Page 151 of Edge of Unbroken

“No.”

“Try to get him to open his eyes and tell me if his pupils are the same size,” the operator said.

“Ran! Ronan! Look at me. Please. Just open your eyes,” Steve said. “Please, Ran!”

Ronan struggled to look at his brother before coughing again. “Uh, yeah, I think his pupils are about the same size, but the white of his left eye is blood-red,” Steve said. “Are they almost here?”

“They’re about four minutes out,” the operator said. I wondered how she managed to sound calm with such a stressful job. “Steve, where’s your mother right now?”

Steve turned his head toward his mother. “She’s just sitting right here. She’s not a threat,” he said with a warning growl obviously meant for his mother before he redirected his attention to Ronan.

“Shit, Ran!” Steve suddenly shouted.

It was then that I noticed Ronan’s sudden stillness. Just a second before he’d still been grabbing his broken ribs, fighting to breathe. Now there was nothing. No movement; no gasping.

“Ran! Ran! Ronan!” Steve placed his hands on Ronan’s chest, then his cheeks, tapping him. “Ran, please. Breathe! They’re almost here, I promise. Please wake up,” Steve choked out. “He’s not breathing!”

The operator jumped into action, asking Steve if he was able to detect a pulse.

I watched Steve move his fingers to Ronan’s neck, then his wrist, and shake his head before finally putting an ear to Ronan’s battered chest. He forced back a desperate sob. “No.”

It hit me then that right there, in that exact scene—on Saturday, August 28th, at two minutes after noon, Ronan was no longer with me. I had been sitting at the beach laughing with my friends, oblivious to the fact that the boy I loved had died.

“Steve, you will need to perform CPR,” the operator said.

Steve’s face was anguished. “I don’t know how.”

“I’ll walk you through it. We don’t have much time,” she said calmly but sternly, then gave Steve step-by-step instructions to roll Ronan onto his back and not to worry about hurting him.

“Place the palm of your hand right in the middle of his sternum, right in the middle of his chest, then put your other hand on top of the first.”

“Okay,” Steve said again after he positioned himself over Ronan’s lifeless body, hovering as he moved his hands to pump Ronan’s heart.

“I’m going to count to thirty, and with each count you’re going to push downhardon your brother’s chest. Don’t be afraid of hurting him; you need to get through the bone to his heart. I promise he won’t feel anything.”

Zack kneeled by Ronan’s side, frozen, as Steve began pumping Ronan’s heart in rhythm with the operator’s count. Steve did chest compressions again and again, each time checking for a heartbeat, each time shaking his head more hopelessly before beginning a new set of compressions followed by two puffs of air through mouth-to-mouth.

Steve was right in his description that it felt like he was pumping Ronan’s heart for an eternity before the EMTs showed up. Though a glance at the continuously ticking timer in the top right corner of the video showed that from the time Steve and Zack pulled up to the house to when the sirens began wailing in the background, a mere eight minutes had passed.

Zack disappeared from view only to return seconds later followed by three armed police officers and two EMTs. One of them approached Steve, urging him off Ronan’s lifeless body. “We got him from here,” the EMT said. “You did great.”

Steve didn’t leave Ronan’s side as the EMTs got to work cutting off Ronan’s blood-soaked shirt and sticking things onto his severely bruised chest. Frank’s voice could be heard in the background as he walked in on the scene, and then we all watched as the EMTs shocked Ronan’s heart once, then twice. And even though I knew the outcome, knew that Ronan was alive, I still held my breath, then sighed in relief when the EMT finally confirmed a pulse. “Got him back,” he said with a nod before he and the second EMT lifted Ronan onto a stretcher and moved him out of the house.

It was dead quiet in the courtroom while the prosecutor asked to have the curtains opened and the lights turned back on. The audience and jury alike were reeling from what they had just watched. We had only heard descriptions from Steve, Frank, the EMTs and officers, and the reality of what had happened was so much more horrifying than words alone could possibly express.

My mom’s knock on my bedroom door snaps me back to the present. “I just got off the phone with Penny.” She takes a seat next to me on my bed. “She said the D.A. is still there; he got there at nine and has been talking with Ronan alone for the last four hours, but she thinks they’re almost done. She thought it might be good if we all went out to dinner tonight. What do you think?”

“I think that’s a good idea.” Tomorrow is the day everyone has been dreading, but no one more than Ronan. He’ll be forced to face his mother, to talk openly to complete strangers about all the abuse and trauma he’s suffered. I’m sure he’s on edge, especially if he’s already had to speak with the attorney for hours. It might be good for Ronan to get out of the house for a little bit.

***

My mom and I leave half an hour later to walk the ten minutes to Ronan’s house. I note his car in the driveway and smile to myself. I’m still so elated to have him home. We’ve seen each other every day since his return. We spend our weekends and evenings together after school and when Ronan is done at Murphy’s, relishing each minute we get to be with each other.

Penny bids us into the house. She’s usually a chipper, positive individual, but even her mood is somber today. She hugs us before we follow her into the living room where Steve is standing, chatting with his dad.

Steve smiles at me. “Hey.”

“Are you leaving?” I ask him.

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