At Least I Had Her

We’ve finally made it. I see the arch of the bridge, half with faded paint and half completely white like normal, marking the line between where the bubbles meet. There is a hoard of people trying to get through. I can hear them all the way from the car, and we’re still about a mile away. We stop behind a bunch of empty cars that are probably owned by all of those people on the bridge. I look over to Lexi and she looks flabbergasted, mouth wide open. She turns to me.

“How are we gonna get through that? It looks like it’ll take us as long as it did to get here to get through the border,” she says with sad eyes.

Maybe she’s right but, “We have to try. We have to get over there. We’ve traveled too far to turn back now.” I turn to her and put my fist out. “We got this.”

She bumps her fist to mine and smiles. “We got this.”

We get all of our gear together, secure our masks and gloves, and turn the air filter off. I can see the smoke creep through the small cracks of the car and through the air vents. I open the door, letting more smoke in and go to Lexi’s side of the car to help her out and hold her hand. I look up at the crowd that’s a mile away and then look down at her.

“Let’s get moving,” I say down to her and she salutes back up to me.

We walk, what feels like forever which is definitely an overstatement because we know forever and this is really nothing. We’re just so close to our destination that it feels like it’s so far away.

“Get close to me. Get your taser out. It’s probably going to get crazy,” I say urgently to her.

It was crazier than it sounded from the car. There was a brownish haze due to the smoke mixing with purple smoke grenades created by some soldiers. Military holding people back. A site from Battleship Potemkin.

“We have to find some way to go around,” I say, almost bursting my own ear drums.

“How? There’s too many people!” She grunts because someone accidentally pushes her into me.

“Hey watch it!” she yells up at the man who pushed her and she tases him, making the man fall to the ground. Damn, I taught her that.

“We have to find our way through.” I hold her small hand as tight as I can because I am not losing her in this crowd. Everyone is pushing everyone and with the smoke, I can’t see anything. But it just dawns on me that this shit is getting violent. The military is knocking people over, tasing people. Everyone is towering over us. Some people are on people’s shoulders trying to scope out what’s going on up there. People are trying to run head first to the border with guns, clubs, and knives like barbarians.

“Just open up the damn border! People are dying over here,” I hear one man say a few feet in front us. I feel like I’m in a mosh pit at a concert or something.

I feel my arm be jerked as Lexi falls to the ground, cracking her mask on the ground.

“Ty!” she yells, starting to cough.

“Lexi hold your breath. I’ll get the air filter!” I dig through my bag to find the air filter, but I can’t find it. Someone kicks Lexi accidentally in her ribs and she lets out a horse scream. “Watch it!”

The woman just looks down at us as if we don’t exist in her demented world.

“Hold your breath, Lex. I’m getting it.” Where is the air filter? It should be in here. I’m pretty sure I put it...Fuck. I close my eyes and tilt my head up in frustration, realizing I forgot it in the car. “Fuck! Somebody help! My sister’s gas mask is cracked!”

People just act like they can’t hear or see me. They don’t give two shits that there is a little girl, dying on the ground right now. I can see Lexi’s face start to blister. No, no, no. Shit. She’s coughing and breathing heavy.

“Help!” I scream. “Someone stop your fucking screaming and help my sister!”

Everything stopped for me. The air feels thinner in my mask than usual. I must be hyperventilating, taking up too much clean air. Everything is purplish-brown, wet, and blurry as my head gets fuzzy. She’s laying there, oddly calm and I am a fucking wreck.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I say, rocking her like I did when she was a baby, like she’ll break any minute. I can feel her breath staggering as tears roll down her eyes and down mine. The mask starts cracking even more and she starts coughing even harder and finally coughs up blood. No. It’s too late.

“You’re gonna be okay,” I say again and again, wanting to wish it true. She knew everything wasn’t going to be okay because she’s smart and knows that everything will soon become blurry, and time will slow down, and her last breath will leave her tiny lungs, and she will finally see the light and join our parents in the great beyond. She knew that everything would be okay for her, but what about me? Where will I be? Why am I being selfish at this moment? Will I go on without her? We made this journey together and I don’t think I could finish without her. Why her? Why not me? I should’ve been paying attention to her every second in this violent crowd because I promised her! I promised I was going to keep her safe. I promised my dad and I failed because I did not do my job as the big brother. She is literally lying here, in my arms, with a blistered face and blood running out of her mouth.

“I love you, you know that right? Just stay with me. Please! Stay with me, Lexi!” I pleaded.

“You finally said it.” Her voice was tired and hushed and screechy. “You finally said you love me.”

And I do and will never stop loving her, not even when I join her and my parents for the last time. She coughs for the last time before I hear her take her last breath. I start sobbing. My body feels cold, not just because it is cold and wet outside but because my very alive body just feels as dead as hers. I just take her mask off now because, what’s the point? She has breathed her last breath and it wasn’t clean. It was poisonous and foreign and deadly. Because here she is, dead, because people are crazy and don’t care about anyone around them.