BRAINSTORM

Chapter Eighteen - Melissa is left on her own.

Melissa regarded her fingers like they were attached to someone else as they vibrated helplessly, unable to obey her commands. She felt like she was in one of those nightmares where you couldn't get your body to do what you needed it to.

Nick lay on his back as blood pumped out of his head and from the top of his right thigh. The red liquid pooled around him in distressing quantity. Finally, she managed to control her shaking enough to dial three numbers–911.

"I need an ambulance," she tried to say, but the words were stones in her mouth. She repeated, louder this time, "I need an ambulance."

The operator asked, "What is the nature of the emergency?"

"I don't know. He's bleeding from his head and his leg."

"Who is bleeding, ma'am?"

Melissa wanted to scream at them to shut up and get here. Instead, she said, "Nicholas Sperry, my boyfriend. I think he may have been stabbed." She took in a deep breath. "Please come now. We live at 22 Highland Circle in Rockville."

"We are dispatching someone now."

"Thank God."

She sank down beside Nick. Bringing her ear to his lips, she listened for the sound of his breath. It was ragged and shallow but for now, he was alive. She didn't want to leave his side, but some distant part of her mind insisted that she needed to staunch his bleeding.

Somehow she remembered Nick had just come from the gym. She opened the trunk of his car to see if his gym bag was inside, and luckily, it was. She unzipped the bag and grabbed a couple of long-sleeved T-shirts and two small towels. 

She made two small square pads with the towels and placed them on each of his wounds, applying pressure. Then she took one of the T-shirts and used it as a bandage, wrapping it as many times as she could around his head to secure the pad to the wound, tying the ends of the sleeves together and made a tight knot to fasten the bandage.

She repeated the same process with what looked like a stab wound on his upper thigh. Blood immediately soaked through her improvised dressings. Melissa watched helplessly as all the white fabric turned red. 

She knelt on the concrete of the garage floor and clutched her cold hand around Nick's limp one, waiting for the ambulance to come. If Nick died because he had been trying to find Sidney, she didn't know if she could ever forgive herself.

She wished so many things: that she hadn't told him about Sidney, that he hadn't wanted to help her, that she had never met him.

No, she couldn't wish that.

And with intense clarity that paralleled her intense pain, Melissa realized how forcefully she loved him. If he lived, she would tell him. She would say the words she'd never said before. She squeezed his hand tighter, trying to forget that he might die before she had the chance.

~~~

"Ma'am, we need you to step away from him. Ma'am?"

Melissa looked about, bewildered. How long had she been waiting? People surrounded her. Who were they?

"Ma'am, you're in shock," said a man in a uniform. "Just come with us. You can ride with him in the ambulance when we know he's safe to move."

"I can't leave him." She gripped Nick's hand in panic.

A woman on her right, also in uniform, said, "We'll take care of him for you, I promise. We just need to get closer. You can wait over there." She pointed.

Melissa followed the finger and allowed other people in uniforms to take her away. She realized they were paramedics as they sat her down and took her pulse and did some other things that she didn't care about. "Please, I just want to be with him."