Page 2 of Only With Me

It’sblood.

“Holy shit…” Kneeling next to him, I quickly glance around his body, checking for a wound before I notice his black boxer shorts are soaked.

The blood is coming from his thigh.

“No, no, no…” I murmur, grabbing the hand towel nearby and adding pressure to the thigh with horizontal razor cuts. “I think you nicked an artery. Fuck.”

There’s no telling how long he’s been unconscious or bleeding out, but the fetal position he’s in probably helped him not to bleed out faster.

I check for a pulse. It’s faint, but it’s there.

Then I listen to his shallow breathing.

Since I don’t have my phone on me and I’m too scared to leave him or remove my hands, I shout for help instead. Even though everyone sleeps like the dead around here, one of them should hear me.

“Help! Someone wake up! We need help in here!”

By the third time, my mother rushes in and her face pales the moment she realizes what’s happened.

“Oh my?—”

“Call 911, now!” I cut off her words and she scrambles back to her bedroom.

“How long has he been bleedin’ out?” Dad asks, rushing next to me.

“I dunno. I found him a few minutes ago. He’s still breathin’, but he won’t wake up.”

Dad props Wilder’s head in his lap to clear his airway, then feels his pulse. “He probably passed out right before you got here.”

“What’s goin’ on?”

My younger brothers, Landen and Tripp, stand in the doorway. I give a quick recap so we don’t waste any more time.

“He doesn’t need CPR?” Landen asks.

Dad leans down above his mouth and shakes his head. “Still breathin’.”

“Barely,” I add.

Landen took a lifeguard course and first aid classes last summer when he was sixteen and then taught us what to do in case of an emergency.

Mom returns with the phone to her ear, speaking to an operator, and then kneels next to me to grab Wilder’s hand.

“They’re on their way,” Mom chokes out.

Dad orders Landen and Tripp to get dressed and unlock the front door for the EMTs. My little sister, Noah, wakes up shortly after and panics.

“Wilder!” she shouts, shaking his arm.

“He’s gonna be okay,” I tell her but also because I need to hear it myself.

“He’s lost too much blood. He’ll probably need a blood transfusion,” Dad explains.

Sadly, it wouldn’t be his first one. Or his second.

When we were fifteen, he accidentally sliced his leg open from a sharp metal piece on a fence. He didn’t realize how bad it was and continued working. The blood gushed down his leg and pooled in his boot. I found him unconscious in the barn and Dad rushed him to the hospital.

By the time we got him there, they were throwing around words like sepsis, infection, and blood transfusions. He was fucking lucky I found him when I did.