Page 100 of Edge of Unbroken

“Randi, do you know how to do CPR?” She shakes her head, frantic as she holds her phone to her ear. “Fuck, me neither,” I say through gritted teeth. “Okay, put your phone on speaker and tell them to talk us through it.”

I follow the operator’s instructions precisely, pulling Miranda’s dad off the couch, trying to be as gentle with him as possible, but he’s nothing but dead weight. He falls to the ground with a loud thud. Once he’s on the floor, I position myself above him and begin chest compressions, interrupted by the occasional breath I provide him with mouth-to-mouth. I force myself to stay completely disconnected, to dissociate from the moment because I can feel myself getting triggered.

This all feels so damn familiar. Moments flash before my eyes when it was me lying on the floor at home, Steve next to me while I was struggling to breathe, fighting to stay alive.

Weird how time seems to slow down in high-stress situations, how you focus in on just one task while everything around you gets drowned out, how your senses are acutely tuned in on whatever needs to be done right here, right now. I don’t know how long I pump Father Jackson’s heart, how often I lean down to share my oxygen with him before I finally detect a heartbeat.

“He’s breathing,” I say, my voice shaky, and I move my hands away from his chest just as Miranda drops onto her knees next to me, her face contorted with pain. I reposition myself and pull Miranda into my arms while the 911 operator tells us to stay with Father Jackson until the ambulance arrives, which it does a few minutes later.

“I’m going to go with him,” Miranda tells me when her dad is rolled out of the house on a stretcher.

I nod. “Call the ranch when you want me to come get you.”

Miranda hugs me briefly, but tightly, before walking out of the house and climbing into the ambulance behind the paramedic.

I stand in the silence for a minute, just now realizing how tense my body is, how damn exhausted I suddenly feel after that ungodly adrenaline spike. But I don’t permit myself to begin thinking about what just happened and instead walk into the small kitchen, grab some cleaning supplies, and go about scrubbing the couch and carpet. I take out the trash that has been piling up in the house and throw open the windows, letting the place air out despite the sub-freezing temperatures outside. The house reeks of stale vomit, sweat, and alcohol. Once again it dawns on me how the inside of the home doesn’t match the immaculate outside, and I honestly wonder how Miranda’s dad functions when she’s not around.

It takes me a good hour to do even the bare minimum, focusing on what needs to be done rather than the tightness in my chest, the anxiety rearing its ugly little misshapen head. It’s what I’ve always done—keep busy enough to prevent my thoughts from spiraling. Silence is dangerous; thinking is deadly.

The entire hour-long drive back to the ranch I have a desperate need to call Cat. I’m contemplating flat-out breaking the rule of not calling her until Sunday and dialing her number the minute I get within reach of the phone, but I don’t get that far.

“Ronan!” My grandmother’s voice is tight and slightly panicky as she calls me from the kitchen the nanosecond I open the front door.

“Yeah?” I call back as I shrug off my jacket. I look up when both my grandmother and aunt step out of the kitchen and toward me.

“Baby boy,” my grandmother says and pulls me into her arms while Erin looks on.

I raise my eyebrows. They can’t possibly already know what happened.

Erin confirms my suspicions. “We heard you and Randi found Father Jackson.”

I step out of my grandmother’s almost suffocating hold on me. “How the hell do you already know?” Man, this is some small-town shit right here.

“My friend Andrea works at the hospital, and she called me,” Erin says. “She said Father Jackson was brought in. She said you and Randi found him and that you performed CPR.”

“Isn’t this kind of stuff confidential?” I ask, a little taken aback that Father Jackson’s plight—and therefore Miranda’s—is apparently already the talk of the town and beyond.

“It’s a small town, Ran,” my grandmother says, looking me over, her concern for my emotional state obvious. “What happened? Are you okay?”

“Morai, it’s not really my place to talk about this stuff. It’s not really anybody’s place.”

“What do you mean?” Erin asks.

“I mean that it’s a private family matter for Randi and her dad, and I’m not about to go and talk about this shit. If Randi wants to tell you, she can, but I’m not going to. You know what you need to know—Randi and I found her dad, he wasn’t responsive, we did what we had to, and now he’s at the hospital getting whatever care he needs.”

“But, Ran, this is—” Erin starts.

“Alright, Erin,” my grandmother tells her daughter, her eyes resting on me. “Are you okay, baby boy?” she asks me softly.

“Fine,” I say, but swallow hard. I’m not fine. I’m triggered as fuck, doing my damnedest not to get sucked into the vortex of anxiety.

My grandmother presses her lips together, exhaling noisily through her nose. “Is Randi at the hospital with her dad?”

I nod. “Yeah. I told her to call the ranch when she wants me to come get her. Morai, I’m going to take a look at Randi’s truck. Will you let me know if and when she calls?”

“Absolutely,” she says with a nod.

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