chapter 25 | blood

"Everything is a choice"

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Aria POV

I open the cabin door and manage to drag Blake all the way to the couch before my legs collapse and he doesn't have such a gentle landing.

He lets out a groan of pain.

"Shitshit I'm so sorry" I immediately grab one of his arms and try to help him into a more comfortable position. When he's sort of lying on his back with a pillow below his head and his face scrunched up in pain, I take a step back and look him over for a second before I get to work.

With Blake's instructions, I prepare all the medical supplies on the living room table. Basically all I have to do is 'clean the wound' and 'stitch it up' in Blake's words.

I put on the sterile gloves and prepare whatever courage I still have in me and approach him.

"Ready?" He asks me with such an easy tone like he's not about to be operated on by a girl who never stitched a wound in her life and is living on two red bulls and 3 hours of sleep(which were sedative induced).

For someone in his position he's putting a lot of faith in me. I swallow again and nod my head, not making eye contact.

"Aria hey, look at me", I do as he says, "you can do this, repeat one more time all the steps we discussed."

My hands are trembling and so is my voice "Remove the bandage, clean the wound, remove the bullet, sew it like it's a shirt. I don't have to think of it like its flesh."

"Exactly, it's not flesh, that's very important, imagine one of your favorite shirts" I inhale sharply when I feel him wipe away my tears, I didn't realize I was crying, "you're a smart girl, you can do this."

I scoff.

"Any 3 year old can memorize 4 step-plans", I try to smile through my tears but the truth is I was scared. This man, whether I want to admit it or not, saved my life a few times, and now I have to stitch him up. So many things could go wrong, I don't even want to think about it.

I take another deep breath and remove the bandage around his wound.

Good thing I didn't eat anything because I would have puked everything. It was a mess. I couldn't tell where the wound was, everything was just a massive patch of blood. I slowly grab the sanitizer bottle.

"Okay, put this between your teeth" I give Blake a piece of cloth I found in one of the first aid kits. He puts it in his mouth, takes a deep breath and closes his eyes.

I take a deep breath as well, prepare a clean tissue and murmur "I'm so sorry" before starting to pour the sanitizer over his wound. He lets out a strangled cry before going silent and apparently, I wasn't the only one exhausted because as I'm dedicating 100% of my attention to cleaning the wound Blake passes out. I didn't even notice until I finish, look at him and see that he's out.

"Shit" I don't know if it's a good thing. On the one hand it's good because he won't feel the pain anymore but on the other hand it's bad because he might have a concussion or something and it's not good to fall asleep. There's nothing I can really do right now, it's not that I can wake him up, so I just continue working and pray to whoever is listening that Blake doesn't die while I operate on him.

I somehow manage to get the bullet out with the special tweezers and I'm starting to sew him together. I saw enough movies to know how a stitched wound should look but it's way harder to actually perform it on a living person. Halfway through I realize how ugly the scar would look at the end because my stitches aren't at all symmetrical but if Blake lives enough to be mad about a scar I'll apologize then.

I don't know how but I managed to finish it. There's no more blood coming out of the wound so I must have done something right. I put clean bandages over it and then take a step back to admire my work.

Blake is laying on the couch in a pretty normal position, if you ignore the blood and the bandage you could even say he's sleeping.

The adrenaline is slowly leaving my body and my limbs start to feel really heavy. I have to sleep. I have to sleep right now. I start making my way to the bathroom, I wash my hands trying not to look at the massive amount of blood in the sink and then basically drag myself to the bed and pass out before my head can even hit the pillow.



A/N

Not one of my best chapters but I haven't written in months and now I'm back.

Horay!