Outburst

Chapter 29 - Blast From the Past

When I was rushed to the hospital for having the allergic symptoms about eight years ago, I could see my parents' worried face following me along to the ER. Every time I tried to catch a breath and made a wheezy sound, my Mom would sob, afraid that it might be one last breath.

They might be overreacted, but they were the parents of an 8 years-old girl who was super fine before she ate a spoon of newest ice cream flavor at their favorite ice cream booth, and then suddenly collapsed with red rashes along her body. They had to be panicked.

And now, I understood exactly how my parents felt. It wasn't a peanut allergy that my uncle had. It was a bullet that ripped through his flesh and caused major bleeding.

Sitting next to my uncle's bed, I couldn't stop shivering. My tears were dry as if my eyes could no longer produce it. Uncle Luke was lying defenselessly on the bed with IV's on his left arm. A big bandage was covering his right chest up until the shoulder. There was a machine that monitored his heart rate and blood pressure, which I thought was just normal.

If he wasn't struggling enough, he could be dead long before Roman and the ambulances came to the rescue.

Right after the ambulance arrived, the paramedics immediately took my uncle in. I insisted to get in the same ambulance despite Roman's warning that I could ride with him to the hospital. In the ambulance, I sat in the corner to give the paramedics a space to help my uncle. He was on the edge of his consciousness, his chest moved up and down in fast pace, and wheezed out blood. I was more panicked than ever, and I was afraid that he couldn't make it to the hospital.

The paramedics placed some kind of tube into his chest to help him breathing. I took a wild guess-the bullet might or might not hit his right lungs. Even if it didn't, he was bleeding for a long time before getting a first aid. They then started an IV to give him some fluids, while the ambulance driver drove and rang the siren like crazy.

Like my parents did when I was sick, I followed my uncle along before the nurse stopped me from getting to the operation room. She told me to calm down and let the surgeons do their job. She then offered to take care of my forehead. Stitching the wound, she started to speak to make me forget about the pain.

"Do you remember me? I was your nurse when you got sick several weeks ago," she said.

I glanced at her. Ah, she did look familiar. She was there when I was preparing to go home-in which Uncle Luke actually disagreed. "Yeah. I didn't expect to get back here this fast."

She smiled. "The last time you were here, there was this man who was carrying you, panicking, and screaming for help. I don't see him now."

I quickly dodged her skilled hands that was finishing the stitches.

"Hey, it's okay. It's almost done," she said calmly. She thought I did that because of the pain. No, it wasn't. She just reminded me of the other worst night of my life. After she put the small bandage, she held my trembling hands. "I'm sorry for your uncle. We have the best surgeons in town. He will be fine, I promise."

Her promise on behalf of those surgeons was kept well. The surgery was a success, Uncle Luke was alive, although he wouldn't wake up sooner because of the medicine.

I just couldn't believe so many bad things happened in one day. I couldn't even remember it one by one-I didn't want to. But as the only witness with a minor injury, I had to force myself to swim back to those memories because Detective Banks needed me to. I told everything I remembered to him, from the arrival of Mrs. Pratt until the moment Uncle Luke shot Grant. He wrote it on his notebook while listening seriously and carefully. Sometimes it made his eyes widened, as if he didn't believe what he just heard. He reread his note after, and I was sure he still had so many questions about it, but he knew he had bothered me enough.