How to Save a Life

Alex’s POV

“Good game, bro!” Jack says, laughing and slapping my ass as we follow the crowd out of the stadium.

“Yeah, I can’t believe he pulled that last TD! That’s got to be the play of the year,” I reply, smacking my hand across his butt in response. We are all still caught up in the excitement of a close game, the intensity of the final run. My head is buzzing a little bit- maybe it’s just adrenaline, maybe that last beer was one too many. Whatever. We won!

The conversation continues, becoming increasingly rowdy as we cross the parking lot to the bus. Somehow, I find another beer in my hand and begin to down that one too. The victorious atmosphere is contagious; everything seems a little bit better than normal.

Soon, we’ve reached the bus. I am the first to bound up the steps.

“Y/n!” I call as I do so, an irrepressible grin on my face. “Game’s over, we won!”

And then I see it.

I see her.

Slumped on the floor, a knife in her hand, blood drenching the carpet around her, soaking her clothes, flowing from the gashes that have sliced her wrist to ribbons.

I am running to her. I am yelling. I am taking her in my arms, holding her close, trying to press my life into her. I am crying, I am gasping, I can’t breathe. Other arms reach out, try to take her from me, but I don’t let go. I can’t let go. I promised her that much.

Someone has called 911. Paramedics hold me back, while others take her limp body, strap it onto a stretcher, rush her into the back of an ambulance.

She looks so small.

“Alex? Alex! Alex, come one! ALEX!” Jack grabs my arm, yanks me into the vehicle after her. The doors close. I am clutching her hand, the one that held the knife, holding onto it as though the grip alone may be enough to save her.

Jack puts his arm around me, holds me while I cry.

“Alex… You can’t save them all,” he says quietly.

I look at him, his face unfocused and blurry through a lens of tears.

“I should’ve been able to save her, Jack. I promised I would save her, I have to save her, she’s y/n, I can’t lose her!” I started off whispering, but now I am yelling, right in his face. “I can’t lose her, Jack! I love her! Goddammit Jack, I love her, I’ve loved her since the night I met her, and I never even told her. I didn’t even tell her, Jack, and now she’ll never know.”

“She’ll know, Alex. She’ll make it through. You’ll see, she’ll be fine. She’ll be fine. She’ll… She’ll…” But now Jack, too, is crying too hard to go on.

Then we are at the hospital, and the paramedics are running y/n’s stretcher through the halls into a room, where a nurse outside tells us we have to wait outside. I yell at her, scream, try to fight my way in, but there are others holding me back, forcing me into a little plastic chair that is far, far too small to hold everything I am feeling right now.

I stand up, begin to pace. The other guys reach the hospital shortly after us. Rian and Zack are the first to try to console me, but I wave them all off like flies. I see Jack speaking to them out of the corner of my eye, explaining something, but I ignore him.

Half an hour passes. An hour. Two.

Finally, a doctor comes up to us.

Are you y/n’s family?

Yes.

Would you like to come see her?

Yes.

He leads us down a maze of whitewashed corridors to a plain room with nothing but a tiny plastic couch and a hospital bed where y/n is lying, tiny and still, connected by a mass of tubes and wires to a myriad of medical instruments. Her arms are covered in thick white bandages and her eyes are closed.

“We’ve done all we can,” the doctor says. “But she’s not waking up. We’re giving her blood transfusions, but….”

“She’s going to be okay, though, right?” I ask. “She’ll be fine. Right?”

“We… don’t know,” the doctor says, carefully. “In some cases, the patient wakes up immediately. In some, it takes time. In some, there is simply too much damage, and the patient… never recovers. Y/n has extensive damage, at the very least. It’s possible she’ll pull through, but I have to warn you that that may not be the case.”

He leaves.