Chapter 30

“My God, Ci…where ARE you?” Nick flipped his cell closed and tossed it on the table. He’d been calling her for two days and was getting nowhere. Their fight was haunting him and she wouldn’t call back. He’d never known her to pout like that; they could always talk. He was getting scared.

Knowing how much she hated being accosted, he had put off just going over to her house more than once. But now he didn’t care. She could yell, scream, carry on however much she wanted. She was NOT going to continue to pout over such a stupid argument. He’d been stupid. She’d been nasty. End of story. He grabbed a left-over bagel out of his freezer and shoved it in a bag with a couple packages of spread. He’d get her favorite coffee on the way.

As he pulled into her drive, his concerns only heightened. Her trash cans were still on the curb, empty and on their sides. No one else’s were. Obviously she’d taken the trash out, but never bothered to bring the cans in. Again, not typical unless she was working a long stretch. He punched in the code to her garage door and went out to bring in the cans. Her mailbox was stuffed. He grabbed the mail, laying it on a can lid, peeking around to the front porch for a paper. None. Right. She hated current events.

Letting himself in her house, he bent down and scratched her cat’s head. “Heya, Lex. Where’s your mommy?” The house was eerily silent. He suddenly felt like he was intruding. “Cici? Baby?”

He peeked around downstairs, finding nothing particularly unusual, but yet, something…something was just not right. Tossing the mail on her kitchen table, he noticed no fresh dishes in the sink. This concerned him. Finally, he made his way upstairs to her bedroom. There was no way to prepare him for what he found.

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“Ciara! Nooooo! Baby! Oh sweet Jesus!” Nick rushed from his frozen spot just inside her room to her limp body lying on the bathroom floor. He had been helplessly standing by watching her fall to the floor in an attempt to go into the bathroom. She had no idea he was even there.

“Cici…come on baby…wake up.” He was on the floor with her before he knew it and had brought her head up onto his lap. He tapped her cheeks lightly, not sure what the hell good that would do, but…well, it seemed like the right thing. It wasn’t working. “Cici…what’s wrong with…shit.” Sugar. She had been sleeping and from the looks of the kitchen, without food.

He grabbed a pillow off her bed and tucked it under her head, hating to let her go, but knowing he needed to. He stood trying to remember the name of that stuff she’d taught him about so many years ago. “In case of an emergency, Nick. You’ll never need it, I’m sure, but you should know.” Tears were forming in his eyes and he realized that at the moment, her life was in his hands.

He spun around the room nervously, frantically trying to remember where she said she always kept a kit of whatever it was called. ““Guca-…gluca…gluca-something.” He snapped his fingers as his memory met the moment. “Ah! Closet. No heat, no humidity, no light…closet.”

He made his way to the door, tripping over shoes and shoe boxes on the way. “Jesus, woman…you need a new house for all this crap.” He flipped on the light and looked up seeing only sweatshirts and good god…more shoe boxes. “Where in the hell?”

Sifting through her sweatshirts and kicking the small step stool out of the way, he had to chuckle again at the life of his short sweetie. Step stools littered the house. “YES!” He pulled down the kit and read the label. “Glucagon! Thank God. Now, how in the HELL do I do this?”

He went back over to her, opening the kit as he moved, tripping over the shoes again. “Hang on, baby. I’m trying here.” He pulled out the directions, shaking like a leaf, and quickly skimmed them. “I gotta MIX this stuff? Oh God…”

He pulled out the vial of powder and syringe of liquid, glancing at the directions and hoping this was as easy as they made it seem. He had to smile, remembering giving her her shot on the cruise. “Thank God you made me do that, Ci.”

He touched her face lightly and read the directions again. “Stay with me now…” Working quickly and nervously, he pushed the liquid from the syringe into the vial of powder. As he slowly swirled the mixture, he rubbed her face and arms with his other hand, hoping somehow she’d just snap out of this before he had to go any further. No such luck.

Once the mixture was dissolved, he filled the syringe again with the medicine, knocking the cylinder lightly to remove air bubbles and squirting out a bit of the liquid to be extra sure, just like he’d seen her do a million times with her insulin.

With a deep breath he looked down and slid her nightie up a bit to expose more of her thigh. “Okay, baby, I may not be able to wrap a Christmas present, but THIS, I’m gonna do right.” He looked up to the sky, hoping to gain some strength from whatever powers people seemed to find there, gently pulled the skin taught on her thigh and stabbed the needle into her flesh. He slowly pushed the plunger in, removed the needle and covered the hole with his finger.

Tossing the syringe back into the box, he grabbed the directions again and read aloud. “After the injection, turn the patient on his or her left side. Glucagon may cause some patients to vomit and this position will reduce the possibility of choking. Lovely.” He finally sat on his butt and gently turned her to the left side, aiming her towards the bathroom in case…easier clean up. Ick.

Back to the directions again, and having flashbacks of when she walked him through this, missing her like she were already dead, he finally sighed. He had to wait a maximum of 15 minutes. If she didn’t wake by then, he’d have to do this again. “God, please, Ci…wake up. I’m here, baby. Wake up!”

Fifteen minutes is a long time. He rubbed her head, her shoulders, her arms. He kissed her cheek and arms. He fidgeted with the hem of his shirt, picked at the wood on her door frame where the cat had scratched. He looked at his watch every, oh…30 seconds. He also noticed that things typically on her nightstand were littering her floor. She had bruises on her shins. Her comforter was falling off the foot of the bed between the bed posts. What the HELL had happened here?

Suddenly, he realized his arm wasn’t the only thing in the room moving. Looking down at his “patient”, his heart began to race even more, if that was possible. She was stirring. He continued his gentle massage on her upper torso and spoke softly to her, not wanting to frighten her.

“Baby…come on, now. It’s Nick. Wake up.” She turned her head to the voice and with her eyes still closed, she offered a small smile.

“Hey…what are you…oh god.” She slowly brought her hand to her head and lazily wiped her eyes. It felt as though she were moving lead.

“You okay?” He crawled over her and got up on his knees, looking around for a washcloth to wet and wipe her brow, neck and face…she was sweating like crazy.

“Nick?”

“Yeah, Cici. I’m right here.” Turning back to her, he kissed her forehead and wiped her neck and face, wondering how coherent she would actually be.

“Thanks.” She closed her eyes again and rolled to her back, acting as though she might pass out again.

“Cici, stay with me, hon. You need to get something more in you.” He reluctantly stood and stepped over her to go downstairs to get some juice. Suddenly her house felt like a mansion. The kitchen was too damned far away.

“Mmm-kay.” She turned her head to watch him leave and felt herself falling asleep again. Why was he here? What had happened? Where was he going now?

He came back as quick as he could, “Okay, hon. I need you to…Cici? Shit,” only to find her curled up almost in a fetal position back to sleep. Or so he hoped. The directions said this stuff should last over an hour. As he knelt down and slipped his arms under her to sit her up against him, she stirred awake a bit and clumsily wiped her hair from her face. He brought the cup of juice up to her lips. “Take a drink, baby.”

She sipped the juice and leaned her head back on his chest. “I’m so tired.”

“Yeah, I know…you need to eat in a bit. How long has it been since you ate?”

No words. It was now similar to how she had been on the cruise in the restaurant. She wasn’t completely there. She sipped the juice each time he held it to her lips and before long, she was holding the cup herself. Soon, sitting up on her own. Eventually, sitting up on her bed eating the bagel he’d brought and heated up in the microwave. Finally, looking around the room and asking, “What the HELL happened here, Nick?”

“I was hoping you could tell me. It looks like you had a fight with someone.”

“Yeah, I know. All I remember is coming home from the doctor the other day and coming to bed. My God. What day is it?”

“Sunday.” Nick got up and found her monitor, bringing it to her in the bed. “Check it. Every hour.”

“Yes, dear. Wait a minute…it’s Sunday? Holy shit. My appointment was Friday. What happened to Saturday?”

He just looked at her. “You LOST Saturday? I’ve been trying to call…to work out what happened Thursday…and you wouldn’t answer. I thought you were still mad.”

“I didn’t even hear the pho-…” She poked her finger and holding it upright to let it bleed, she twisted around to check her phone making sure the ringer wasn’t off. It wasn’t. “How in the hell did I sleep through that?”

“I don’t know, baby. You need to go see your doctor. This is happening too often.”

“Eh, I’m okay. Nothing my doctor can do anyway. In fact, I feel disgusting. Probably smell yummy too.” She put the pooled blood on the test strip and stuck it into the monitor.

He leaned in and sniffed. “Uh, a little pungent, yeah.”

Smacking his face lightly, she got up and was pleased to actually have firm footing. “I must have…wait. I remember getting up to go to the bathroom and I took my meds and my shot. I was going to eat, but came back here for…what did I come back in here for?”

“No idea…”

“Me either….I must have been so tired I just laid back down again without eating.”

“But how did your shins get so bruised, Ci? And your night stand…what happened?”

She thought about it for a minute, not having any idea. Checking her monitor, she breathed a sigh of relief. “I think…I think I went to the foot of the bed to get back in for some reason. I couldn’t get up on the bed. It’s 110 now…Nick,” she looked to his blue eyes, finding nothing but fear in them. How bad was she? What had he actually seen? “Nick, I could have di-…”

She popped her hand over her mouth realizing the magnitude of the situation…as miserable as she felt sometimes, death was no longer something she wanted. Not yet. Not with…no. Life, overall was very, very good.

“Yeah, you could have. But you didn’t.”

“No, I didn’t. I…wow.” He was getting good at this care-taking thing, wasn’t he? And, he was still here. Didn’t look ready to bolt either. “Nick, thank you.”

“Don’t do it again. That just sucked. Now you stink. You need a shower.”

“Thanks, dear. Will you wait here?”

“I can help…”

“Not this time. Just stay, okay? I’m a bit nervous.”

“Okay…I’m here.” She leaned in for another kiss, still a bit shaky. Not from her health but from her scare. He had truly saved her this time. As she stepped into the shower, she leaned her head back against the wall amazed at what had happened. At how he helped. At how much she loved him and hoped she hadn’t just scared him away. This had to be too much.

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