Chapter 11June 27th
My fingers twisted in fabric, but it was thicker and coarser than Ricky’s grandmother’s towels. The blanket wrapped tightly around my shoulders was suddenly stifling. I was simultaneously too hot and too cold, my own breath hitting my face in warm gusts. The oxygen mask fogged and unfogged as I gasped, trying to twist out of the blanket, but I was tangled.
“Off, off,” I said, clawing at the blanket and trying to reach my face.
The male paramedic pulled the oxygen mask off easily, and the elastic snapped against my cheek. The sting of it helped to ground me, to calm my racing heart. The ambulance rocked again, a little more violently, and then the feel of it changed—almost as though we were slowly driving downhill into the depths of a cavernous maw. “We’re here. We’re
