He runs back into the house and I look down at Kale again, not ready to lose him when I just got him back.
“Don’t you get it?” he says. “I’m not going back. What you read on the Internet was what happened. I can read it to be sure, but I have no doubt. It says I was killed, because they really believed I was.” Kale pulls out his dog tags—his hands also covered in his blood—and I see that one of them is missing. “It’s done, Harper. I’m not going back there.”
I lean in and press my lips to his cold ones. Then I tell him, “I told you you could do it, didn’t I?”
The screen door slams shut and Uncle Jasper runs toward us. “I called 911,” he says, kneeling down on the other side of Kale. “What happened?”
I move my hands away and he rips open Kale’s T-shirt, exposing something I can’t look at. He presses a wad of cloth to it, causing Kale to wince and suck in another breath.
“He was shot,” I tell him, feeling my hands shaking against my legs, still covered in blood and staining my jeans. In this light, it’s like black tar spilled everywhere.
“The ambulance should be here soon,” he says. “I didn’t want to risk driving him myself. He might lose too much blood if I do.”
Kale tenses and says through his teeth, “It fucking hurts.”
“Your mouth seems to be getting looser these days, Kale.” It seems an odd thing to talk about until I realize he’s only trying to get Kale’s mind off the pain. “After this is all over, I expect you to work on that.”
I smile and look over at my uncle. “I think he picked up that habit from you.”
Kale smiles but doesn’t laugh. He’s struggling to stay awake, I can tell.
A few minutes later, I catch sight of flashing lights coming down the main road and hear the siren. Uncle Jasper takes my hand to replace his over the wound. “Press down hard,” he says and takes off toward the driveway, making sure they find us.
“How did you do it?” I finally ask, wanting him to stay awake.
“Do what?”
“You left early.”
His mouth turns up at the edges. “I just thought of you and wanted to be here. I wanted to come home.”
His eyes start to close and he’s not moving much anymore.
“Hey, guess what,” I say.
Kale looks at me through glazed eyes, barely moving now. “What?”
“I named my car.” I try to laugh, but it doesn’t come out right.
He smiles. “What did you name him?”
“Fiver.”
“From that rabbit book you like?”
“Yeah.”
“It’s perfect.”
The ambulance comes to a stop, and Uncle Jasper points over to us. I don’t want to leave Kale’s side, but Uncle Jasper pulls me away, giving the EMTs the room they need.
“Will he be all right?”
Uncle Jasper pulls me close, and we follow them back to the ambulance, Kale on a stretcher between them. “He’ll be fine.”
We stand and watch them load him into the back of the vehicle, my eyes glued to the rising and falling of his chest.
It’s something I’ve always taken for granted.
We follow the ambulance to the hospital, and when they pull Kale out of the back, his eyes are closed. I vaguely recall Uncle Jasper asking if something is wrong, but they won’t answer. We follow them closely through the doors of the ER, where a nurse tries to stop us from going any further.
“I’m sorry, but family only,” she says.
“We are his family,” Uncle Jasper says. “He only lives with his dad, and I can’t get a hold of him right now.”
She’s shaking her head—about to protest us going back there—when a nurse behind the desk hangs up the phone and smiles at Uncle Jasper.
“Jasper, how are you?” she says. “Is everything all right?”
The nurse standing in our way answers for us. “They came in with the kid just now, but they aren’t his immediate family.”
A look of worry crosses her face. “Who?”
“It’s Kale,” Uncle Jasper answers.
The nurse behind the desk waves her hand. “Let them through, Sylvia.”
“But they aren’t—”
“Yes, they are,” she says firmly. “Let them through.”
Sylvia finally moves aside, and I see Uncle Jasper give the nurse behind the desk a smile of gratitude. We pass through the door, and I smell antiseptics and something metallic. They’ve taken Kale into a room to the right, and we can’t get any closer other than looking through the glass. There’s a half dozen people in there with him, all wearing masks and green scrubs with red-stained gloves. There’s so much blood.
“I’m going to try to call Peter again.” Uncle Jasper squeezes my shoulder before going to find a quiet place to talk.
When I can’t watch anymore, I sit down on a hard chair outside the swinging doors and wait, something I haven’t taken a liking to within the last few days. I keep telling myself he isn’t going to die. He’s here now—made it back and he’s going to be okay. I text Miles and let him know what happened. He responds immediately, saying he’s on his way.
After a time, Uncle Jasper comes back and sits down next to me. He doesn’t look any better than I do. “One of the doctors asked me what happened,” he says.
“What did you tell them?” I ask, turning to him.
“That it was a hunting accident. At least, that’s what Kale said before they took him away, right?”
“Right.”
“A police officer might come and do a report, but I’ll do the talking. If anything, just nod along.”
A few people come out of the room with blood stains all over their scrubs. Uncle Jasper leaves to talk with them more, and I stand to look through the window again. His heart monitor is going at a steady pace, and he’s already hooked up with multiple IVs. They’ve completely cut away his T-shirt, leaving him only with a pair of jeans and the upper right side of his chest wrapped in white bandages.
His eyes are still closed.
All but one of the nurses leave the room, taking with them a tray of red tools. Uncle Jasper shoots me a glance before following them down the hall without saying a word.
I settle down in my chair again, watching the nurses and doctors tend to other patients, a few of them going in and out of Kale’s room. I don’t know how long I’ve been sitting there, but the next thing I know, I’m being shaken awake. When I see the young nurse who has woken me, I almost panic, thinking something happened to Kale.
“Everything’s all right,” she assures me, “they just moved him down the hall now that he’s stable.”
“So he’s going to be okay?”
“He’s going to be fine. It’s room 110.”
She points down the hall and I shuffle away, my legs not working properly yet. I pass by rooms already filled with patients, some awake and talking to their families and some alone, sleeping the night away. I’m almost to his room when Uncle Jasper appears behind me, glancing over his shoulder.
“Where did you go?” I ask. “You’ve been gone forever.”
“I actually wasn’t gone that long.”
“I fell asleep.”