to take me home before work. Wouldn’t it have made more sense to let me drive my brother’s car over here last night?” I followed him through the house and waited for him to set the alarm before leaving.

  “And given you the chance to sneak out before sunrise? Hell no.”

  Carter opened the passenger-side door of his car for me and winked. Such a sexy gentleman. As soon as he had his seatbelt on and the car in gear, his fingers automatically laced with mine in my lap—like they did every time he drove. His thumb grazed the back of my hand, almost on instinct. And once again, I found myself analyzing that line we weren’t supposed to think of. Honestly, I wouldn’t have thought about it had a guy ever treated me the way Carter did. Suddenly getting this kind of attention—from a man who wouldn’t be around in three weeks, no less—made me realize what I was missing.

  What I wanted. What I deserved.

  It was the first time that thought had crossed my mind since Lo.

  “So tell me again, Carter, why don’t you date?” I tried to voice my question as sheer interest, absolutely nothing personal, but I couldn’t help the fear that he would think too much into it. Although, that was more than likely paranoia on my part.

  “I don’t have time.”

  “You’ve spent plenty of time with me. I mean, you were gone for a few days, and then busy with work and your mom for a few more, but for the majority of the time, you’ve been very attentive. I’ve slept at your house several times. You’ve had dinner with me and Logan almost every night for over a week. You took me around the expansion, showed me what you’re doing with it. Surely you can find time to devote to a woman if you wanted to.”

  “It’s not the same.” His attention remained on the road ahead instead of glancing at me during conversation like he normally did. And it had my gut twisted into knots. “I have a few weeks with you. Anything I’m putting off doing now to spend time with you will be made up after you leave. If I were to actually be with someone, I wouldn’t be able to put that shit aside. Because there wouldn’t be an end date to count on to catch up with work.”

  I stared out the window and muttered, “Well, maybe you should try.”

  “Why?” His tone hardened, more accusatory than questioning.

  That’s when my worry increased and my heart rate accelerated. I shrugged, but decided to answer anyway, not taking my eyes away from the window. “You’re a good guy, Carter. You seem to do well in relationships. You’re attentive and caring…at least you are with me. I just think you’re missing so much by staying busy and focusing on work instead of a personal life.”

  He pulled his hand from mine, leaving my palm cold and empty.

  “This isn’t a relationship.” He bit out each word, his annoyance apparent.

  “You know what I mean.” When he didn’t respond, I decided to clarify it for him. “It’s not a relationship because I’m leaving soon. But if I weren’t, if I lived here, what we’re doing together would be considered one.”

  “How so?”

  I hated the way he wouldn’t look at me. But I had to ignore the pain in my chest and move forward. “You hold my hand all the time. When you come and go—even if it’s just to another room—you kiss me. And at least half your kisses are chaste, not sexual in any way. You call me babe or baby, and spend almost all your free time with me. That doesn’t even include the things we’ve shared with each other. I know your mom loves to travel because she got so used to it when your dad was in the Air Force. I know you miss your dad, and you push yourself so hard at work, and with everything you do, because you want him to be proud of you. You know Tommy is secretly my superhero, even though we don’t often get along, and most of the time, he makes me sad. You sleep on the right side of the bed, the same side I do, and when I roll that way, you don’t push me off. Instead, you hold me closer to you.”

  I could’ve gone on with more examples of how well we knew each other, but he stopped me when he mumbled, “I knew this was a bad idea.”

  My chest ached, physically ached with his words, as if I’d just been hit with an airbag. “What was a bad idea, Carter?” I didn’t want to hear the answer, but I needed it.

  “This. Us. You and me.” He gripped the steering wheel tight until his knuckles turned white. “I told you this would happen. But you assured me it wouldn’t. And look at us now…exactly where I didn’t want us to be.”

  “I don’t even know what that means.” I did, but I wasn’t about to cop to it. As of now, he was still holding onto his patience, and the last thing I wanted was to make him burn through his fuse and never hear from him again. I knew this would be the deal breaker, but I had hoped I could get it out without showing my feelings. “All I meant to say was you’d make a great boyfriend. And you seem to do well having a woman in your life. I wasn’t talking about me.” I’d thought about me. “I wasn’t admitting I have feelings for you.” I did have feelings for him. “It was just a friendly question.”

  His shoulders dropped a little, some of the tension rolling off them. Although, he still held tight to the steering wheel and hadn’t bothered to take my hand again. That stung. But at least the next words out of his mouth weren’t angry or distant. They weren’t cold, but just as painful to hear.

  Melancholy weighted his tone when he said, “I don’t know how smart it would be to keep this up. It’s probably best if we just both walk away, feeling good after last night, without tainting the weeks we’ve spent together.”

  “But…” I had to dig my nails into my palms to keep from crying. Not because I had a broken heart, but because I didn’t want it to end. “I don’t have feelings for you, Carter. That’s not what I was saying. Listen, I’m sorry I spoke up. It’s none of my business why you’re single.”

  “It’s not because of your question, Kara. It’s everything you pointed out.” He pulled up along the curb in front of Danni’s house and put the car in park. He adjusted in his seat and faced me, and in his eyes, I saw an emotion I had yet to see from him. Problem was…I had no idea what it meant. “You’re right. I have spent all my free time with you. I feel like I know you more than I know most of my friends, and you know more about me than anyone else. If we allow this to keep going, it’ll only be worse in three weeks. So, I think it’s the best time to walk away. We’ll still see each other in the gym. I won’t ignore you and I hope you won’t ignore me. But I think this thing between us has already gone too far, and if we let it keep going, there’ll be no coming back from it.”

  He had a point—a point I didn’t want to concede to. Because I wasn’t ready to say goodbye. I didn’t know when I would be, if ever, but I knew I couldn’t spend the next three weeks in town with him, seeing him at the gym, and not be able to touch him. To sit in the house with Logan without him. To lie awake in bed without the sound of his voice in my ear.

  I shrugged…because there was nothing else to do.

  I nodded…because I realized I was so far across that line I wouldn’t be able to come back.

  Without saying a word, I unhooked my seatbelt and turned to open the door. I was on the verge of tears, and the last thing I wanted was for him to see it. But he stopped me. He grabbed my arm and twisted me in my seat until I faced him.

  He cradled my cheek in his hand, not with a hard touch, but with gentle caresses. And then he carefully, without an ounce of hurry, drew me closer until his lips merged softly with mine. I’d kept my eyes open, mainly out of shock, and noticed the way his forehead creased. His brows knitted together as if he were in pain. As if kissing me caused him physical discomfort.

  Keeping his eyes closed, he leaned away and let his arm fall to the console.

  “Bye, Carter,” I whispered into
the silence.

  But he didn’t say it back. I opened the door and climbed from his car, from his presence, and closed it behind me. And for the first time since the night he brought me home from our first date, I was left to walk to the front door alone.

  It’d been five days since I last spoke to Carter. Five lonely, sad, and quiet days. Danni had done everything she could think of to lift my spirits, but nothing worked. I wasn’t moping around the house or staying in my pajamas all day, avoiding the shower like most women do after a breakup. Because it wasn’t a breakup. But my sadness was still evident, nonetheless.

  I was in the kitchen cleaning up after Logan’s lunch when I heard something break in the living room. I didn’t have a chance to contemplate what it was or even step away from the sink before I heard him scream.

  You don’t have to be a parent to discern between the different kinds of screams.

  There’s anger, frustration, tired, greedy, and painful screams.

  And then there’s the kind of scream that triggers an alarm inside your gut.

  I ran around the corner and found Logan on the floor, his hands cupping his face. I didn’t bother looking around the room to see what was broken or damaged; I was too concerned with finding out what was wrong. He was curled into a fetal position on his side, his head tucked to his knees. I picked him up, and that’s when my heart stopped.

  Blood.

  Everywhere.

  It pooled in his hands, ran down his face from the bridge of his nose, gurgled from his mouth, and dripped from his chin. It was so much I couldn’t see through it to locate any actual injury—or injuries. I’d had students get hurt before, and I always stayed calm. But when I saw my nephew’s face covered in his own blood, I panicked.

  I carried him to the kitchen and set him on the counter next to the sink. No matter what I did or said, he wouldn’t stop crying. He wouldn’t calm down. I soaked the dishcloth and tried to clean away some of the blood, but he kept pushing my hand away and twisting his face to the side. My heart ached. It was like I’d been stabbed in the chest with the blunt end of a two-by-four. I didn’t have the courage—willpower, strength, desire…whatever you wanted to call it—to hold him still long enough to clean his face. So I gave him the rag and told him to do it.

  I grabbed another towel from the drawer and put some ice in it, not having a clue as to where he needed it. Or even if he needed it. I had no idea what I was doing as I stumbled my way through trying to calm him down. It was a bunch of me panicking and him crying about something I couldn’t understand.

  “Come on, buddy. We need to clean your face so I can see where you’re hurt, okay?” I needed him to settle down. I had to call Danni, but I wouldn’t have been able to hear her over his wails, nor would I have any information to tell her other than there was a lot of blood. And I knew that’d only freak her out more than just telling her he was hurt.

  Logan started to quiet down, but he continued to half-cry, half-mumble what I assumed was “owie.” I found it strange, considering I’d never heard him say that before—and the kid was a boy, so he hurt himself often—but I brushed it off and attributed it to pain and being three.

  I took the rag and used his exhaustion in my favor. As I began to wipe away the blood, I noticed an open gash on the bridge of his nose. Other than that, I didn’t see anything else. The way the skin parted made me believe he needed stitches, and since Danni worked in the pharmacy at the hospital, I figured it’d be best to just bring him there instead of making her come all the way home first.

  “Come on, buddy.” Giving him the towel with the ice, I lifted him onto my hip. I grabbed Tommy’s car keys from the bowl next to the front door and headed out. “Let’s go see Mommy. I bet she’ll make it feel all better.”

  He continued to cry, the hiccupping getting worse the longer it went on, and repeated “owie” over and over again. It wasn’t until I had him buckled in his seat that I realized what he was asking for. He wasn’t telling me he was in pain, but asking for his stuffed elephant.

  “You want Ellie?”

  He nodded and repeated it to me.

  I started the car to get the air circulating and then went back into the house for his stuffed animal. He’d had it since he was a baby, and most of the stuffing was gone, but when Logan was hurt or sad, it was the only thing he wanted. I had no idea where it could be, but that didn’t stop me from frantically tearing apart his room looking for it.

  Suddenly, moments before giving up, I remembered he’d had it in Carter’s car the last time we were all together. We’d gone to the park to cheer Logan up after he watched The Good Dinosaur. Apparently, that movie made him miss Tommy. Had I known that, I would’ve never put it on for him. But we’d been able to get Logan—and Ellie—to go to the park.

  I slid my phone from my pocket and did what I swore I wouldn’t do.

  I called Carter.

  By the third ring, I figured he wouldn’t answer. But then, to my complete surprise, he did.

  “I’m so sorry to bother you, Carter, but I think Logan left his stuffed elephant in your car and he’s hurt and crying for it. I’m on my way up to the hospital with him now. I don’t have time to wait for you to bring it here, but is there any way you could bring it to us there? I can run outside and get it from you so you don’t have to come inside. But that’s the only thing—”

  “Kara,” he shouted, silencing my panicked rambling. It was then I realized how fast I was talking and how many times he’d said my name before I finally shut up. “Logan’s hurt? What’s wrong? What happened?”

  His palpable concern stopped me in my tracks. I was about to close and lock the front door behind me, but I completely froze.

  “Kara…”

  I shook my head and took a deep breath, continuing with closing up the house on my way back to the running car in the driveway. “He hit his face on something. I don’t know what. But he split his nose open. Carter…” My voice quivered on his name, everything from the last five minutes catching up to me. “There was blood…everywhere.”

  “Are you okay to drive?”

  I wiped away the tears from beneath my eyes and moved the gearshift into reverse. “Yeah. I’m fine to drive. Just a little shaken up, but I think he needs stitches.”

  “Have you called Danni yet?” There was some rustling in the background, some faint talking and a few loud noises, but in an instant, it all went quiet.

  “No. We’re on our way to her now. I knew if I called her, she’d freak out and spend the next fifteen minutes panicking until we got there.” I glanced over my shoulder at Logan, who had his hands cupped over his nose, tears streaming from his bloodshot eyes.

  “I’ll meet you there. Is there anything you need? Anything Logan needs?”

  My vision blurred as moisture filled my eyes before trailing down my cheeks. This time, it wasn’t caused by fear or adrenaline, but because of the depth of Carter’s concern. How caring he was. And how no matter what, he’d never be mine.

  “No. We’re fine. He only needs his elephant.”

  “Okay. I’ll see you in a few.”

  The phone cut out and I set it in the cup holder. I drove as fast as I could while still being safe and cautious, checking on Logan in the rearview mirror and talking to him. He didn’t say much back, but at least he was awake and alert.

  Finding a parking space on the emergency room side of the hospital was nearly impossible. I had to park in the fourth row, which meant I had a long way to walk inside. I carried Logan on my hip, his cheek resting on my shoulder. My shirt stuck to my skin with his blood, but I didn’t care. As long as he wasn’t screaming or crying, I didn’t care what happened to my clothes.

  I found Carter on the bench outside the doors, a deflated blue elephant twisted in his hands. As soon as he spotted me, he stood up and rushed over. Logan noticed him immediately and perked up, reaching out for his Ellie. But in a move that surprised us both, once he had his comfort toy against his chest, he held out
his arms for Carter.

  Carter glanced at me, probably making sure it was okay to take him from my arms, and then lifted him onto his hip. I was slightly jilted my nephew wanted someone else, but it filled me with warmth and contentment.

  “What’d ya do, little man?”

  Logan pointed to his nose and said, “I fell on da table.”

  “Well, when we get back home, I’m gonna beat the table up. No one hurts my Logan and gets away with it.”

  I stopped listening after that. My heart couldn’t take it. When we get back home. My Logan. It was too much. Between his decision to drop things between us, my revelation about my feelings toward him, and Logan getting hurt, I just couldn’t handle it.

  I excused myself, saying I had to call Danni to let her know we were here and she needed to come down. Carter took Logan to sit in the waiting room while I stood outside the doors with my phone clutched against my chest. I needed a moment to pull myself together before making the call.

  Danni made it to the waiting room in record time. She ran to her son, took him from Carter’s arms, and thoroughly checked his face. I must’ve apologized a hundred times for letting him get hurt, for being neglectful and not watching him close enough, but she just brushed me off, saying “it happens” and let it go.

  “I’ve got it from here, Kara. You two should go home. You need to change your shirt and relax. We’ll be home as soon as we’re done here.” Danni put her arm around my shoulder and pulled me in for a comforting embrace. “It’s okay, sis. He’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  I offered her a tight smile and turned to leave the waiting room. I didn’t look at Carter or wait for him before taking off through the parking lot toward my car. The adrenaline had fully left my system. I was unsteady and a total mess, shaking violently and unable to hold back my sobs. I didn’t want him to see that. It wasn’t his problem. I’d asked him to bring Ellie and he did. His job was done.

  In a daze, I somehow made it back to the house. It was as if my body was drained and running on autopilot. I don’t remember unlocking the front door, or making it to my bathroom. I’d stripped off my clothes and turned on the shower, but it was all fuzzy with pieces of time missing. All I knew was I stood beneath the hot spray, my forehead pressed against the icy tile, sobbing uncontrollably.