ABC.
Airway.
Breathing.
Compressions.
You can do this, Archer.
She needs you to do this.
My hands shake as I tilt back her chin. Her head lolls in my grip, a lifeless rag doll, as I position her face properly. Sucking in a large gulp of air, I pinch her nose closed, then bring my lips down on hers and breathe deeply into her mouth. One long exhale, then another. Her chest inflates as the oxygen rushes into her lungs.
I sit back, waiting.
Watching.
Praying like hell.
Still, she shows no signs of life.
Her heart isn’t beating.
I remove her soaked life jacket. Interlocking my fingers together, I position them flat against her chest to begin compressions.
“You will not die,” I tell her sternly as my palm pulses in steady beats. “I forbid it. You hear me?”
She’s so still. And so small, I worry her ribcage will crack under the force of my hands. But I don’t stop. My eyes never shift off her face. It’s gone white with cold. Ghastly white. Ghostly white. Her lips are the only point of color — and it’s not a good one. They’re blue.
I keep up the compressions.
“You will live,” I growl. My voice is gruff — with rage, with regret. My face is wet — with rain, with tears. I give her two more useless rescue-breaths, trying like hell to breathe her back to life. “Live, dammit.Live.”
My heart isn’t the one that’s stopped beating, but it might as well have. In this moment, staring into the face of the girl I love, the girl I have always loved, lifeless and limp… there are no words for the pain bolting through my bloodstream.
Jo.
My Jo.
Please, please, please.
Come back to me.
The thought that she’s gone — not just from my life, but from the face of this earth… My mind refuses to process it. I cannot even think the worddead, let alone contemplate the possibility. I watch my own tears falling onto her pale face. My arms are beginning to ache, exhausted from my efforts. I’m not sure how long I’ve been doing this. Two minutes? Ten? I’m even less sure how much longer I can continue on before I admit…
She might not be coming back.
Something is breaking inside me, the longer I stare down at her. Painful memories claw at me, excruciating reminders of our past. A pigtailed girl with chalk-dust hands, playing hopscotch in the driveway. A gawky preteen at the pool, eye-rolling over the brim of her book as my cannonball splashes her pages. A stunning vision in a silk gown, ditching her senior prom date to spend the night with me.
So full of light.
Oflife.
This cannot be the same woman I hold in my hands now. Blue and still and so very, very cold. So very, very empty. So very, very…
Dead.
A scream builds inside my throat, presses at the back of my teeth, demanding release. I let it out as I give one final compression. An animal sound, primal with anguish.