"People fear death even more than pain. It's strange that they fear death. Life hurts a lot more than death. At the point of death, the pain is over. Yeah, I guess it is a friend."
– Jim Morrison

Nora felt weird asking random strangers about buying dope. Once or twice she tried to muster up the courage but chickened out at the last second. This was definitely a job for Lucas. She glanced around the crowded, smoky room for him, but all of the sudden he wasn't there.

At first she wasn't worried. The thing with the guitar was obviously bothering him, and he tended to withdraw from her when things were bad inside his head. But her feelings of unease grew worse the longer she waited, until she started to panic. Something was wrong. He would have at least checked in with her by now.

Nora abandoned her dope search and raced through every chaotic room downstairs, asking everyone who would listen if they'd seen Lucas. Her voice was mostly drowned out by the music and sounds of the party. Lucas obviously wanted to be alone, and he was most likely shooting up without her, and there was only one place at a party where you could get some privacy.

The downstairs bathroom was occupied by a half dressed couple who cussed at Nora when she barged in. That left the upstairs. She took off and found the line for the upstairs bathroom snaking down the staircase. Indignant scoffs, drunken curses and a couple elbows in the spine followed her as she shoved her way up through the crowd, following the line of partiers to a closed door. Some girl in a vampire costume was pounding on it, cursing drunkenly.

"Come on! Get the fuck out! I gotta pee!" she shouted.

Nora pushed her out of the way and slammed her body against the door. Lucas was in there. She just knew it.

The drunk girl grabbed her arm. "Look, bitch-"

"Shut up!" Nora shouted. "My boyfriend's in there!"

"Do I look like I give a fuck?" The girl slurred, but Nora barely heard her.

"Lucas! Lucas, can you hear me?"

Somehow, she knew the worst had happened.

"Someone help me bust this door!" she shouted desperately.

Every pair of eyes in the line stared blankly back at her, as if she'd been speaking another language.

"HELP ME YOU ASSHOLES!" Nora screamed, rushing at them, and she must have looked crazy enough to be taken seriously.

Two college guys joined her in shoving their weight against the door. The lock popped immediately, but there was a new problem. Something was stuck behind the door, holding it in place. No, not something. Someone.

"LUCAS!"

Nora threw herself against the door again with all her strength, but it didn't budge.

"Push him out of the way!" she cried hysterically.

It took a few tries, but soon the force of their combined weight against the door pushed the lifeless body forward enough so that Nora was able to slip through.

Sure enough, it was Lucas. He was laying there pale and lifeless, the band still tied around his skinny arm and a used syringe next to his open hand.

"Lucas? Can you hear me?" Nora asked, sinking to her knees beside him. "Come on, wake up. It's time to go."

The rising and falling of his chest assured her he wasn't dead yet, but he showed no other signs of life. Nora patted his face, increasing the intensity until she was slapping him.

"LUCAS! Wake up!"

Gasping through sobs, Nora took him by the shoulders and shook him violently, but his head just rolled lifelessly to the side. On TV somewhere she had seen someone throwing water on an overdose victim, and she turned on the faucet and filled her cupped hands, opening them over Lucas's face. Nothing. And that was when she noticed that his breathing sounded weird, like something was stuck in his throat.

Nora grabbed her phone from her pocket, cursing herself for not thinking of it immediately, and it took two tries for her shaking fingers to dial 911.

"My boyfriend shot heroin and I can't wake him up!" she cried to the dispatcher who answered.

"Is he breathing?" the woman asked.

"Kind of, but it sounds weird. Like almost choking."

"Are his lips and fingertips blue?"

Nora looked. "No, but he's really pale."

"Roll him onto his side. Help is on the way."

Nora pushed Lucas over so he was facing the toilet.

"Now what?" she asked.

She could feel a panic attack coming. She was breathing hard, her heart pounding, vision tunneling. She couldn't afford to lose it now.

"Try to stay calm. Is he still breathing?"

Nora put her ear close to Lucas's face. To her horror, she heard nothing.

"No! He's not breathing! He stopped breathing!"

The dispatcher said something else that Nora didn't hear. She was hyperventilating now, clinging to Lucas's hoodie.

"Don't die!" she sobbed. "Hold on, they're coming. Don't leave me! Please don't die!"

The dispatcher's shouting voice broke through the fog in her head, and Nora came to her senses. If she didn't listen, Lucas was dead. There was no time to fall apart.

The woman on the phone walked Nora through CPR and mouth to mouth as the sound of the sirens grew closer to the house. Nora was fighting hard to keep it together before her anxiety sent her into a dark hell of panic, hyperventilation and uncontrollable shaking. Her panic attacks could completely remove her from reality at times, and she couldn't afford to disappear now.

"Come on, baby," she whispered as she did chest compressions, then used her fist to rub Lucas's sternum several times before giving mouth to mouth yet again.

"I won't let you," she said breathlessly. "I will not let you die. So you'd better come back from that place you're in and WAKE THE FUCK UP! NOW!"

Nothing. No response. His pulse was so faint now, lips and fingers blue, skin pale as the half moon outside.

"Don't you dare fucking die on me! DON'T YOU DARE!"

Her arms went and went and went until her muscles finally gave out. Nora fell in exhaustion over Lucas's lifeless body and sobbed.

That was when the paramedics came in. Nora looked up when they crashed through the door, relieved.

"Help," she said weakly.

The first thing they did was drag Lucas's limp body out of the bathroom. During the time that Nora had been keeping him alive, most of the party had broken up, only a few passed out stragglers sprawled on couches, chairs and the floor. The sound of sirens had no doubt scared the rest off.

"Tell me he'll be okay," Nora said, unable to stand up herself.

One of the paramedics, a heavyset woman in her forties with a blond ponytail, was especially kind and took Nora by the shoulders and helped her to her feet.

"Just breathe. Slow and deep. Good. Just like that. Now calm down and tell me his name."

"Lucas," Nora whispered as fresh tears ran down her hot cheeks.

"And yours?"

"Nora."

"I'm Becky. We're gonna help him, Nora. You did a good job keeping him alive."

Nora watched as Becky knelt down next to Lucas and peeled open his eyelids while another EMT shined a light on them. Next, she checked the pulse on Lucas's pale wrist and neck.

"Eyes pinpoint. Faint pulse. Give me the Naloxone," Becky said.

She grabbed what looked like a long, fat, needle-less syringe from one of the paramedics and put it up Lucas's nose.

"Narcan administered in the right nostril," she said to the other EMT's. Then to Lucas she said, "Come on, honey. Wake up. Come on now, Lucas. Breathe for me."

Nora's heart raced as she waited for any sign of life from him. Minutes passed. What if it was too late? One of the paramedics held a mask attached to a balloon-like object over Lucas's mouth and nose and squeezed it every few seconds.

"He's not responding. No pulse," Becky said, immediately beginning CPR. It was a tense few seconds before she revived him again.

"Got a pulse back. Give me another dose," she said, reaching for the Narcan with one hand while tapping and rubbing Lucas's sternum.

It took four shots of Narcan before Lucas could breathe on his own and finally blinked open his eyes.

"He's coming back. Lucas, can you hear me?" Becky asked.

Lucas looked completely confused, but he was breathing and awake.

"Welcome back," Becky said with a smile. "Can you sit up for me?"

He didn't seem to hear her. His dark eyes were lost.

"Come on, let's sit up. I'll help you," she said, pulling him up by his limp arms.

"Who're you?" Lucas asked.

"I'm Becky. I'm an EMT. Your girlfriend called us because you overdosed and weren't breathing. We gave you some Narcan just now. You remember what you took?"

"Um... heroin," he mumbled after awhile, his head drooping forward. "No. He said it was China White."

Becky nodded. "That explains why it took four shots of Narcan to bring you back. It usually takes one."

"Where's Nora?" Lucas asked.

"I'm right here, baby," Nora said, sitting down beside him and taking his cold hand in hers. She was weak with relief. "Everything's okay."

"Nora..." Lucas whispered as his eyes filled with tears. "I'm really sorry."

"It doesn't matter. I almost lost you, Lucas! I was so scared," she cried.

Lucas wrapped his arms around her as she sobbed. Nora kissed every part of his face over and over again and ran her shaking fingers through his hair, sure she would never let him go again.

"Everything's okay now," he whispered, his breath warm against her neck.

"Lucas, we need to take you to the hospital now," Becky said gently.

He didn't move, and Nora didn't let him go.

"No, I wanna go home," he said.

"It's not a choice, honey. I'm sorry."

"Please! He's fine now!" Nora cried.

All she wanted was Lucas home and safe in her bed where she could protect him from himself.

"China White is a mix of heroin and Fentanyl. Fentanyl is extremely potent. Narcan only lasts about forty-five minutes, if that. He will re-overdose after it wears off. He needs a Naloxone drip and a breathing tube that we can't administer here," Becky explained.

They had no choice but to let go of each other.

"Tell my mom," Lucas said, and Nora nodded as she followed the paramedics outside, keeping up next to Lucas's yellow stretcher.

"I will. I'll see you soon," she said.

The ambulance and fire truck left with their screaming sirens and flashing lights. Then the night was silent and dark around her. It felt eerie after the previous twenty minutes of chaos. Nora sunk down onto the cold concrete driveway and sobbed with her head in her hands.