Here With You | ✔

CHAPTER ONE; part one

Calvin Sumner

     Dres is hovering ten feet away. Sulking, really.

     We haven't spoken since last night, when I came home from work and told him I was leaving. Now he's standing at the top of the stairs, watching me pack a duffle bag with that expression on his face that clearly says don't go. I don't want to go anymore than he wants me to leave, but it's the right thing to do. Which is different, I think, then his right thing. When he left, he was doing it because he thought it was what was best for me. And he hadn't even tried to talk to me about it. I was leaving because I knew it was what was best for him. And if it's best for him, then it's best for me by proxy. And anyway...

     "It's not permanent," I say as I count out underwear. I have to do my laundry every night when I get home, stripping in the little entryway off of the back door before I head immediately into the basement to decon. So I won't have to bring that many with me. The less I pack, the less permanent this feels. The less permanent this feels, the easier it is to move back into my mom's place.

     It's unfair, really, when I just moved in with Dres a little over two months ago. Feels like no matter how hard we try to move forward, we just simply can't catch a break. But no, that's not it. This isn't the universe trying to keep us apart. We're being smart, we're being compliant, we're heeding the warnings of this virus.

     "I don't like this," he says finally. That's the most I've gotten out of him in twelve hours. When I told him I was going to move out for the time being he looked like I'd punched him in the face.

     I had punched Dres in the face once and it was terrible. I didn't sleep for four nights, wrought with so much guilt about it. I don't want to hurt him. But I also will not be the reason he gets sick and dies. He's not dying. I decided that years ago. He outlives me in this life. Those are the terms and conditions of this relationship.

     I stop packing, looking up and over at him. His face is all squished like he's fighting back an expression.

     "And do you think I do?" I ask, getting up off of the bed to walk over to him.

     He takes my hands, holding them between us. "Then don't go."

     "Dres," I whine stepping close enough to drop my forehead on his chest. He lets go of my hand, reaching up to cup the back of my head. "You don't understand."

     "I don't care about the risk," he says quickly.

     "But I care," I say lifting my head to meet his gaze so he'll know how seriously I mean it. "If I get you sick..."

     "I'll be fine."

     "You don't know that." I shake my head. "This is so much worse than the President is saying it is. I mean he's literally not saying anything. But I had six patients yesterday who came into the ER and ended up in the morgue. Dres, that's insane. That kind of mortality? I've never seen anything like it."

     My chest tightens just from thinking about yesterday's shift. The way we ran around trying to give everything to everyone and watching none of it work. All our treatments were for shit because the patients still died. I'm not disillusioned by medicine. I know the statistics for cardiac arrests, strokes, MIs — I know that in a lot of those instances we aren't going to be able to save them, despite all our best efforts. I know these things but it's different when an otherwise healthy, up until that moment, seemingly fine, person comes into the ER with O2 Sats in the gutter, doesn't respond to oxygen interventions, and then throws a clot from out of nowhere and dies.