Emily’s leg was partially quivering and shaking when her first hand had loosened its grip and departed from it. The shaking caused Jim’s body to move around a little. His leg twitched again and it put a lot of pressure on his other leg, which was the only thing keeping his bottom half in the air. As the moving continued, his foot began to slip and slide. Pushing as hard as he could with his palms, he was trying to keep the blood in as long as possible. At this point, he was just waiting until Emily could produce something to wrap around the wound.
Emily’s right hand was shaking as it slowly lifted into the air and came up, towards her face. The pain she was experiencing had risen in strength when she removed her hand and it was hard to keep still. She could feel her leg shaking and was intently watching Jim, making sure he didn’t get thrown off from her movements. She then slowly reached her hand up to her face.
Wiping some of the tears from her cheek with it, she slid her hand up her face and began to comb her fingers into her hair. Traveling up the side and towards the back, she felt around while trying to keep the rest of her still. Eventually, she finally made it to the back and felt a soft material in her hair, the cheering squad’s required hair ribbon. She slowly found the bottom end of the ribbon and began to tug.
Her head began to tilt and fidget to the side as she tugged on it. The ribbon was moving, but very slowly, pulling her head to a cramped position more than it becoming untied. She tried to readjust her hand and tug from another end, but it produced the same results. As she tried more and more while dealing with the pain in her leg, she soon began to realize that she wouldn’t be able to do this with one hand. She’d have to remove her other hand from her leg and use both hands to undo the ribbon.
She looked down at Jim, who was twitching as he struggled to keep the blood in her wound. Her leg was shaking a little and she could see him shaking and moving along with it. She was starting to get nervous about what she’d soon have to do. Her ribbon was the only thing she had on her that would be long enough to wrap around her wound and, hopefully, hold all of that blood in.
Her eyes were beginning to shake again, knowing that Jim would probably get thrown off from the pain and shaking that would happen when the second hand would leave her leg. She looked at him for a second, and then tried to call down to him, with as clear a voice as she could, to let him know what was about to happen. “J..Jim. I’m going to have to...take my other hand off my leg to get the bandage we need. My…my leg will probably shake, a lot. So…just be careful down there…I don’t want to knock you off…”
Jim had known his struggle was starting to come to a close just before Emily called down to him. He was sweating further from the heat the blood was producing on his palms and his palms were slowly being pushed upward, the pressure countering the strength he was throwing into his attempt of keeping the blood at bay. After she’d called down to him and told him what was about to happen, he immediately looked up and nodded.
“Yes…Emily…that will be…fine.”
Jim knew that more shaking would likely result in him losing his grip on holding the blood back and throw him down or to the side, but he also realized that it was something that had to be done to reach their goal of patching her up. They would not get out of this mess without doing this, and he wanted it to happen and get over with as soon as possible. He was going through a lot of pain and fatigue, and wasn’t sure how long he’d be able to stay conscious.
Emily, upon hearing Jim’s statement, lowered her free hand for a moment and set it on her leg. She applied a little pressure, aiming to keep some support on it while she removed the other one. Although it was trembling, it created a firm grip, a little above the ankle and her other hand began to retract its fingers and move away. As it moved, her leg began to shake from that side. With her other hand as support, the amount of shaking hadn’t change very much, as Jim was able to stay in the position he’d been in before.
After reaching her newly freed hand back to one side of her ribbon, he looked down at Jim, and glanced at her other hand. Jim leaned down a little and nodded to her, notifying that he was ready to endure the shaking her leg would enact as soon as her support hand was gone. Nodding back to him, she slowly removed it and quickly pulled it back to the other side of the ribbon. As it left, her leg began to shake much more violently and she felt a surge of pain in her ankle. She grunted and closed her eyes, trying to ignore the pain and get the ribbon untied as quickly as she could.
Jim had begun to lean forward when Emily’s second hand had let go of her leg. As he imagined, her ankle immediately started to shake much more violently than it was doing before. Her entire leg began to shake and move back and forth. As this happened, Jim’s legs slid down either side of her ankle and the wind that blew against him hit his hands and forced them out of the position they were in.
As they got sent out, there was nothing to hold the blood in. It started pumping out as it had done before. Knowing that Emily would be going through much more pain without something holding the blood back, he did the only thing he thought he could do to hold it in while also not getting thrown off the girl’s ankle. He slid himself forward and forced his chest down onto the wound. Wrapping his arms down the sides of her ankle, he gripped onto her flesh and pulled his body against the wound, trying to keep it in that way.
As he held himself against the blood, he could feel the pressure rising and pushing against his chest. Unlike the last time, the pressure built up much quicker and pushing straight into the middle of his chest, causing a lot of stinging pain. The sensation made him close his eyes and let out a small, hissing sound. The pain, along with the area it was being inflicted upon, gave him a strong sense of heartburn, but from the opposite side of his skin. It almost felt like the blood was being pushed out at a much faster and stronger rate than before.
The pain in his chest was making his entire body twitch. As his arms and legs twitched, the pain in his broken leg added to the pain he was already experiencing in his chest, making everything in between feel strange. His nerves were tingling and stinging all over, but he kept himself in the position he was in. He wouldn’t let his hands lose their grip. He knew he had to get through this; If not for his own good, but to keep Emily as painless as possible while she was getting ready to get this leg patched up.
As he was enduring his pain, he felt something pushing up on him. Unlike the blood pushing on his chest, however, it felt like the leg below him was moving. Soon after, he felt pressure against his hands from some sort of hard material. He opened his eyes as he heard Emily’s voice, speaking down to him. “Jim, it’s okay. You can stop now.”
Jim had looked up to see Emily’s face above, looking down to him, along with her arms on either side of the ankle. He blinked and looked around while enduring the pain the blood was throwing on him when he realized that her leg wasn’t shaking anymore. To the sides were two huge pieces of what looked like a felt ribbon material. Attached to the material on either side were her hands, holding the material up tight, no doubt the reason her leg wasn’t shaking anymore. To his right, she began to lower the material down over her ankle, until it was hovering over his body. He looked at it, and then to her, not saying a word.
“Jim, could you…get up from the wound, please?”
Shaking his head and realizing that he was in her way of patching up the wound, he began to lean backwards. As he did so, a rush of blood came through and shoved him backwards. He fell back on her sneaker, drenched in warm, sticky blood from head to stomach and began to cough from the relief of pain in his chest. Wiping the blood from his face, he looked forward, towards the wound and towards Emily’s face.
She’d brought the ribbon down on top of the wound, but her hands were shaking again. The sudden rush of blood that had left her wound when Jim got up had sent a cold chill throughout her entire body. She held the ribbon on the wound, but her hands were almost frozen in place. The rush of pain had killed her concentration and sent her into a trembling state. Her head shook and she let out quick, hard breaths, as if she was in the middle of a cold chill.
Jim, realization that she’d stalled, pushed himself up and tried to get back over to her ankle. Upon getting up, however, he fell forward, feeling a piercing pain coming from his injury. As he landed, he let out a soft scream into the material of the sneaker, as if he’d been screaming into a pillow. Pushing his face up with his hands, he saw Emily’s standstill again, and knew he had to get up to her and help her again. Reaching out with his hands, he grabbed onto the top of a sock that was just above the top of the sneaker and dragged his body forward.
Ending the sock and starting with flesh, he dragged his body off the sneaker and onto her skin, just below her ankle. Once he reached the ribbon material, he pushed himself up and forced himself on top of the ribbon, forcing his hands down on the area where the wound was at. His muscles screamed and burned from the force he was putting them through, but he stuck with where he was. Looking up to Emily, he watched for her to come back into reality.
As Emily was in shock, the pain soon began to die down again. Looking down, she saw a small trail of blood from her sneaker up to her ankle, where Jim was, pushing down against her wound through the ribbon. The two of them traded gazes and Emily quickly came back into reality and knew what had to be done.
Quickly grabbing the two ends of the ribbon, which were now handing over one side of her ankle, Emily tried to throw them over one another and twist around. Her hands’ shaking didn’t help matters, but she eventually got them around each other into the first stage of tying and pulled the two ends as hard as she could, bringing the ribbon to having a tight grip around her ankle.
As the ribbon moved when she tightened it, Jim lost his grip and fell onto the wounded area. As he hit, he felt very little pressure pushing against it. Thinking it was a little odd, he tried to push himself up. As he did so, he looked down at the ribbon. Getting to a sitting position on the flesh between the ankle and the sock, he blinked as he saw the ribbon; tighter on her leg than he believed was possible. Looking to the side, he saw Emily finishing up her tie, making a nice bow on the side of her leg.
As he looked up at her, they both shook as they realized the job was now over. Jim smiled up to her as his body began to relieve itself of all the stress and pain that had been put on it. ‘It worked’ he thought to himself. Emily softly nodded to his smile as her head began to go back down to the ground. She laid it down and felt most of the pain leaving her. The pressure of the ribbon was keeping the pain down, just as it had been when Jim was pushing down on it earlier. She closed her eyes as she rested there, and whispered down to Jim. “T-thank you…Jim…”
Jim looked up towards her to respond to her kind statement of appreciation, but before he could, he could hear slight snoring coming from above. Emily had quickly worn herself out and fallen asleep. The idea of it made him yawn as well. Not thinking about anything else, he lowered his head down, resting it on the ribbon that had been tied around Emily’s ankle and dozed off.
The two of them napped together, Emily on the ground and Jim curled up on her ankle for the rest of the day…