Page 51 of Love Always

Bryce is on the phone, calling an ambulance. “Probable OD,” are the words I hear. Suddenly his breathing turns to a gurgling rasp. Bryce gives his contact information. Then the rasping gasp stops. Bryce looks down, turns off the phone and drops to his knees. I kneel as well and in a moment I’m back with my sister, moving her body, doing CPR on the living room floor of our house, the brown carpeting under her head, her eyes open, lips blue. I knew then it was useless.

This isn’t.

Bryce already has compressions going. I place a 911 call as well, speak with the dispatcher, sign off, the whole time watching Bryce working on Chris. Checking for a pulse, I shake my head and then shifting positions I take over for Bryce.

“One, two, three,” I say, then he moves off and I begin. “How many were you doing?”

“Eighty-five a minute.”

“Time me,” I say trying to fight off images of my sister. I didn’t trust myself to count. I have to compartmentalize. But he leaves, racing to his car.

The little vacuum sounds of air being sucked down lungs compressed and released seems hopeless but I just keep at it. In seconds he’s back with a syringe packet of Narcan. He’s got a stash of half a dozen in a mini-lockbox in his car. The whine of sirens breaches the mountain. He rips it open with his teeth while he tears a larger hole in Chris’s pants. The injection has to be in the muscle of the thigh and depressed at a right angle. I sit back on my heels for a moment while he plunges the needle into mottled flesh. An ambulance slams to a stop. I reposition myself to resume compressions as soon as the needle is removed, but two paramedics hop out the back of an ambulance and one comes around in the passenger side.

“Are we sure it’s an OD?” says an older woman, very pretty, slender, with graying hair tied back in a neat ponytail.

“He’s been in and out of treatment and disappeared two nights ago while his parents were here. Pretty sure it’s an OD. He’s just had four milligrams of Narcan.”

She digs in a pack for a nasal spray. “Another four milligrams,” she says to her partner, a squarely built young guy who efficiently takes notes. She tips the spray bottle up his nose. “I’m compressing.”

Her partner and another man rush around to the other side. One has a defibrillator, another an IV, and a fourth unloads a gurney with Bryce’s help.

By the time they get him loaded into the gurney he’s breathing again under his own power and they haven’t had to use the defibrillator. The initial hit of Narcan worked but the second one opened his eyes.

For a moment or two, Chris Proctor has no idea who he is or where he is. In about two minutes he’s going to go through withdrawal. They have him loaded in the back of the ambulance and almost ready for transport, when the police arrive. We both give statements. It’s a mess. Chris Proctor is an addict. He could have ended up blind, in a wheelchair, all cognitive abilities gone or dead. And for what? For a fucking high.

The cops keep asking questions while I’m thinking the entire time of my sister. I haven’t been around anyone using, let alone ODing, since her and that was ten years ago. Then their questions go south. What was I doing in the area? Why was I up here? Did I know the victim? How long? Did I handle transactions for the victim? Bryce did not get these questions.

Suddenly, I’m furious. It must show on my face. I think if I get asked one more question about who I am or what I was doing here or some other question that infers that maybe I had something to do with this, I’m going to be rude. I don’t even have an accent I have to hide.

Bryce claps me on the shoulder. “We’re going back to the office. We’re done here, gentlemen. Here’s our cards if you have more questions, and you can speak with Detective Carlson as well.”

Why didn’t I think of that? Just name drop. Because I have to do every fucking thing my way. And my sister still died.

“Finn’s going to meet the Proctors at Mid-Coast Hospital and try to get all three of them to talk. I’m sure the police are going to want to speak with him too as soon as he can.”

“I feel for that family.” I can’t look at him right now. If I do, I’m going to see my sister. I’m going to picture myself in that wheelchair. I’m going to feel powerless again. Lost. And the worst—useless.

We make our way down the windy narrow road off the top of the mountain to Highway 1. I keep clenching and unclenching my fists on my knees while I stare straight ahead.

“That must have been rough for you.”

This is Bryce’s attempt for an intimate conversation. It’s a brave one.

“I’m fine.”

“Have your parents—”

“No, it’s just the same,” I glanced out the window.

“I’m sorry, man.”

“It is what it is.”

My phone vibrates with a text. It takes me half a minute to breathe after I’ve read it, and another half minute to respond.

Bryce tries to explain what’s going on but he doesn’t know what just came through on my phone. “Finn wants a debrief and then he wants to talk to you about Laurel. He’s concerned about the perp being around her car and dumping the weapon.”

“I just texted him. I have to go later. That was Laurel. She’s just been asked to meet Carlson and talk to him at the station. They want her to come in.”