Quell That Rebel Yell

July 23
Phoenix, Arizona
8:04p.m.

Alcohol courses through his veins and that euphoric wave of intoxication washes over him, mingling with the numbing sativa hash. Grayson feels like the sunset; all purple, orange, and beautiful on the inside. He wishes he could bottle this feeling and sell it.

Time seems to be moving slowly for him as his green-blue eyes scan the fuzzy forms of his friends in the room. He's comfortable being the fish watching from the bowl in the corner of the room, he doesn't need to join in the buffoonery to feel like he belongs.

Sitting next to him, Heather takes another hit of the superb hash out of her bio-hazard bong. She doesn't drink, never has, but she doesn't push her sobriety on him. He loves her for it, another shining display of her endless grace.

Three shots from now, Grayson could propose to her tonight. He's weighted the decision carefully and though he knows he won't make her happy in the long run, he doesn't want to loser her. If marriage is what it will take to keep her in his life, with a few more shots of liquid courage, he might be ready to make that proposition.

He slides his hand around her smaller one and squeezes it, as he uses his other hand to pour another shot.

As he lifts the shot-glass to his lips, intent on throwing it back and letting the burning alcohol slide down the back of his throat and take over, his entire world explodes into ear-shattering cracks that boom over the thumping bass-line coming from his speakers.

It only takes a few seconds for his buzzing mind to process what's happening. Drive-by.

When the realization hits him, Grayson immediately flings himself to the ground, taking Heather with him. He shields her body with his own until the deafening cracks stop. Only then does he lift himself off of her to find that the damage has already been done. There's a dark, bloody mass expanding on her abdomen.

"Oh my God," he whispers, blinking furiously, unable to believe what he sees. "Heather?" His voice is louder now and he presses his hands hard against her abdomen to staunch the bleeding.

"Somebody call a fucking ambulance!" he shouts, barely registering that he's made the command. "Hold on, baby, help is on the way, you're going to be okay," he tells her, more for his own sake than hers.

Her pretty blue eyes are blinking wildly, her mouth gasping for each ragged breath. She tries to tell him that she loves him, that she always has, but he stops her, shaking his head.

"Don't talk, all you need to do right now is hold on until they get here," he urges.

Around them, their friends are disposing of the hash and other illegal paraphernalia throughout the house. Grayson wants to yell at them for caring more about drug charges than Heather's life, but he knows in the long run he'll be grateful to them.

"They're going to fix you up, you're going to get better, we're going to get married, have a bunch of babies, and live happily ever after, okay?" The words are spewing out of his mouth before he really thinks about what he's saying, but he knows that at this moment, he means every word.

He can be the man that she needs him to be. He can make all of her dreams come true if only she can hold on.

It takes an eternity for the ambulance to pull up and when it does, Grayson wants to believe that she'll be okay. He can see in the paramedics' eyes that she probably won't, though.

Everything happens in flashes.

They're loading Heather into the back of the ambulance and telling him that he can follow it to the hospital. They won't let him ride in the back with her, because they aren't married or related. He's never hated anyone so much in his life as he hates those paramedics for not allowing him to go with her.

Flash.

The cops are asking about the drive-by. They want to know if he knows anyone that might be out to get him, but he doesn't, and if he does, he can't think about that right now. All he can think about is Heather's bloody abdomen.

They're making promises that Grayson knows they probably won't be able to keep.

Flash.

Now the surgeon steps into the waiting room, his face is hung and Grayson knows instantly what he's going to tell him. "We're very sorry for your loss, but she just lost too much blood, there was nothing that we could have done differently."

Flash.

"NO!" Grayson is screaming. His skin doesn't fit right, everything is different. Sympathy and pity fill the faces of the people in the waiting room as they watch him. He hates every single one of them.

Everything is different now.

Flash.

Grayson's whole world is dead.