Castles On The Sand Part 26

"And what condition is the patient in?"

"She slit her wrists. There's blood everywhere."

"Are the wounds still open?"

"I don't know."

"Is the blood pulsing out or just oozing out."

"I don't see pulsing."

"Did the patient submerse their wrists in hot water?"

"Huh? No."

"All right, that's good. Apply direct pressure to the wounds. Try to bandage them with something. Help should be there any minute." In the distance, I hear a siren start up. "Stay on the line," the operator tells me.

I cast about for something to tie the wounds with and grab my gloves out of my pockets. It's tricky but I manage to tie one around each wrist. Much to my horror, blood soaks through them at once. I retrieve my phone from my pocket and press it to my ear. "She's still bleeding."

"But she didn't put her wrists in water?"

"No. Why?"

"That's how you keep the blood from clotting. It's good that she didn't. Do you know where the pressure point is on the upper arm?"

"No."

"Just under the bicep, in the inside of the arm, is an artery, press the artery against the bone and that'll slow down bloodflow."

I try to make sense of this, but I don't really understand.

The sirens get closer and I hear the door that connects the house to the Inn open. Heavy footsteps clomp down the hall towards us and Mr. Beale pokes his head in. For a few seconds, that feel like hours, he takes in the scene, then looks at me. Anger wars with bewilderment in his expression.

"She's still bleeding," I say.

"Is everything all right?" the operator asks.

"No, not really."

"Can you send someone outside to guide the paramedics in?" she says.

"Yeah, I'll go downstairs."

This means getting past Mr. Beale, though, who doesn't move when I get up and cross the room. He just stares at me.

"Get out of my way." I go almost nose to nose with him.

His eyes narrow, but he does step back.

"Greg?" Kailie's mom calls out. "What's going on?"

I don't wait to see that confrontation. I run down the stairs and wait at the front door as Officer Li's car careens into the parking lot, an ambulance right behind it. Uniformed paramedics unload a stretcher and I motion to them to go up the stairs. Mrs. Beale's bloodcurdling scream guides them the rest of the way.

Officer Li strides in after them and I follow him back upstairs, where I find one paramedic fending off Mrs. Beale and the other two loading Kailie onto the stretcher. The lights are all on now and I can't help but stare at the pool of blood with skid marks where I slipped. It's as if the paramedics don't even notice it, or how impossibly pale my friend is. Her head lolls to one side as they strap her down.

"Why is there no furniture in this room?" demands Officer Li.

"You mind your own business," says Mr. Beale.

The officer turns to me.

"Don't you-" Mr. Beale snarls as he lunges for me, but before I can react, he is down. Officer Li holds him by only his fingers, but twists them in a way that prevents him from getting up.

Surreal does not even begin to describe this experience.

"You're with me," says the cop as the handcuffs come out. "Madison, you need to find Sonya when you get to the hospital. Can you do that?" He looks up so that he can see me nod.

"She's the social worker," supplies one of the paramedics, which doesn't enlighten me much.

They carry Kailie out onto the landing and she doesn't look alive to me. Meanwhile, I look like I just came out of a slaughterhouse with my jeans soaked with blood from the knee down.

Officer Li hauls Mr. Beale to his feet and marches him down the stairs. I feel like a spectator, a gawking tourist who's just getting in the way.

The paramedics seem like they were summoned out of some crime drama television show. I follow them down stairs which are stained with b.l.o.o.d.y footprints. My footprints, I realize, and now the paramedics' too. My vision becomes like that jerky handheld footage that some of these shows have and I feel myself starting to gray out. The fresh air outside barely registers, though I'm dimly aware of the wind running icy fingers through my hair.

Someone takes my arm and marches me to the ambulance. I get put in the front seat and told to buckle my seatbelt, and then we're off on an insanely fast drive, with sirens whooping and lights casting a strobe effect on everything we pa.s.s.

My cellphone rings. "h.e.l.lo?" I answer it.

"Madison?"

"Carson?"

"Hey, yeah. My dad says he can see an ambulance at the Pelican Bluffs Inn."

"It's left already. We're on our way to the emergency room."

"What happened?"

"Kailie tried to kill herself." My voice sounds distant as I say this, as if I'm overhearing someone else have this conversation.

"We'll meet you there. Hey, guys!" The line cuts out.

I shut my eyes. I don't care how fast we go around corners. I let myself get thrown against the ambulance door time and time again, and I remember what it felt like to smash Kailie's window. My clothes reek of blood and I can't shake the image of my friend lying on the floor, pale and unmoving.

How much time did I waste, wandering around town? Why didn't I knock on Kirsten's door the first time? How long did Kailie lie there, bleeding like that? What if I hadn't had that exact conversation about suicide with Alex last Sat.u.r.day? I remember what my brother said about miracles. I wonder if he'd consider that a miracle? I'd have preferred one that would have stopped Kailie from taking a knife to herself. If there really is an all powerful G.o.d, that would've been just as easy for him.

The landscape outside is just a blur. I have the vague sense that the ocean is on my left, so we are headed north. I wonder what time it is and if my mother's come in yet, and if she'll care that I'm not around. No, I think. She never does.

Will my mother guess that I'm careening my way to the hospital in clothing soaked with blood? Maybe Mr. Montrose will tell her.

My stomach feels like I've just poured a gallon of icewater into it. I wonder if Mom will blame me for having a Mormon go talk to her. It's not rational, but Mom's reaction to my going out with Carson wasn't rational.

A part of me wants to talk to John. The rest of me knows that I am in a speeding ambulance and have palms so sweaty I couldn't hold onto a cellphone. It'd end up sliding through my fingers like a bar of soap and might bean the driver or something, and that would not be good.

A little voice in the back of my head suggests that this image is funny. I ignore it. I shut my eyes and try to still my thoughts as we drive on, and on, and on. How far, I can't even guess.

The siren starts up with a wail again and I open my eyes to see us shoot through an intersection, cars dividing to the left and right to let us past. We rocket through a small town I can't identify at this speed and are soon past it.

This drive feels like it's been an eternity, but finally we enter another town, careen around a corner and up a ramp to the emergency room door. The driver jumps out and comes around to my side. When I get down from my seat, he grasps my arm and takes me into the waiting room.

The receptionist takes one look at us and goes pale. "Yes?" she says.

"We need Sonya." His voice is rock steady, as if this is a normal night.

"I'll call her."

Behind us the doors slide open again and the ambulance crew stride past with Kailie. Mrs. Beale is with them, looking almost as pale as her daughter. "Do you know her blood type?" one of the paramedics asks her.

She shakes her head.

"She'll be okay," another one a.s.sures me. "You did well. Smart to use your gloves like that, on her wrists."

"I'm gonna get some scrubs for you to change into, all right?" says the receptionist to me. She disappears through a door to the back.

"Ma'am," says the ambulance driver to Mrs. Beale, "you need to come with me. They'll look after your daughter."

"But-"

"Now."

The crowd disappears through a set of sliding doors.

The stench of blood is getting stronger by the moment. I wonder how it didn't gag me in the enclosed cab of the ambulance.

A woman with gray streaked black hair comes out of a door behind the reception area, takes one good look at me, and says, "Please don't tell me you offed someone."

"Suicide attempt," I say.

"Not you?" says the woman.

"No," I say. "Kailie Beale. They just took her back."

"So what do you need to see me for? I'm Sonya, by the way."

"I don't know. Officer Li just told me to come find you."

"How old is the patient?"

"Sixteen."

"Do you know what drove her to suicide?"

"I could guess."

"Abuse of some kind?"

I nod.

"All right, okay." She presses her hands to her forehead.

Just then, the receptionist returns with a stack of blue folded clothing and says, "The rest rooms are through there. Change, put your b.l.o.o.d.y clothes in this-" she lays a plastic bag on the counter "-and oh, Sonya, you're here. The mother is back there."

"Okay, right. You take this young lady back after she's changed."

The receptionist pushes the plastic bag into my hands. "There you go."

In the bathroom, I find that my legs are also coated in a fine layer of blood that's hardened enough to be scabby. I wet some toilet paper under the faucet and wipe myself off, then dry my skin with more toilet paper. This is beyond gory, beyond horrific.

When I emerge with my blood soaked clothes in a plastic bag, I find not the receptionist, but Sonya waiting for me. She takes my arm and says, "I'm the social worker on duty here in the ER this s.h.i.+ft," she says. "I understand your friend was found in some unusual circ.u.mstances?" Her voice is very smooth and purrs with energy.

She guides me by the arm through a set of doors and then into a little, windowless office with a desk in one corner and four chairs that face each other. I sit in the one that the social worker indicates for me. "This is complicated because the mother is here too and I need to talk to the police and CPS-"

"CPS?"

"Child Protective Services. Listen, the mother doesn't seem to want to talk, so I'm asking you, should your friend go home to her parents after she's treated here? What do you think?"

"Um... where else would she go?"

"To a foster home while CPS investigates the situation and decides on a course of action."

"Foster home?"

"I'm throwing way too much information at you. I need to know, do we send this girl home, or will that put her back into the same situation that drove her to suicide?"

Images flash through my mind of Kailie scarfing down food, the mood swings, the hiding from her family. "I..." The sentence won't finish, no matter how hard I push. I never expected I would have to turn the Beales in. I a.s.sumed the situation would be bad until Kailie turned eighteen and ran off with some guy or something.

"All right," says the social worker. "I'll be back. I'm going to go talk to the doctor."

As soon as she leaves the room, I fold my arms tight across my chest. I feel so drained that it's hard to even stay sitting up. So many dire images have been shoved into my mind that I feel like I need to scream to get them out, but if I release the flood, it may never end. The room sways, and I realize I'm rocking myself. I wonder if I'm muttering too.

"We're looking for Kailie Beale," comes Carson's voice from down the hall. I sit up straight. "Hey!" he shouts. "Where are you going?"

Footsteps sound against the tile and Alex grabs the doorframe and pivots to lean in. I look up at him and he stares back a moment before coming to kneel in front of my chair, grasping the armrests on each side of me. He looks me in the eye. "Hey. You all right?"

I can't even talk, only whimper. I want to grab hold of his s.h.i.+rt and pull him in for a hug, a kiss, any contact, as much contact as possible.

I know I'm not thinking straight. My arms stay firmly folded.