Page 1 of Bloody Tainted Lies

There’s an urgent knock at the door.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

Pause.

The doorbell rings.

Knock, knock, knock, knock.

I run to the door, but when I open it no one is there. I hear gurgling sounds, and when I look down, there lies Andrea in a pool of his own blood, choking on it. Even on his side, he’s drowning. There’s a hole on the back of his shirt, a huge one, and when I move it aside, there’s a gaping fucking wound.

With shaking hands, I take my phone out of the back pocket of my shorts and dial 911.

“911, what’s your emergency?”

“My brother’s been shot!” I yell into the phone, feeling the agony deep in my bones. “I don’t know what to fucking do!” Desperation claws me from the inside out, and my hands shake as I put my phone on speaker and touch my brother with trembling hands.

Andrea gurgles again, “Camilla.” He whispers between gurgles. “It’s okay.”

“No, it’s not okay!”

“I—” Gurgle. More drowning. “Love—” Again, with the sound that will haunt my nightmares forever. “You.” He chokes again. “Help me.” The last word whooshes out and I hold him, feeling him take a breath, a deep one—a wet one. A guttural rattle passes my brother’s vocal cords before he lets it out, and his chest ceases to rise. His last breath.

He had a last breath.

He’s not breathing.

My brother isn’t breathing, and I don’t know what to fucking do!

“Ma’am?” The woman on the phone reminds me she’s there. “Is he breathing?”

“No!” I scream, “Dre!” I slap his face, “Andrea, wake the fuck up! Don’t you dare do this to me.” I sob, shaking him, more blood pouring from his back.

He can’t survive this.

“Put him flat on his back?—”

“He has a hole!”

“Put him flat on his back and do CPR.”

“I don’t know how!” I scream again, putting him flat on his back just like she said.

“Now interlace your fingers and put your palms on his chest between the pectoral muscles. Then pump on his chest.”

“Okay.” I begin to pump. “I’m doing it.”

“Good job!” the woman praises as if I’m a child, and it only makes me want to cry harder. That’s how I used to praise Andrea. He was such a good kid. Is.Is. “The ambulance is coming. They’re almost there.”

As if on cue, the ambulance enters the street, and so do the police and fire truck. The sounds are so loud my head begins to pound, and the bright lights are making me dizzy. But I still breathe through it, focusing on the chest compressions. There’s blood all over my hands, and nausea takes over, but then the paramedics come to my side, and I snap out of it.

“They’re here.” I breathe out and hang up the phone as soon as someone shoves me aside.

After a few minutes of many paramedics working on him, he’s put in the ambulance, where I go in with him. My legs are covered in dark red blood, still wet and dripping from me. My hands are soaked too, and I smear them on my shirt as I attempt to dry them. Pretty sure my phone is still in a pool of blood on my front porch, and sudden panic grips my chest when I think of losing pictures of him.

“Can I use your phone?” They both look at each other and the blood all over me and themselves. “Please, I don’t have to hold it.”

One of the women nods, her dirty blonde hair up in a high bun and her blue eyes full of pity. She takes off one glove and dials the number as I list it out for her. The line rings and rings, and just when I think it will go to voicemail, he answers.

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