Tattered Love (Needle's Kiss)

around the yard, everywhere. When my eyes skimmed past the swimming pool, I spotted her. She was floating in the pool, face down, her hair spread out all around her. She wasn’t moving. I rushed over to the pool and dragged her out, laying her down on the grass. She wasn’t breathing. I needed to make her breathe.
    My hands were pressing down over and over again on her tiny chest, trying so hard to make her take a breath. The feeling of her limp lifeless body under my hands, I kept going and going.
    The fear of her not moving, not responding, it was tearing my heart apart.
    The sounds she made every time I blew air into her mouth, it's a sound you'll never forget—it haunts you. Even as I willed her to take a breath, I knew...somewhere in my head I knew she was gone.
    The ambulance arrived and took over for me... all I could do was stand there and watch as they tried to bring my little girl back
    I was useless; there was nothing I could do to make her wake up.
    The paramedics were everywhere. They injected her with God only knows what, shocked her. They tried so damn hard to bring her back, and all I could do was watch as she slipped away.
    Her skin looked normal, her face like she was asleep
    I just wanted to shake her. I kept repeating, “Please, baby, just wake up...I'm here, Daddy's here, baby”.
    They picked her up and moved her to a gurney in the back of the ambulance while I followed behind.
    The entire ride to the hospital, I could see in the back window of the ambulance them trying—pushing on her chest, over and over.
    When we finally made it there, they took her to a room. I was held back by the police who escorted me into a room.
    I couldn't get to her.
    She was all alone with strangers. All I could think about was, what if she woke up and didn't know where she was?
    With nobody she knew.
    She’d be scared.
    Just as I jumped up to go to her, the door opened and the doctor came into the room.
    The moment he stepped in, I fell to my knees. His face told me everything I already knew.
    “I'm sorry. There was nothing more we could do,” the doctor said, shaking his head slowly. “It's been two hours now. We're still performing CPR; however, there is no chance…” He took a breath and asked me the worst question I’d heard in my life.
    “We—we need you to tell us if you'd like us to keep going?”
    Doubts rushed through my head, did I tell them to give up on her?
    Did I give up on her, or did I let them keep hurting her tiny body and let her go?
    I took a deep breath looking the doctor in the eyes, pushing the final knife into my already destroyed chest. “Stop.” I said. “Let her go. Just—just let her go.”
    The moment the words left my mouth, my world came crashing down on top of me.
    I let my baby go.
    I was escorted into the room where they’d worked on Belle. My hands shaking, feeling like I might vomit, there she was.
    I looked across the room. She lay on a sheeted bed, her tiny face the only thing visible under the stark white sheet. Her pretty blond hair, now dry, fanned out around her angelic face. She looked like she was sleeping.
    This had to be a bad dream; there she was...just sleeping. Even as I thought this, my feet refused to move. Ten long minutes of standing across the room, I managed to go to her.
    I picked up her tiny little hand. The moment I made contact with her skin, the tears I'd been holding at bay fell down my face. She was cold. She needed another blanket. I looked around the room and spotted a thick blanket folded neatly in the corner and pulled it up over her body. I leaned down and kissed her forehead.
    “I'm so sorry, baby. I'm so sorry. I wasn't there. I-I…oh, Belle baby, Daddy’s so sorry.”
    I crawled up on the bed beside her, pulling her limp body into my arms, rocking her one last time. Singing her our lullaby, I kissed her tiny face and broke down.”
    He cleared his throat and squeezed my hand. Coming back to the present, he continued telling me about what had happened.
    “I later found out Janelle wasn’t just drunk, she was also high. Nobody was watching Belle. While my baby drowned, I was nowhere to be found and her mother was messed up.”
    I looked up at Mace’s face, tears streaming down mine and his. The anger I felt toward Belle’s mother didn’t just move up a notch, it skyrocketed. If I ever laid eyes on the woman, I was liable to harm her, beat the living crap out of her. She didn’t deserve the breath in her lungs.
    Mace took