“Are they after you?”
“Uhm…” he answered without hesitations.
“I don’t know what I am getting myself into by helping you, but they don’t seem to be nicer than you, so I hope I am doing the right thing by helping you,” I sighed as I nervously drove out of the building’s parking area.
I had to drive the way down to exit the building, but it wasn’t spiral. As I drove out, I saw a few of the men searching for my passenger. I am glad I had my car tinted, they did not notice I had a passenger when they passed by my car earlier and when we passed by them.
“I am not sure if I saw whatever I saw them carrying. I think they have guns. But they don’t look like cops,” I said while giving my wounded passenger a quick glance. “Don’t sleep! Tell me where to go, first, Marco!”
“Huh?!” the man thoughtlessly responded when he heard my raised voice. “What?” he asked weakly.
“Tell me where to take you if you don’t want to go to the hospital. Where would you go in situations like this? I mean where would you go when you get injured like this but you don’t want the hospital,” I asked looking back at him when I found a safe side of the road to pull over.
The man frowned with his eyes closed as if he was thinking of what to say to answer my question. I waited with the car’s hazard lights on, a sign that the car was taking an emergency stop by the side of the road.
“Marco?” I called when his silence took longer than I expected. He did not answer. “Marco!” I panicked when his face looked cold and deadly pale.
“Come on!” I huffed.
I was worried, scared, annoyed, and honestly speaking, I did not know how to interpret what I felt at the moment. I suddenly heard a message received notification from my phone. It was just the sound of the phone vibrating since I muted my device in preparation for my interviews today, but I still felt like it gave me a breather. I was drowning in distress as I did not know what to do about the fainted, wounded, blanched yet undeniably devilishly good-looking man in my car. I quickly grabbed my phone. I did not even bother checking what message arrived in it just a few moments ago, I pressed my speed dial. And just as always, my savior answered right after the first ring ended.
“Dad! Dad! I don’t know what to do, dad!” I almost cried as soon as I heard his voice over the phone.
“Whoa! Whoa! Honey, slow down. Breathe in. Breathe out.”
I did as my dad had said. It calmed me somehow.
“How is your job hunt going?” he asked with his usual gentle voice.
“I already missed my first schedule. But that is not the matter to worry about right now,” I swallowed my spit to moisten my throat.
“No? What is it then?” my dad asked with unhidden curiosity.
“I…” my eyes turned to glance at the unconscious man with me in the car. What I saw reminded me of the urgency of the situation like death was creeping too close. It made me speak without hesitation. “I bumped into an injured man. He is in my car, but he doesn’t want me to send him to the hospital. Now he has fainted. I guess he is losing so much blood. I don’t even know where his wound is exactly. I can only tell it is in his midways. And I saw the people after him carrying deadly weapons. I won’t be surprised to hear this man with me in the car has a gunshot wound. What do I do, dad?”
My words came out so rushed. I am not sure my dad had heard any of them clearly. But I still need to ask for his thoughts.
“Then bring him here. Now before he lost it,” my dad answered nonchalantly. “I might have some spare intravenous antibiotic prophylaxis from when you got wounded by a rusted metal scrap. Now, hurry and bring him here!”
“Are you sure? We don’t know this man, dad,” I reminded him.
“Do you think you can live with the guilt if he dies inside your car?” my dad asked gently.
I took a deep breath. My dad knew me so well. His words need not be harsh to hit me right where it’s the bullseye.
“We’ll be there in less than thirty minutes,” I answered helplessly.
I was ready to release the brakes and be back on the rod again, but my dad asked again.
“Is he lying with his legs down?”
I answered yes right away since that was how I saw his position was the last glance I had of him. Still, I looked back to confirm my thoughts.
“If he is unconscious, make him lie on his side with the top leg bent at a right angle,” my dad continued.
I did not ask for any explanations. I did what I was told to do without stepping out of the vehicle. I reached the patient’s body from the space between the front seats and told my dad everything I did as if recapping them for him to check if I missed anything else.
“Good. I will get everything ready. Drive safely. Don’t risk your life trying to save him by driving over the speed limit. You know what I mean, right?” dad said.
“Yes, dad,” I answered and waited for my angelic dad to cut the call just like I would always do when we speak over the phone. I feel impolite even with the thought of pressing the red button to end a call when it’s my dad. I don’t fancy the idea even in the slightest.
Then I turned my head around as I buckled my seatbelt to speak to my passenger and soon-to-be my dad’s patient.
“I am taking you to the best dad and doctor in the world for me. You have to live and spare me of guilt for a lifetime.”
I resumed driving. And while bearing my dad’s words to be safe in my extremely busy-anxious mind, I kept blabbering and calling Marco’s name to bother the man from his sleep. It made his name slip out so fluently out of my lips within the time he was almost lifeless lying there in the backseat. I was worried he wasn’t making any obvious or audible responses, but I did not let the whispering devils inside me win when they seemed to lure me into stepping on the gas pedal more than I was supposed to.
Just as I had told my old man, we arrived less than half an hour after our call ended. The steel gate was already opened and my dad was waiting by the front of it, facing the direction where he knew I would be driving home.
My dad is an accountant. He is working from home and would meet his clients once in a while. And he also took a license as a caregiver with additional hours to receive a certificate for core nurse delegation tasks because he couldn’t take me to the hospital when I need to, even for the most urgent issues I have ever had. Instead of insisting on taking me to a hospital, my dad chose to study how to be a healthcare provider.
"Dad! He's in the backseat," I rolled down the window on my side and informed my dad, who was guiding me with his waving hand, to move closer to the door as I parked my car. When I turned the engine off, my dad opened the door of the backseat, and I was surprised when I felt his presence intently staring at me outside my window. "What….?" I asked as I opened the door cautiously because my dad was standing too close to the door. I was curious why he was by my side and not with the dying man with us. But my dad almost hurriedly, yet carefully opened the door wider for me to step out of it so he could stare at me closely as if checking my condition and analyzing the situation. "Honey, are you alright?" he asked as soon as I got out of the vehicle. He checked my pulse. Then, my head as if making sure I was at an average temperature, and he held my hands to check if I was cold, sweating, or anything of my reactions when I was feeling traumatized. "Are you dizzy?""I'm not sure, dad, but
Marco’s POVI woke up and panicked. I clearly told the lady not to bring me to the hospital. But the smell of disinfectant brushed off my nostril. I wanted to jump off the bed and leave the place. But my body won’t move to obey my thoughts. I tried to sit up. But even the tip of my fingers won’t even budge. “Are you awake?” I heard a man’s voice approaching my direction. “That’s quite odd. I gave you a good dose of painkillers so your body could heal and recuperate,” the manly voice continued. I wanted to answer and tell him that I am awake. But my eyes won’t open despite my eagerness to find out where I was. And even my voice seemed to have abandoned me. Nothing of my words came out audibly aside from grunts and groans. “Marco, right?” the man asked again. I could feel he was standing right next to the bed I was helplessly lying on. “Don’t be hard on yourself. This is not a hospital if that is what you are worried about. If you want to leave this place, sooner, I strongly suggest
I looked around and saw the tube of drips hanging on the left side of the bed next to my head. Its tube was connected to my left arm. If I have been sleeping for days, this liquid must have been my food for the whole time. Looking at the pack of colorless liquid that drops slower than a second in between the next drops, a thought suddenly flashed in my mind. This thought traveled from my brain down to that specific part of my anatomy. I felt like a marionette with a string being pulled away to make me move. I sprang up, but the pain in my left side made me pause. I couldn’t even lift a finger due to the extreme pain I felt at my sudden move. “Do you need a hand?” I heard a man’s voice speak softly as he walked closer to my bed, opposite where the lady was leaning asleep as she sat on a chair. In my pained face, I stared at the man. He looked like he was in his mid-fifties. He had pepper and salt colored hair. I could tell the man was a gym rat somehow. He has a fierce-looking face,
“Dad!? Marco?!” We both looked at each other as if we were asking each other if the other heard what one had just heard. “She must have realized it wasn’t her bed,” Theodor said soon after we heard a feminine voice calling our names one after the other. “She sounds like someone I have known or someone so close to me as a family or something with the way she would yell out my name,” I thought. “And I can’t disagree with you on that. I am beginning to feel jealous, young man!” “Huh?!” I was stunned. I did not know those words slipped off my lips and made the father hear of them. “I’m… Uhm… My apologies, sir…” I stammered in response. “What are you guys doing here?” the lady asked while rubbing her eyes off, one after the other.“Skye, honey, you should have taken more sleep. You look like a zombie, don’t you agree, Marco?” Theodor spoke with a hint of teasing to his daughter. “Dad, please…? I told you, it’s not like that. Stop it. You’re making me feel embarrassed in front of our
“You’re an injured man. My daughter can subdue you easily if you two get into a physical fight, and if you are trying to say you might take advantage of my daughter, I am telling you, with that injury you have, I doubt you have the ability to enjoy the moment,” Ted chuckled mischievously as he turned his back on me to walk out of the room. I was stunned at the father’s response. “Not that I am going to take advantage of your daughter, but I hope you don’t do this just to anyone,” I sincerely stated, trying to walk behind Ted. The father stopped in his tracks and turned around to face me. There were only halogen bulbs on so it wasn’t too bright, but I saw a bemusing smile sporting his mien. I waited to hear what he was going to say.“I haven’t done such things to my daughter. I haven’t had the chance to tease her about a man I think she is interested in, although she keeps saying I am mistaken. And I haven’t entrusted her to anyone before. But I know you respect her as you do to me
“I am not here to judge you. I see you as a light of hope beaming for me that whatever trauma I had in my childhood, I will get through all of them just like I am not afraid to see you bleeding. It makes me hold my grip on sanity knowing someone needs me or my help so I have to stay conscious and not faint despite the color of red seeping out of your wound. Whatever you do or whatever kind of person you are, I am not concerned at the moment. The victory over this fear that had been in my life ever since I could remember is the only thing that matters to me right now. So forgive me if I am behaving weirdly in your eyes. I know this too shall pass, but as of now, I wanna enjoy it.” I did not know why Skye was being so laid-back in front of me. But I could also feel the pure honesty of her words. Before I could even respond, she was talking again. “You might feel as if I am treating you like a newly found pet. I want to take care of you. I want you to get better as soon as possible. L
Skye'S POV“Hey!” Marco yelped chuckling. I could only hear his voice as my eyes were tightly shut in disrelish of the liquid as it reached my tastebuds and my brain declared it was a feeling of burning in my mouth and throat.“Agggghhh! What an agony,” I groaned and grimaced at the alcohol flavor. “Why did you do that? I did not even get the chance to enjoy the aroma of it,” Marco whined as if he was helpless.“I told you, you’re not allowed to drink. Not even a drop. Remember?” I squinted my eyes as I reprimand him. “I wasn’t going to!” Marco retorted defensively. He looked so cute as he pouted that I could not help smiling again. “I need that drink now, more than ever!” “Fine! Fine!” I exclaimed defeatedly. I poured another shot and handed it to him. “Here is another glass! Now don’t dare try having even a tiny sip of it! Ugh! I don’t even understand what taste this has,” I pulled a face as the aftertaste of the forty percent alcoholic drink’s flavor lingered in my mouth. Marco
“Are you trying to say I am a homosexual?” Marco asked with immense disbelief sporting his mien, but his tone remained gentle. “Or maybe a bi-sexual?” I asked again aiming to clarify.“Nope and no!?” This time he responded with his voice raised. “I can prove it to you but not for now. I am more worried that with you around I might suffer from too slow progress in recovery as you seem to enjoy making me yell every now and then. Whenever it happens, I feel my wound stretched and freshen up again,” Marco complained. “I’m sorry,” I apologized again. “We can talk about something else, you know?” I heard Marco inhale deeply. I think he is frustrated that he could not get rid of me, but I did not want to go up to bed just yet. And to be honest, aside from my dad Ted, Marco has been the only one I am very comfortable being with me around. He won’t be here for a lifetime, so I am going to avail myself of his presence while I can. “What do you wanna talk about?” Marco asked casually. His