Emmy Laybourne - Savage Drift

“Two thousand…,” I say, my voice raspy. “Two thousand and…”

I should know this.

“Do you know where you are?”

“In a car… A big medicine car.” What is the stupid word for it?

“How many weeks is she?” the woman asks. “I need to know about her pregnancy. Anything you can tell me will help.”

Her face bobs and stretches.

“He’s passing out again,” she calls up front.

Not passing out, I want to tell her, just swimming.

I hear her rummaging in the cabinet above my head.

“Don’t,” says the voice from up front.

“I need the info. It won’t hurt him. He’s been out for such a long time. It will be good for him to be awake.”

She pats my face.

“Hello,” she says. “Open wide.”

I open my mouth a little. She puts a little pill on my tongue. I close my lips.

“This will pep you up a bit.”

Then BOOMBOOMBOOM my heart is going like a bass drum and I want to sit up but now I realize I am tied down to the cot.

“Whoa,” I say “Wow!”

“Easy there,” she tells me.

“That stuff’s not for kids, Binwa,” the guy up front says. “He’s gonna feel worse when it wears off.”

The warm, relaxed feeling evaporates and I see everything very clearly.

The woman leans over me and I can see into her pores and each of her eyelashes is distinct.

Ambulance, I remember. We are in an ambulance. And we were in a drift. And I nearly crashed into an Army truck.

“Tell me about your girlfriend,” she says. And I do.

Binwa takes off the restraints that were holding me to the padded stretcher.

My head is bandaged. When I sit up, I have to hold it to keep my brain from exploding—that’s what it feels like. But all that matters is Astrid.

“Dean,” Astrid says. I kneel next to her. “I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” I tell her. I start kissing her hand. I know that is a weird thing to do, but I am so glad to see her awake. “You have nothing to apologize for.”

“This is good,” Binwa says. She comes over. “Astrid, we’re less than an hour out. The doctors are waiting for you at USAMRIID.”

Astrid closes her eyes and I think she is going out again. but she whispers, “I’m sorry.”

“Why are you saying that?” I ask.

“I can’t do it,” Astrid says. Her eyes, still closed, are leaking tears. There is a crust of dried skin on her lips. I can see a vein pulsing at her temple.

“Shhh,” I tell her and I kiss her forehead. “We’re almost there.”

“I want you to know something.”

“What?”

“I love you,” she says. Her eyes close and tears leak out of the corners. “I just want you to know that.”

“I do know it. I do, Astrid.”

She opens her eyes and looks at me one last time and then her eyes rolls up in her head and she start to shake violently.

“No!” Binwa shouts. “Gus, hit the siren. You’ve got to get us there, now!”

The siren blares. Gus drives faster. The night road is streaming behind us and my girl is dying.

“You give her that stuff!” I shout at Binwa. I looked around for a weapon. Something to make her do whatever it would take to save Astrid.

“Calm down!” Binwa roars at me. “Look! Look! She’s coming out of it now.”

I turn and see that Astrid is coming out of it. She is sitting straight up. She is arching her back and she is screaming.

Then we see that her legs are wet.

“Gus!” Binwa shouts. “Her water broke!”

He stands up and paces back and forth until I tell him, in strong words, that I don’t want to spend our night together planning some futile escape.

He won’t hear it.

He’s sure there’s a way out.

But I take him by the hand.

And this is what I say:

“Niko. I gave the doctor my word. I signed the release forms. And I did that knowing the risks. Just like you came to find me, knowing the risks. And maybe I will die tomorrow or maybe you will die tomorrow. That was always the risk. Every day we have lived, that’s been the risk, we just didn’t know it.”

I sit on the bed and make him sit next to me.

He is crying, and that is fine.

“I love you, Josie,” he tells me.

“I love you, too, Niko.” And I mean it. I drink in his perfect silhouette. The colors of his skin and hair.

“Niko,” I say. “Hold me. Be with me and somehow we will never leave this moment. Can’t we do that? Can’t we love each other enough that nothing else can touch us? Can you love me that much?”

“I already do,” he says. And he kisses me.

He kisses me hard and we lie back on the bed. We are kissing and crying and I am learning that bodies can express what words cannot. I see his hands are shaking as he lifts his shirt over his head. Mine are, too, as I unsnap my thin blue gown. The air makes my skin prickle in goose bumps, then Niko lies down on me and our bodies warm each other. We melt together.

His hands are tentative at first, but we find our way.

Then there is a knock at the door.

It seems too early to me.

“Are you decent?” comes a woman’s voice.

“Not really,” I say, and it is true. We are both naked. Niko sits up, his thin back straight and tall. He pulls on his filthy clothes at the edge of the bed. We have showered, but there is no way to get those clothes clean.

He will always be the same, Niko, and that makes me happy. I know he’ll sit on the edge of the bed at ninety and pull on his pants in the same dignified way. He will always hold himself straight and tall. He is unchangeable and that is something I now understand that I love about him.

I discover I am shaking.

Niko has his T-shirt on by the time Sandy comes in.

“Sandy,” I say. “You came back.”

“Mmm-hmmm. Had to meet your friend. And wanted to be here for you. It’s good for you to be as calm as possible for the procedure,” she says, but she won’t meet my eyes.

“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I’m going to be fine.”

My mind is sure I’m doing what is right but my heart is up in my throat.

“There has to be a way to get out of this.” Niko’s voice is quiet and urgent. “Can you tell them she can’t do it? She’s sick? Can’t you think of something to get her out of this?”

Two orderlies come into the room.

“We’re to take you back to the waiting area,” one of them says to Niko.

“I’m staying with her!” Niko protests.

“It’s okay, Niko,” I say but there is a scuffle as Niko tries to grab for me and one of the orderlies reaches out and claps a big hand on his shoulder.

“Now, now. Don’t go upsetting the girl. Calmer she is, better everything goes,” the orderly says.

“Tony’s right, hun,” Sandy says. “Don’t make this hard for Jojo. This is just a standard procedure and when it’s done, y’all get to leave. Think of that!”

“No!” Niko shouts. “Josie, please! Don’t let them take me away! Tell them you won’t do it if I’m not there!”

He grabs my arm and holds me to him. I can feel his body trembling with anger and fear. It is strange to feel so resigned and distant from him, when we’d just been so close.