Page 58 of Gravity
“Allons-y!” Jacques roars. “Call the hospital. We're skipping the ER and taking him straight to the operating room.Allons-y, allons-y!”
Frenzied movement descends. The paramedic mounts the gurney and straddles Bryce, struggling to hold Bryce's airway open. The others race Bryce to the ambulance bay beside the medical room. Strobing emergency lights paint the concrete walls in apocalyptic blood red.
I follow, but arms grab from behind and hold me in place.
No. I am fucking going with Bryce. I am getting into that ambulance, and I will stay at his side. I'll stay with him in the operating room, even. No one is taking me from him. I thrash and throw an elbow, try to kick at the ankles behind me with my skates. I'm uncoordinated, but still, I battle to break free, screaming vitriol at whoever has me locked in this bear hug.
Valery shouts louder than me, harsh Russian-edged words hollering into my ear. “Don't get in the way! You want to slow them down? He needs to go!”
“Fuck you!” I'm still fighting, trying to knock out Valery's teeth, kicking sideways like I can break his knees. He's still in his goalie pads. I'm still in my skates.
Etienne appears. Only Valery and Etienne are close to my size on this team. I could take Valery or Etienne one on one, but I can't take them both.
Etienne wraps both of his fists in my sweater and tears me from Valery's hold, then hurls me against the wall. He leans into me, forearm across my chest, his thigh locked between mine. We're eyeball to eyeball. Valery is behind Etienne, breathing hard, wiping at his split lip. Six feet away, Bryce is being loaded into the back of the ambulance.
Bryce isn't fucking moving. He's limp, his hands open and loose and falling off the gurney. His eyes are closed. Tears and blood run down the side of his face on either side of the oxygen mask.
The ambulance doors slam. Sirens blare, once, twice, and then the driver leaves a burning strip of rubber on the concrete as he tears out of the underground bay to the streets outside the arena.Urgences-santé, the words on the side of the ambulance, streak across my vision.
And then… we're alone. Jacques, the paramedics, even the trainers, they all went with Bryce. Now it's just us. Me, Etienne, Valery. MacKenzie. Coach Richelieu. We're frozen in the trashed medical room, standing in the wreckage left behind. Oxygen tanks and monitors have been knocked over. Gloves and masks litter the ground. Bryce's blood trails into the room, leading to pools and spatter marks on the ground where the head of the gurney was. Shoe prints slip and slide through the puddles, and wheel tracks snake long lines all the way into the ambulance bay.
Half of my face is covered in Bryce's blood. It's sticky on my skin, smeared where I pressed my cheek to Bryce's. My sweater is drenched. Sweat, panic, adrenaline, and his blood. So much of his blood.
All I can hear is the sound of my heart and the rushing exhales of my own breath.
My eyes flick to Etienne, to Valery, to MacKenzie, to Coach. Horror saturates the space between us. We've just looked death in the face. We might have just— Bryce might be—
Coach speaks first. “Go,” he says. He looks at me, at Etienne, at Valery. “Allez, cet instant.”
I don't understand what he’s saying. Not right away. Valery does, and starts stripping immediately, taking off his pads and dropping them where he stands. Etienne, too, tears off his gear. A moment later, he starts stripping me. My mind catches up, and I fumble with him, trying to help. My hands are shaking so badly I can't undo my shorts. Fuck it. I leave them.
MacKenzie starts to strip, but Coach stops him. “I need you to stay,” he says. His voice is ragged, like his soul has been torn in half. “Mac, I need you to lead out there.” MacKenzie is our first assistant captain.
MacKenzie blinks. He grits his teeth, and his hands quiver as he bunches his sweater in his fists. Half on, half off, like he doesn't know whether to stay or go. The rest of our team is waiting on the ice. Waiting to hear, waiting to know. Waiting to find out that our world has just been shredded. That we, our team, our brotherhood, our family, is broken. Possibly—
Don't fucking think it.
MacKenzie turns away from Coach and slams his fist against the door, over and over, until the wood splinters. He grabs his hair and drops into a squat as he screams.
“Allons-y!” Etienne grabs me by the elbow, and he and Valery steer me to the dressing room. Shoes. Keys. No, Bryce drove us. He always drives. The truck keys, where are they—
Valery runs me between him and Etienne to the player's lot. Etienne shoves me in the back of Valery's Mercedes, then climbs in beside me as Valery gets behind the wheel.
We don't stop on the drive to the hospital. Valery never touches his brakes. I hear horns honk, rubber screech. Red lights pass like glitter. I blink once, and we're tearing across the city. I blink again, and we're pulling up outside the emergency room entrance.
“Operating room,” I choke out as Etienne and Valery drag me from the backseat. “He went to the operating room as soon as they got here.”
Three giant men, half dressed in athletic gear with one covered in blood, raise alarm bells for the hospital staff. We're intercepted by two nurses and a security guard. They're trying to understand Etienne's rapid-fire French demands.Our teammate, our brother, he was brought here. The operating room, where is it? We have to find him. We have to be there for him.
I need to be with him.
I'm crumbling inside, parts of me falling away like a glacier fracturing and evaporating beneath the sun. Was that— Is Bryce—
How long can a person go without oxygen? Time seemed to elongate, stretching like a rubber band that still hasn't snapped, when Bryce hit the ice. How many minutes was that? Was the little air he managed to breathe when the paramedic thrust his jaw enough?
Why haven't I told him before today that I love him?
Did he hear me? Did he understand what I was saying? There was so much panic in his eyes. Could he even see me?
