Just Remember to Breathe by Charles Sheehan-Miles Page A

 
    Suddenly he screamed, “Fuck!” and slammed his fist into the metal grating of the store we stood next to. He let out a howl, a real, literal howl, and slammed his fist into the metal grate again. Then he did it again, and again, shouting, “Fuck!” every time he slammed his fist into the wall.
    The rage just left me, because the last time he hit the wall, blood splattered against it. I started crying, really hard, because he was hurting himself, he was really hurting himself.
    “Dylan,” I whispered. “Stop.”
    He didn’t even hear me. So I did the only thing I could think of. I put my arms around him, right around his chest, and buried my face against his back, and I cried out, as loud as I could, “Dylan, please stop! Please don’t hurt yourself! I love you!”
    He stopped, and stiffened in my arms. I sobbed against his back. Abruptly, he turned in my arms and wrapped me in his, his muscles holding me so tight I almost couldn’t breathe.  
    Both of us were crying, and I started to say, “I’m sorry,” and he said, “I didn’t know. Oh, my God, I’m so sorry, Alex.”
    He started to sob, real howls of pain, and he somehow punched out the words, “That was the day Kowalski threw himself on the grenade, Alex. I was crazy out of my mind when I called you.” His voice dropped to a whisper, and he said, “You were drunk, and I needed you so bad.”
    I cried even harder, and tried to curl against him even tighter, and said, “I’m so sorry, Dylan. I didn’t know. I didn’t know.”
    “I never stopped loving you,” he whispered. “Not even for a second. Even when I hated you.”
    I whispered, “I love you, too, Dylan.”
    It had been more than two years since the last time we held each other like this, the morning he left San Francisco to go back home. Both of us had changed, but for the first time in two years, I felt whole with his arms wrapped around me.  
    The moment would have been perfect, but I heard Kelly’s voice behind us. “Um… I hate to interrupt this incredibly touching scene, but um… he needs to go the hospital. Like, right now.”
    Dylan and I both jerked. We pulled slightly apart, and I took his arm in my hand.
    Oh, shit.  
    His hand was… mangled. Knuckles split, blood dropping to the ground in great big splatters. I felt my breath speed up suddenly, and realized that I could see the bone of one of his fingers.
    “Jesus Christ, Dylan, look what you did to your hand!”
    He looked down at his hand, a lost expression on his face. He shook his head, and said, “Um, yeah. I better see a doctor.”  
    He closed his eyes and swayed a little.  
    “We’re coming with you,” Joel said.
    Kelly nodded.
    So I took my wrap off and wound it around his injured hand, and we waved down a cab.

CHAPTER SEVEN

    Worth fighting for (Dylan)

    So, next thing I knew the four of us were crammed into the backseat of a taxi, on our way to the VA hospital all the way down on the Lower East Side. I was all the way over on the left side of the seat, with Alex somehow wrapped around me, my right hand resting palm up in her lap, wrapped in her silk wrap, which wasn’t going to be much good for wearing after tonight. She leaned against me, and as much pain as my hand was in—which was a lot —most of my focus was on her.
    Neither of us spoke, I think because this moment was just too big to get words around it.
    Kelly and Joel pretty much took care of that for us. Kelly was sitting in the middle of the back seat, and she muttered to Joel, “You never mangled your hand for me. What kind of boyfriend were you, anyway?”
    “Are you fucking kidding me?” Joel answered.  
    “I’m just saying. I don’t think you’re really serious. If you were, you’d find a way to show it. Like completely fucking up your hand or something.”
    Alex shook with laughter against me. I turned my head, looked down at her, resting her head on my shoulder.
    “It’s not that I don’t take you seriously, Kelly. Or