Stockholm

Chapter 12

Mike is through the door of the small dark room first. There's a fish tank that glows casting everything in this eerie green light. My thoughts are already numb, blank, allowing my brain to take in the details even through the agonized cries of the woman who trails behind us and the man that kneels before us, desperately begging for the woman at his feet to wake up. He's doing chest compressions but I already know they're pointless. The woman's lips are already blue, foam crusted and dried around her mouth, her eyes clouded with death.

We're the first ones here, beating EMS and fire.

A gentle "sir" leaves Mike's mouth and without a thought I reach out for his arm, stilling him. I know what he's going to say.

"I'll take over." I tell him and the man.

The man looks up from the gray carpet, eyes pooled with tears as he cries "she's my baby, she has to wake up."

He's gray at the temples, his hair thinning on top, with dark blue eyes and wrinkles that are starting to claim his features as their own. But it's the fear and desperation that spills from him that makes me understand that my offer to take over is less because I believe in miracles and more because I also can't give up on the people that I love. It's why I'm still chasing down a cold case, it's why I can't leave my mom, why I won't take better care of my dad's truck and why I won't leave Lorna even though I know she wants more.

So I drop to my knees, coaxing the man to the side as I take his place and press my hands into the women's chest. She's cold, her body stiff, it's useless but I give it everything I have as I push my weight into her.

"She told us she was clean." The dad sobs. "We thought..."

His words trail and I continue trying to force life back into her as I feel the first of her ribs crack. Sweat breaks out along my brow, as I watch her face. What I'm looking for, I don't know, I know she's not coming back to me. But I keep going, rep after rep, until Mike gets the dad to leave and it's just me and her chasing down a dream that no longer exists. All the things she'll never see, she'll never be a part of. Because of a moment of weakness maybe, desperation, maybe nothing even that tragic, maybe just a moment of thoughtlessness.

Life is unfair, stealing people before they get to fully experience life. Before they grow old.

And I know the pain that will stay flared inside the man, the woman, outside the bedroom. It'll be constant at first, burning bright and angry. Consuming to the point where everything they love seems to be choked out. Over time it may dim on occasion, creating hope that they're healing, that they're moving on, only to reignite, reminding them of everything they lost.

It's a pain I live with too.

My undershirt clings to me beneath my gear, sweat beading up at the tip of my nose. My muscles welcome fatigue even as I call on them to continue.

"Come on." I mutter.

A hand lands on my shoulder, an EMS person joining me on the floor as they check the woman's pulse. Or the lack thereof. They're already starting to go through their checklist but I can't get myself to stop, knowing that if I do, I'm solidifying the worst day of the man's life for him. That there is no hope, that she's not waking up, nothing will bring her back. That from this point on, his life is fractured.

"She's gone." The hand on my shoulder says.

They nudge me back onto my heels, my arms going limp by my side as my heart races in my chest.

"She's been gone." They tell me again. Maybe to reassure me that there was never anything I could do, just in case I didn't know.

"I-I know." I stammer out, grasping at my bearings. "The dad...he..." a breath blows out of me, my nerves are coiled too tight.

I mean to get up, to give them more room to work but I can't get myself to move. I don't even know what her name was but I can't leave. I can't go out and see her family.

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"Kyle?" Lorna's voice breaks through my thoughts. "Are you alright?"

"Hmm, yeah." I blink my eyes back into focus, the tension from staring off dispersing through my muscles. Shaking my head, I try to push the memories of the day away. "Long day at work." I tell Lorna.

"Want to talk about it?"

I'm perched on her bed as she rifles through her clean laundry bin for something to wear out to dinner. She had been telling me about her day before my eyes locked on her floor and suddenly I was back in that small, dark room, begging a dead woman to wake up.

Flexing my hands, I ignore the lingering feel of her bones breaking beneath them.

"No, I'm fine. Just tired."

I'm not just tired though, I'm drained. I can feel it in every fiber of my body.

Lorna has a skirt pulled up over her hips, a bra on as a shirt hangs in her hands. She's stopped getting dressed, surveying me instead before she lets her shirt fall back to the basket.

"Let's stay in. Order some take out." She says, already shimmying the skirt down.

Normally it's a seductive little wiggle that would cause my thoughts to focus but even though I appreciate the view, nothing arouses within me.

Shaking my head, I know she wants to go out. She called me two days ago with a reservation already set.

"I don't even feel like going out anymore." She lies. "Let me just make a quick phone call and we can figure out some carryout."

"Lorna, I'm fine, I promise." I push her.

She crosses the short distance between us, taking a seat beside me. The bed dips and my body rocks into hers too fatigued to fight gravity. "I want to stay home." Her fingers slide into the hair at the nape of my neck, her hands are warm, stealing away the tension.

"Are you sure?"

"Very." She hums into my ear and that's all it takes to make me give up. "Come on, let's go get on the couch and find something to watch."

She grabs her phone, slipping into a pair of shorts and an oversized shirt and I force myself to follow her through her small house while she cancels our reservations.

I hate to admit it but I'm relieved. I haven't been able to shake the woman's dead eyes from my mind, or the agonized cries of her parents. It's true what they say, no parent should ever have to bury their child. The loss of a child really knows how to tear a family apart, I've learned, and I feel for them. For the future they could have had.