Arranged by the Stars (11 page)

Latha ran to the truck
and brought him the bag. Each step he took towards Ash was a
reminder of the past. He couldn’t save Johnny. He could see the
blood seeping through Ash’s clothes. Bullet wound through the
abdomen. He tasted bile.

As he kneeled beside her,
he knew this setback could cost him a lot more than he was willing
to give. He couldn’t do this. This was Ash, beautiful and
intelligent Ash. He wouldn’t know how to treat a bullet wound. If
the bullet was still in there, he didn’t have the tools to extract
it.

He swept her hair aside
and pulled his fingers away when she groaned in pain. “Ash, I’m
sorry.”

Her eyes fluttered open.
Her pupils were dark but that green was so stark and real. “I hope
you’re not going to tell me that you shot me. That’s no way to
treat your future wife.” Her smile was weak and suffused with
pain.

Rohan tore part of his
t-shirt and placed it under her. “Entry and exit wound.”

Kieran nodded. So the
bullet wasn’t in there. As his hand went out to apply pressure on
the abdominal wound, he realised how much he was
shaking.

“
You okay?”
Rohan asked.

Latha handed over the
medical kit. “Ash, you’re going to be fine. Kieran was the top
surgical intern.”

Kieran wished she’d stop
talking but she must have formed a bond with Ash while they were
trapped together. Guilt kicked him in the gut. Neither of them
would be in this situation if it weren’t for him.

The bleeding wouldn’t
stop. Ash’s breathing was getting shallow and her lips were turning
blue. The blood was streaming out of the small hole on the left
side of her body. She could have ruptured something. Later they had
found out Johnny had internal bleeding and nothing he could have
done would have made a difference.

“
Is the
ambulance on the way?” What if he couldn’t save her? All these
promises he couldn’t keep.

He felt tugging on his
sleeve and he looked down. Ash’s perfectly manicured nails were
broken and dirty. She would have tried to scratch and fight her way
out. Her hand felt cold and small in his. He placed the palm of his
hand against her neck. “Ash?”

“
You fix
things. Whether it’s software or hardware, same thing. Fix me.” Her
eyes closed. The pulse against his palm fluttered and was
lost.

“
Kieran,
she’s not breathing.” Latha rolled her onto her side and started
assessing her airway. “We need to resuscitate her.”

He sat on his haunches.
He had no place here. He was useless. The air refused to move past
his throat. He couldn’t move a muscle. He was failing Ash. If he
failed her, she would die. Yet he still couldn’t move.

Rohan shoved him and he
fell back. “What is wrong with you? She is a general doctor and I
am a military man. Two hours ago she was all you could think of. No
one dies on my watch. Not again. You promised you could handle
this.”

If he picked himself up,
he’d have to help. The very thing that stopped him from taking his
next breath or swallowing was the thought of a life without the
woman before him. His throat was filled with the mud that
surrounded them. He heard Latha count out the chest compressions to
thirty. Each time Latha pushed on her chest, more blood
oozed.

He did the only thing he
could think of. He stuck his finger into the small hole on her
abdomen. He usually had gloves on and he would treat her with
antibiotics, but this was life and death. His focus was on the now
and the fact that the ambulance had to be close.

Ash’s insides felt
different. He searched his memory banks for the different layers he
was feeling. For the fault he was looking for. He was a fixer. He
was here to fix. Latha was controlling the outside, the airway and
breathing and he was here to fix the bleeding. The
circulation.

Flashes of trying to fix
Johnny kept invading his thoughts. The more he looked for answers,
the brighter the images became. His breathing slowed and he focused
on the figure on the beach. He could see that yoga pose and those
loose-fit pants.

Inside his finger tracked
the hole and he could feel the layers of the skin. He felt the vein
and just when he thought he would lose hope, he felt a little
rivulet of blood from a torn vessel. This had to be the cause of
her bleeding, which meant she was losing blood and her blood
pressure was dropping. Nothing they did would help, if they didn’t
fix it.

“
Well?”
Rohan’s ice-like gaze found his.

“
Ruptured
vessel. She needs surgery. Now.” He watched as Rohan and Latha
swapped places and continued CPR.

Latha looked in the
medical kit and threw him a suture kit and gloves. “That might have
to do.”

She also handed him hand
gel. “I―” If he said—I’m not sure I can do this—then he was
admitting defeat before he started and that was not something Ash
would have done.

Her skin was now grey and
her lips were a lighter shade of blue. The CPR was working. He
could list ten things wrong with doing bush surgery. He could list
a hundred things that could go wrong and as for post-operative
complications, that list could be endless.

“
Are you
ready?” Latha cleared an area next to Ash and laid out the suture
pack. She pulled a flashlight from Rohan’s belt and held it so that
Kieran would be able to see.

Every reason he couldn’t
do this was dissipating. He squeezed Ash’s hand lightly and then
flipped open the cap of the gel bottle. As the antimicrobial liquid
fell into the palm of his hand the scent of antiseptic and clean
grounded his thoughts. Transported him to a place where he was able
to visualise an outcome he could wake up in the morning
with.

*****

The first time Ash had a
panic attack was when she was ten years old. She hadn’t even known
what a panic attack was. The doctor had told her aunt it had to do
with the death of her parents. Those nightmares faded in time, but
sometimes she still woke up in a sweat, screaming in the
dark.

Someone was shaking her.
She could feel hands clutching her shoulders, so tight, it hurt. A
voice sounded far away. He said her name over and over. The more he
said it, the softer the sound became. She sighed and drifted off.
This couldn’t be the car or the hole. It couldn’t be anything,
because the smell was different. Pine needles and Kieran. She knew
she was smiling.

It was peaceful. Ash was
on the beach in Goa. She was lying on the sand with her arms
splayed out, relaxing like she often did. The sand was grainy and
warm. The scent of pine needles and sea salt made her feel safe and
free. Free like a bird to soar high in the sky. It was weird
because there usually weren’t pine needles on the beach.

“
Ash, are you
awake?” she knew that voice. That voice was a nice voice. A safe
voice.

Her eyelids felt weighed
by something heavy but she tried to pry them open anyway. She
wanted to see that face again. She had to see that face. Did that
face come with a tie? Laughter bubbled inside her but it hurt.
Everywhere. Her chest and her throat, her sides most of all.
Tiredness oozed from her pores. “Kieran, what are you doing on my
beach?” When did she turn into a frog?

She saw relief in his
eyes. “You’re awake. I was so scared I was never going to see those
eyes again. Don’t you ever do that to me again.”

Why did it hurt so much?
Everywhere. The shot, she remembered that, but it hit her in the
stomach. Her hand moved and instant pain. “Why am I in so much
pain?”

He turned away and she
saw his shoulders hunch forward. What did he feel guilty about this
time? “You were shot and lost consciousness. We had to do some
surgery.”

Everything was a blur.
The stark white walls made the flash of pain behind her eyes worse.
It still didn’t explain the raw feeling in her throat or the
feeling of having been run over by a bus. The small task of lifting
her head off the pillow was a failure.

“
Don’t try
and move.” Kieran helped straighten her pillows. “You are on some
strong drugs and you lost a lot of blood.”

When her eyes closed she
remembered nothing of the incident that brought her here except the
loud sound and screaming. Fear, she remembered that. Lots of fear
and pain. Then darkness. She also remembered her mother. Her cheeks
felt hot and wet.

“
Do you need
more morphine?” Kieran’s fingers were stroking her
cheek.

Did it have to hurt so
much to swallow? Her eyes slowly opened and she gazed up at him. He
looked nothing like the businessman she was used to. He was still
dressed in the khaki coloured camouflage outfit she had seen him in
when that tarpaulin had come off at the gravesite. She shook her
head and then realised how much that hurt.

He took ice from the cup
next to her bed and slid it over her lips. The entire time his
fingers touched the outline of her lips, he focused on his task and
not once did he meet her gaze. She opened her mouth and sucked the
droplets of water that fell onto her lips and once or twice his
fingers touched her tongue. She watched him swallow, saw him pause
and take a breath. Those were the only signs he showed that she
affected him on a physical level.

As much as it gave her
hope, it also made her realise that with Kieran, he was always
going to put up these walls that would keep her away. She could
tell by his unshaven face that he hadn’t left her side. Was it
because he was playing the dutiful husband-to-be or was it because
he cared for her? Her head hurt from thinking too much about the
possibilities or the lack of it.

Her gaze went to the
window behind him and saw darkness descent.

“
You called
my aunt?” Betrayal coated her voice as she gripped the sides of the
bed.

Kieran left the ice back
in the cup and leaned back. “I had to. I didn’t know if you were
going to live. She is your next of kin.”

Yes, that she was. The
only guardian she had known since a very young age but that didn’t
mean she wanted to be found. She watched as her aunt’s steps
quickened when she saw her through the glass. All those years
trying to find herself and still she was no closer to the truth
than before.

Kieran pushed his chair
back and leaned forward. “She was really worried about you. You
hadn’t spoken to her in a while.”

Even before he could say
the words she knew what he was thinking. The relationship with her
aunt was different from the one he had with his mother. He would
never understand the dynamics. She would never be able to explain
the relationship.

His hands rubbed at the
tired lines on his face. “You need to rest. You look like you
haven’t slept in a while.”

He smiled. “These chairs
are more comfortable than they look.”

There was a light knock
on the door before it opened. Sushi Dutt made an entrance into the
room befitting the queenly status she was used to. As an ex-beauty
queen herself, she was well known in many circles and treated like
royalty.

Kieran stood and not sure
whether it was the effects of the drugs or loss of blood, Ash was
sure he bowed. Her aunt swept past him and came to the bed to stand
next to her.

“
Ash, what
have you done now? You were shot by drug dealers and almost killed.
Are you a drug dealer or drug user? Whatever it is, we can fix it.
It is time to come home and take your rightful place.”

Ash took a deep breath.
There was no stopping her aunt when she was this worked up. “Didi,
this is not what you think.”

Kieran’s gaze
went from one to the other. “Didi?”
Sister?

There had to be someone
standing behind her twisting a knife into her skull because the
pain refused to settle. “I’ve always called her elder sister
because she was never old enough to be my mother.” Or my aunt. Ash
tried to lift herself up, but again each move she made hurt every
part of her body. Maybe there was a bus that ran over her and she
was not told.

Sushi’s gaze went from
Kieran to Ash before she looked around the room.

She wasn’t sure when
Kieran came to stand next to her, or when his arm wrapped around
her shoulder. All she heard was a gasp from her aunt.

“
Miss Dutt,
I’m Kieran Kanna. Pleased to meet you,” he said extending his hand
to her aunt.

It wasn’t often her aunt
was at a loss for words but after giving Kieran the once over she
cautiously shook his hand and angled her gaze on Ash.
“Hello.”

“
Didi, Kieran
saved my life.” Her hand found itself clutched in his and she
wasn’t sure she was ready to let go.

Sushi watched them both
before that brief nod Ash had come to know so well.

“
Well thank
you Mr Kanna for your efforts. You can leave now. We can take it
from here and make sure Ash is taken care of.” She turned to the
seat Kieran had vacated and pulled it forward. She took her time to
sit and then crossed her leg at the knee before casting her
narrowed gaze at the pair of them.

Kieran’s hold tightened.
“We?”