Steady

Chapter Sixteen

 Jay's limp body hits the sand.

I begin chest compressions, wondering how we got here.

How did this stranger waltz into my life, shake everything to pieces, and change me completely? How did he chip away, a little each day, until he found my heart and claimed it as his?

How did he love someone as frail and complicated and broken as me?

How?

"Come on, Jay," I pant. "Don't do this."

My fingers feel like they're breaking as I pump his chest but I can't stop. I can't lose him. I refuse.

I hold onto what shred of self control I have left, because the man beneath my hands, the man who isn't breathing—this is the man I love.

"Jay!" I breath my life, my passion, my devotion into his mouth. "Jay, come on!"

"Oh, God. This can't be happening," Veronica whispers, shaking in the sand.

"Get down here!" I yell, nodding to his face. "Put your ear next to his mouth. Tell me if he's breathing."

She pushes the hair out of her face and leans over Jay, sobbing as I continue to work. Carter and the girls finally skid down the hill and rush to our sides, but they're all as shocked as I am terrified.

"Call 911!" I scream, for what has to be the millionth time, as I pump his chest with everything I have in me.

"We did," Carter says shakily. "We already did."

"And?"

"They're on their way." His eyes glaze over, flitting between Jay's face and Veronica's shaking shoulders. When they land on me, I look away.

I pump.

I cry.

I pray.

I do everything but give up.

"Stay with me." My voice wavers as a distant sound registers above the crashing waves. "Just stay with me."

"They're here!" Nora yells. "They're here! What do we do?"

"Go get them!" I scream. "Bring them down here!"

She turns and sprints toward the hill while I continue to administer CPR. But nothing is happening.

"Anything?" I ask Veronica before moving her head aside to breathe into his mouth.

"No," she croaks. I can tell she's on the verge of breaking down and I don't have the time to spare if she does.

"Carter! Help me."

Snapping out of his trance, he nods.

"Babe," he whispers, taking Veronica's shoulders in his gentle hands. "Move. I got this."

With Carter watching for signs of life, Veronica falling to pieces in the sand, and the EMTs making their way down the hill, I begin to feel myself breaking.

"Dammit, Jay! Do not do this to me!" I push harder, cursing his lungs, damning his uncooperative body. "Just breathe! Breathe, goddammit!"

A hand grabs me by the arm but I jerk away, barely registering the interruption.

"Ma'am, we'll take over."

"No!"

I don't want to move. I don't want Jay's fate to rest in the hands of someone who doesn't even know him. What if they give up on him?