Not Exactly What it Seems

I can’t believe what I just did. And she didn’t even stop me! That had to count for something right? But I can’t even think right now, this is all too surreal. Was I really going to go for this? Why did someone have to interrupt? She showed me her special place, though and she hadn’t shown anyone else. That had to be a sign. I need to find out. What did that make us, though? Was it just a onetime thing? Should I ask her to be my girlfriend? Did she even want to be my girlfriend?

By the time we had arrived in the kitchen, my aunt Tara was passed out on the floor with blood pooled around her. It looked as though she had cut herself very badly on a sharp knife. Without even thinking, I ran to her side to make a tourniquet out of a dishtowel for her hand so that the blood would stop flowing. I could hear the sirens in the distance, but I knew that something had to be done before they got there or the blood flow would be too much.

My family stood around and watched me work on my aunt, saying nothing and not even attempting to help me. Suddenly, a set of hands was cleaning up the blood around me with dishtowels. Leave it to Hayden to help me out when the rest of my family would do nothing but watch as if it was some kind of sick show.

I found it hard to believe that no one thought to help her in any way at all and instead decided just to watch her limp body lying there on the linoleum floor. Seriously? It was Christmas Eve for crying out loud, you would think they would want her to live through that. But I guess I’m being too critical of them. I knew that most of them were not too great in stressful situations such as that, but still. The point was that I was able to stop the blood flow so that the paramedics had an easier time when they arrived.

When they came rushing through the door with a stretcher, they expected to see a woman laying there still in her own blood so they were surprised to see the tourniquet. They even complimented me on how well executed it was and that it probably saved her life. That was so great to hear. No one deserved to die on Christmas Eve.

Though I felt really badly for the paramedics too since they had to work on Christmas Eve. It didn’t seem fair that such a family oriented holiday had to be spent cleaning up other people’s messes. But as I was talking to them, they told me that they preferred to work on the holidays.

The one paramedic Charlie was a fairly young guy, but looked tired and overworked. When I asked him about it, he told me that he preferred to bury himself in his work rather than think about the family he would be going home to. His father was abusive and his mother died of cancer when he was very young. But he did not have enough money to move out, plus he needed to be there for his younger brothers. His story broke my heart.

The other paramedic was an older man, Daniel. His wife had just recently passed away and he was not there to help her. She had been in the kitchen chopping vegetables for dinner when her knife slipped and ended up slicing her arm right at a vein. She screamed out but Daniel did not get there in time and she could not be saved. He blamed himself.

So I decided that they were going to spend Christmas day with us and that Charlie would bring his little brothers. They were reluctant at first, but then they agreed. I personally think that Charlie agreed when he saw my cousin Libby, but that’s just me. They would make a cute couple I decided.

Aunt Tara was stitched up, given some pain medications, and then released from the hospital. I left Charlie and Daniel with my cell phone number and the strict orders to be at the house by ten the next morning. After my parents scolded my aunt for a while, we all decided that we would go to bed.