Page 54 of The Making of Mila and Blake
You know we planned to start dinner twenty minutes ago, right?
We’re starting without you. You can eat the leftovers by yourself when you eventually show up.
This is ridiculous, Mila. Your grandpa is so disappointed that you aren’t here.
Just because you’re eighteen doesn’t mean you can disappear off the radar. Answer your phone. I still need to know where the hell you are.
“Crap,” I say, pressing my hand to my forehead as a headache threatens to build. The texts and calls stopped over an hour ago, which means Dad and Sheri clearly gave up on trying to reach me, and the only thing worse than having your phone blown up isnothaving your phone blown up. I have a lot of explaining to do when I get back to the ranch, even though I have no excuse. I don’t bother calling back. I’m going to get an earful regardless, and I’d rather not hear it twice.
“Let’s go,” Blake says. He grabs his keys from his pocket and throws open his bedroom door. Bailey flies into the room, tail wagging with the joy of being reunited with the humans, but neither Blake nor I have the energy to acknowledge him.
I barrel down the staircase while Blake only skulks along behind me, still half asleep, and I know it seems so pointless to him, rushing me home when the damage is already done. But Dad’s mind doesn’t work that way. The longer I take to show up, the more aggravated he’ll be. I have freedom, of course I do, but I must also have respect. It is theonlyrule my parents still have.
We urge Bailey outside for the quickest potty trip in history and then take off in Blake’s truck, the orange burn of streetlights flickering across the windshield as we speed down the dark, quiet streets of Fairview. I flip open the sun visor to give my reflection a once-over in the tiny vanity mirror. My hair needs a thorough brush through and my lips are plump and a little swollen. The chap stick I apply does little to improve the look, so I slap the sun visor closed again and resort to anxiously bouncing my legs instead.
Blake emits a low laugh and places a firm hand on my knee to steady it. “Stop. You were late for dinner, Mila. It’s not that big of a deal. Do you have any idea how many times I haven’t shown up when my mom has expected me to? A lot. And you know how much of a hard-ass my mom is, yet I’m still standing.”
“I just feel so bad. Dad said Popeye was disappointed. Things like this mean a lot to him, because a few years ago my dad cooking dinner and all of us sitting down together to eat without erupting into arguments was so not within the realm of possibility.”
Blake chucklesagainand squeezes my knee even harder in what is supposed to be a comforting gesture, but only stresses me out further. “There will be other dinners, Mila. We aren’t talking about a total solar eclipse here.”
His eyes dart to the rearview mirror and the vibrant colors of red and white flicker against his shadowed face. He retracts his hand from my leg to grab the steering wheel and pull over to the side of the road. We watch in silence as an ambulance races past us with its sirens echoing shrilly in the night and its flashing lights brightening the road ahead in a sea of color. Blake pulls back out behind it and just when I think the ambulance is about to disappear ahead, it flicks on its turn signal.
“Huh,” says Blake. “They’re going this way too.”
My heart skips a beat as the ambulance turns onto the same quiet country road that we’re about to take, the road that leads through nothing but expansive fields and privately-owned ranches. This road isn’t a shortcut that leads to anywhere important. You only ever take this road if your destination is on it.
“Blake,” I say sharply, sitting up straight and pressing a hand to the dashboard. “Keep up with it. Go faster.”
“What?”
“I just need to see where it’s going. Please.”
Blake glances sideways at me, reads the panic in my expression, and instantly floors the gas. He doesn’t dismiss me as being overly dramatic over nothing this time and breaks the speed limit to catch up to the ambulance ahead, quickly closing the distance. The headlights of Blake’s truck catch the scattering of alarmed deer in the fields and a sickening feeling of dread grips my chest like a vise, because I know exactly where that ambulance is heading even before I see the open gate of the Harding Estate come into view.
“Oh fuck,” Blake says in disbelief.
The circus of noise and lights heads through the gate, behind the walls, and Blake makes the turn onto the Harding property so harshly his tires skid on the dirt. My throat seals shut and I throw off my seatbelt, my hand on the truck door as I beg, beg, beg Blake to drive faster, to get me up this damn single-track road as fast as he can.
The ambulance screeches to a stop by the porch, but Blake is right behind them. I throw open the door and jump out of the truck as it’s still moving. I land on my ankle and hear a crack, but the rush of adrenaline blocks out the pain. I tear up the porch steps as the paramedics emerge from the ambulance behind me, and I burst through the front door of the house as they’re still gathering their equipment.
Everything is happening at a million miles an hour, my senses in overdrive as my mind processes my surroundings. Dragging my foot, I force myself further into the house, toward the heart-wrenching sound of yelling and sobbing that awaits in the living room, and as I run into the room, the world suddenly stands still.
Popeye is on the floor, Dad on top of him. Dad’s sleeves are rolled up to his elbows and he presses down hard on Popeye’s chest over and over again, sweat pouring from him as tears stream down his checks. He shakes them away, teeth gritted with determination. “C’mon, c’mon, c’mon,” he hisses, his voice cracking, his pleas going unanswered. “Please.”
Popeye isn’t moving. He’s splayed on the rug, his body lurching every time Dad performs another chest compression, his ribs cracking from the pressure. Sheri cries helplessly by his side, squeezing Popeye’s hand hard like she’s never going to let go, her lips moving in silent prayer.
I don’t realize I’m screaming until suddenly the sound is piercing me, my voice splitting as my lungs run out of air. I scream and scream and scream. Dad glances back at me through heartbroken eyes.
“Get out of here, Mila!” he yells, his throat raspy. He continues administering CPR, begging for Popeye’s heart to offer him something,anything,even if it is only one single flutter.
Blake rushes into the room behind me and stops in his tracks, sucking in a gasp of air. He grabs hold of me as the paramedics barge past us and file into the living room, throw down their equipment and drop to the floor next to Popeye. One of the paramedics asks Dad to stop, but he won’t, he can’t. He keeps on going, hands over the center of Popeye’s chest, breathless and exhausted. The paramedic grabs his hands and pushes him away. “Let us handle this, Mr. Harding,” she says.
Dad collapses backward, panting and trembling from the shock. Sheri reaches for his hand as the paramedics circle around Popeye, tearing open his shirt and hooking him up to a portable defibrillator.
“Blake, get her out of here!” Dad yells.
Blake tightens his hold on me as I fight to stay in the room, to be here with Popeye, to wait for his heart to kick back into action, because it will. I know it will.
