I didn’t know how long I’d been lying there, but I was still awake when I felt something on my leg. Figuring it was my imagination and not wanting to take my arms from my sensitive stomach, I wiggled my leg and curled back up into a ball. Not a minute later I felt it again and I sat up to look, wishing I’d turned on the light in my race in here. I had to blink my eyes a few times to focus on whatever the large lump was on my leg, and only when its tail curled up above its body did everything become clear.
“Gage!”
GAGE
MY BODY SHOT upright and I was out of bed before I realized that Cassidy wasn’t in bed and had screamed my name. I was already in the hall heading to the living room when a short, pained cry came from the master bathroom. I turned around and burst through the door as soon as I reached it. She was in the bathtub and it took me a second to notice she was fully clothed and there was no water in there. I took two large steps toward her and her hands shot out.
“No, stop!”
I froze.
“It—it’s right there.” Her hand was shaking uncontrollably as she pointed down.
I looked down but only saw the floor. Taking a step back, I flipped on the lights and had to blink a few times before I could look at the dark tile, and there, not two feet from the bathtub, was a scorpion. I laughed and looked up at a freaked Cassidy.
“Hang on, darlin’, I’ll get him.” I jogged into the closet, grabbed the first shoe I found, and went back to smash the shit out of that ugly thing. “That isn’t the first one you’ve ever seen, is it?”
She didn’t answer and I decided it probably was and felt like an ass for laughing. I’d grown up in the country, where scorpions were a common thing; she’d grown up in a country club neighborhood in a rich city in California. I’m sure she’d never once had to worry about these things.
When I had it cleaned up and thrown away and the shoe wiped off, I looked up and noticed she was still violently shaking; her cheeks were wet, eyes were huge, and lips were chalky white and trembling. She didn’t look like she had earlier from being sick; she looked freakin’ terrified. God, I was such a dick. I lowered my voice and spoke in a soothing tone. “Cass, it’s okay, he’s gone. Come on, let me take you to bed.”
Her head started shaking quickly back and forth when I got to the edge of the tub, and she was still staring at where the scorpion had been.
“Cassidy, it’s okay. You need to calm down or you’re gonna force yourself to go into shock. Breathe, babe.” When she didn’t make any move I exhaled loudly and put my arms under hers; it was when I started to lift and her hands slipped from the side of her calf that I saw the trickle of blood coming from a small red circle. “What the hell? Shit, Cass, were you stung?!”
She nodded slightly and a soft sob followed by a huge breath in snapped her back to the present. “Gage! It was on me! I had no idea—I was just lying there and I felt something. I tried to get it off and it was still there!” Another huge breath in. “I looked down and I didn’t realize what it was at first, and then its tail, oh my God, its tail did that thing where it, where it, you know . . .” She tried to show me with her hands.
It was so damn cute, but she was freakin’ out and had just been stung. I knew from experience that it hurt like a bitch, and the one that got her wasn’t little either, so I kept my mouth shut as I carried her over to the counter where our sinks were and turned the water on, waiting for it to warm.
“A-a-and I just freaked! I tried to sit up and scramble away and it stung me before I could get it off. I’ve never even seen one before! Why was it here? They aren’t supposed to be in Texas, are they?!” She took another shuddering breath in, and before she could continue her chest started heaving up and down quickly.
“Breathe, Cass, deep breath in and hold it, then blow it out. Darlin’, you’ve got to calm down, now, you’re gonna hyperventilate. Come on, Cass, deep breath in.” I gripped her shoulders and tried to force her to breathe with me for the next couple minutes until she was breathing normal and her head was slumped onto my chest. “Good girl. All right, let’s get this washed off, I’ll get you some ice, and we’ll go back to bed; sound good?”
She whimpered some kind of agreement and clutched her stomach.
God, I’d forgotten she was sick too. This was just not her day.
After we washed where she was stung, I laid her down in bed and propped her leg up on a couple pillows before getting some ice wrapped in a towel. I held the towel against her calf and rubbed her back until she was sound asleep, then curled around her tiny body, and before my head hit the pillow I was out.
NO WAY IT’S time to get up yet. I would put money down that I just went to sleep. My eyes opened and I realized my alarm wasn’t going off, and it wasn’t even predawn outside, it was pitch-black. I heard Cassidy getting sick in the bathroom and realized that must’ve been what woke me up. Turning slightly, I checked the clock and saw we’d only gotten back in bed about an hour ago. I wished there was something, anything, I could do for her. I felt so helpless, and I hated it. I’d just swung my legs off the bed when a loud smack came from the bathroom and for the second time tonight I shot off toward it, this time to find my wife sprawled out on the floor, eyes rolled to the back of her head and barely breathing. As soon as I finished checking her, I was at my nightstand grabbing the phone, dialing and running back to her side, sliding up to her on my knees.
“Nine-one-one, what’s your emergency?”
“M-my wife collapsed, she’s—I don’t know, she’s barely breathing and she’s not waking up.” The hand that wasn’t holding the phone was going everywhere: her eyelids, her mouth, her neck, her chest, her wrist. Anywhere to get a response or to feel her breaths or pulse. “Cass, baby, wake up, please wake up!”
After telling the woman on the other line where we were, she asked, “Sir, can you tell me what happened prior to you finding your wife in this condition? Had she been drinking or—”
I didn’t even let her finish. “No, no, she’s been sick all day with the flu and then an hour ago she was stung by a scorpion. I cleaned it and everything and we went back to bed. I woke up and she was throwing up, then I heard her hit the floor.” My whole body was shaking and I kept begging Cassidy to wake up. The fact that her pulse was so faint I had to struggle to feel it was scaring me worse than anything had in my entire life.
“You said she was stung by a scorpion?”
“Yeah, about an hour ago. But everyone in my family, including me, has been stung at least once before. I washed it, put ice on it, and elevated it.”
“Has your wife ever been stung before, sir?”
“Cassidy, please wake up! What? Um . . . no, no, she’s never seen one before tonight.”
“What does the area look like where she was stung?”
“What? Look, is someone coming? I need an ambulance, she’s still not waking up!”
“Sir, I dispatched them as soon as you gave me the address. Now I need you to tell me what the area where she was stung looks like.”
I touched Cassidy’s face and throat once more before looking down at the side of her calf. “Oh shit,” I breathed. “It—it’s big.” What the hell?
“Is it red?”
“Yeah.”
“All right, sir, she might be having an allergic reaction to the sting.”
“What can I do?”
“I’m sorry, sir, but there’s nothing to do right now other than wait for the ambulance.”
“She’s barely breathing! This isn’t a normal allergic reaction. I’m not just gonna sit around and wait for someone to get here!” I shot up and ran into the bedroom, grabbing the first clothes my hands touched. “Do you know how fuckin’ long it takes for an ambulance to get out here?! You tell the EMTs they see a black SUV trying to get their attention, it’s me meeting them on the way.” I hung up and rushed back into the bathroom. Cassidy usually slept in nothing but my shirt, but thank God she’d been sick, because she had little sleep shorts on with her hoodie. Sick or not, I didn’t want anyone else seeing her but I wasn’t wasting more time dressing her.
Grabbing her up in my arms, I walked as steadily and quickly as possible out to her Tahoe, put the passenger seat all the way down, and laid her in it. After putting the seat belt over her, I ran around to the driver’s side and took off while dialing the main house. Dad was outside and waiting for me when we pulled up; Mom was in a nightgown with her hands covering her mouth. Thankfully Dad said we’d call her and she ran back into the house to get ready in case we needed her. He jumped into the driver’s seat and I hopped into the back so I could watch over Cassidy as we drove.
About ten minutes after we’d gotten off the property, she groaned and her eyes fluttered open. My heart started racing as I brushed my hands lightly over her throat; her pulse was still soft, too soft. “Cassidy, baby, can you hear me?”
She nodded and it looked like she was still struggling to breathe.
“Thank God,” I whispered, and rested my forehead on hers for a moment before sitting up to look into her honey eyes. They held mine for barely two seconds before rolling back again. “No, Cass, no. Wake back up!” My hands started doing their check, and when they passed over her chest, I realized it felt wrong.
Even compared to her shallow breathing in the bathroom, this felt wrong. I put my hand back on her chest and crouched low in the seat, making myself eye level with my hand. It wasn’t f**king moving.
“Cassidy, Cassidy, babe, I need you to wake up. You hear me? Wake up, darlin’, please, God, wake up.” I let one hand go to her wrist and the other go to her throat. “Damn it, babe, please.” My hands were shaking so bad, I had to take deep breaths in just to calm them so I could check for a pulse. “Come on, sweetheart . . . open your eyes again.” I kept quiet as I focused and about cried out in relief when I felt the faintest beat in her throat. “Keep breathing, Cassidy, ple—” My words broke off on a sob and I let my forehead fall onto the top of the seat. “God, Cass, don’t leave me, wake up.”
“Gage,” Dad said gruffly, and I looked up through tear-filled eyes to see flashing lights. He hit the brakes, put on the emergency lights, and started flashing his brights at them.
They’d just started to pass us when they slammed on their brakes. Thank God for that dispatcher. I was already out of the car and running to the other side when an EMT came out of the back of the ambulance, and another came from the passenger side. I didn’t wait for them to ask, I just started saying everything I could think of that had happened in the last two hours as I opened the passenger side of the Tahoe and unbuckled Cassidy. They put her on a stretcher, and once again I didn’t wait for them to ask; I got into the ambulance with them. No way in hell they were taking my girl without me.
I held her hand and silently pleaded with her to breathe. Once in there, the EMTs started an IV, shot her with something else, and when they started spouting off words, all I heard was anaphylactic shock. My heart stopped; there was no way. No way, she’d never been stung before; that couldn’t happen from just one sting, right? I gripped her hand tighter and begged God not to take her from me after just giving me her. Twenty minutes later, just as we were pulling up to the emergency room driveway, Cassidy’s eyes opened halfway as she took the deepest breath she’d taken in who knows how long and locked on mine for a split second before the EMTs moved the stretcher out of the ambulance.