Time slows when I see her pale, nearly translucent body sitting up in the bed. Her hair hangs in her face, and blood drips off the mattress and onto the floor. “Jo! Fucking hell, Jo. Tongue! Someone! Get the fuck in here,” I roar so loud my throat becomes raw.
I’ve seen a lot of shit in my life but seeing someone give up because the struggle is so bad is new to me. There’s always a first for everything but seeing Jo like this guts me. I hurry to her side, and I slip on the blood under my boots. I fall backward, slamming onto my back, and my head hits the floorboards with a hard thwack. I turn over and find myself in more blood. It’s wet and still a bit warm, telling me it hasn’t been too long since the blood has left her body. I push myself up slowly and fall backward, landing directly on the bed so I can no longer slip.
I flip onto my hands and knees and crawl to her, immediately turning her arms over. “What did you do, Jo? What did you do?” I gasp when I see the long, jagged wounds on her arms. “Jesus Christ. Jo? Hey, Jo, can you hear me?” I grip her chin with my fingers, but her eyes are closed.
“Holy shit. Oh my God,” Badge exclaims from behind me. “An ambulance is on the way.”
I lay my head on her chest and place my fingers against her neck to try to get a pulse.
Thump.
A second of silence.
Thump.
“Her heart rate is too slow. She won’t make it to the hospital. Someone get me a towel and rip it in long pieces. I need something to stop the bleeding.” I’d use my shirt, but it’s covered in her blood and sticking to my skin. I lay my palm over half of her wounds on either arm, but it doesn’t do a thing since the cut is so long and deep. Something shines out of the corner of my eye, and in her palm is a straight razor, splattered in blood. “You could have called me,” I choke, trying as hard as I possibly can to stop the emotions from pouring out of me. “I’m your friend. We are your friends. Jesus, Jo. You can’t fucking die like this; not after everything…” She’s lost so much blood, I’m not confident she’s going to make it another thirty minutes without a transfusion.
“Here. I got it. What do you need me to do?” Tongue questions, kneeling on the other side of the bed. He doesn’t hesitate to lay his hand over the wounds, but I need him to cut the towels with his knife.
“Use your knife, Tongue. I need strips so I can make a tourniquet.”
“Okay,” he grunts, and as he lifts his hands off her arm another wave of blood rushes out. He grabs the towels, takes his knife out of the sheath attached to his hips, and stabs the cotton. Once there is a big enough tear, he rips it down the middle.
“I need them to be smaller,” I inform him. “Take the halves and rip them in half too.”
He nods and does what I ask. He hands them over, and I throw two of the pieces toward him. “Tie them around her arm, tight. Can you do that?”
Tongue doesn’t say anything again; he does what he’s told, and together we bandage her arms to stop the blood flow.
“Thank you,” I say through broken breaths.
“Will she be okay?” he asks, pushing a piece of hair out of her face and tucking it behind her ear. “She was always nice to me.”
“I don’t know, Tongue. I wish I did.” The song of the ambulance sings in the distance, and I pick her up, cradling her limp body in my arms. I’m not waiting for the paramedics to get up here. Every second matters.
“We will stay up here and talk to the cops,” Badge says, pinching his lips together when he sees how much blood there is on the bed and floor. He brings his eyes to mine, and I look away in the next instance because I know what he wants to say. Badge has experienced crime scenes like this before. It’s really the only time doctors and cops can relate on some level because of the shit we see.
That much blood… The chances of anyone surviving are slim to none. Jo isn’t like a lot of people, though. She’s different. She’s a survivor. Yes, she has her issues, but don’t we all? She deserves more of a chance to heal, but sometimes people can’t do it on their own; sometimes people need help.
Tongue opens the door for me, swiping blood on the doorknob since his hands are wet from tying the towels around her arms. I walk out into the corridor and head down the staircase. A few people who are coming up the steps plaster their backs against the wall and gasp when they see the state of us. I’m sure we look like a horror show with how much blood there is. I feel it drying along my skin, and it’s becoming a bit itchy.
Right as my foot touches the bottom step, the lights from the ambulance flicker off the walls in the hallway. I let out a breath of relief and quicken my steps to bring her to the medics. When I step out of the shadows, the paramedics are in action, opening the back doors and bringing the gurney down from the inside.
“Female. Twenty-one-years-old. Self-inflicted wounds on her arms, vertical cuts. She’s lost a lot of blood. Heartrate is low, thready. She needs transfusions.” I lay Jo down gently on the gurney, and the paramedics work fast, strapping her down and placing all of the sensors on her chest so they can get an accurate reading of her heart.
Blood is starting to seep through the towels, and I run my fingers through my hair in frustration. They’re taking too long. They should already be on their way to the hospital.
“Are you coming?” the man on the right asks, his hair slicked back with gel, and he pushes Jo into the ambulance.
“Yeah, I’m coming. Guys,” I shout behind me as I sit down. “Meet me at the hospital.” In this moment, I don’t feel like a doctor. All of my medical knowledge has flown out the window. Jo surviving or dying is the only thing on my mind, the only thing I care about.
“You bet your damn ass we will be there,” Slingshot says as he stares at Jo’s prone body.
I have the urge to cover her from his eyes. I know she wouldn’t want anyone seeing her like this. Badge gives me a quick nod, and Tongue swipes his knife on his pants as the medics shut the back doors.
“I’m here, Jo.” My hand grabs hers, and my heated palms warm her frozen ones. She’s so damn cold. I rub my thumb over her knuckles, and tears brim my eyes when I think I might lose a friend. A person who is kind, and the only person that I’ve ever felt kindred to. I have from the first time I saw her. “I’m right here.” I bend down and kiss her cheek and then hang my head, leaning my forehead against her shoulder. “You can’t leave. Okay? You can’t leave.”
I want to tell her she can’t leave me, specifically, but even when she’s on the verge of death, I can’t. Part of me feels that death is more peaceful than life, and I’d understand if she didn’t hold on, but selfishly, I want her here.
That isn’t enough to keep the blood pumping in her heart, that’s medicine.
And there are times when medicine can’t save the souls that are too close to the other side.
All I can do is hope.
And hope has let me down more times than not.
I’ve never been the one to wait.
I hate waiting.
I’m usually in the surgical room where the action is. I’m not good at this. Is this what people feel like constantly? Watching the clock drag on and on and fucking on only to see three minutes have gone by?