Breathe

Chapter 19

"Love your enemies, for they tell you your faults." -Benjamin Franklin

I can feel the liquid oozing all the way down to my elbow.  My entire body is in a panicked state because I'm not sure what to do.  There's hundreds of shards of glass surrounding my body, so I can't stand up.  I'm trying not to move any part of my body but the natural instinct to somehow escape the pain is trying to force it's way through my body.  I'm still surrounded in darkness, making my eyesight useless.

I hear loud footsteps pounding up from the basement stairs.

"Luke," I gasp.  I know my voice sounds pained.  This cut has to be either very deep, or very long.  This amount of blood escaping my body is ridiculous.  "Stay out of the kitchen, I shattered some glasses," I cry.

Lights above my head turn on in an instant and his eyes immediately find mine.  

"Holy shit, what—Vanessa! Your hand!" he says rushing his words.  His words are more panicked than mine.  Everything's been happening so quickly, I forgot to look down at my hand.  There's a large slit in my hand that starts at the bottom of my middle finger and extends halfway down my palm. Shit.  From what I can tell, it's not very deep, just long.

The blood is still rushing out of my hand.  Luke's shirt that I'm wearing has blood smeared all over it.  It's a little hard to see since the shirt is black, but it's definitely covered in my blood.  

"I—I'll get a broom," Luke says and runs off to find one.

"Hello?" A new voice enters the kitchen, Anne. "Wh—what happened?" she shrieks. "Vanessa! Your hand! Where's Luke?"

"Finding a broom," I say.  A few tears slipped down my cheeks a few seconds ago from the pain, but they've stopped thankfully.  My hand is still in pain, but the adrenaline pumping through my veins has distracted me from the ache.  

Anne is standing a distance away from me, avoiding the glass.  I can see how flustered she is because she can't help with anything at the moment.  Luke rushes back into the room with a red and black broom in his hand.  He starts to sweep away a path of glass quickly but carefully.  There's so many large shards and little slivers covering the floor, and I'm laying right in the center.  Once a path to my body is cleared, Luke steps on the cleaned part and picks me up.  I'm in a state of shock and am barely processing what is happening as Luke carries me over to the kitchen island and sits me on top of it rather than the chair. "Anne, can you please go to the bathroom and get the first-aid kit?" Luke asks and runs his hand through his hair.  Was he not just drunk off his ass ten minutes ago?  Seeing me in danger seems to have awoken him from his drunken state.  He must be high off of adrenaline at the moment, too.

"Why don't you run and get it?  I'll clean up the glass.  I don't want you to get a cut, too.  I've cleaned up glass before," she says with equanimity, but I know her heart is beating at twice the rate as usual.

"Okay," Luke says and his hand combs through his hair again, making it seem like a habit of his.  Luke leans forward and presses his lips to mine.  Passion exerts from his lips to mine, and he's kissing me as if I'll be dead by the time I'll be back.  As much as I'm desiring his kiss right now, I really need something to stop the bleeding.  Somehow reading my thoughts, he pulls away and goes in search for the medical supplies.  

Anne begins sweeping up the shards of glass into a neat pile in the center of the floor.  What a mess I've created.  Luke returns faster than I thought possible with a larger than necessary first-aid kit in his hands and a pair of sweatpants.  All this has been happening so fast I forgot I'm not wearing pants, just underwear.  I flush from embarrassment.  Luke sets the kit on the counter and slides the pants up my legs.