I Regret Loving You for Five Years novel · Chapter 4 of 32

Chapter 4: Spare Parts

Boone turned the dead pads over in his big hands.

"Can I take it apart?"

"It's a medical device."

"It's a battery, a capacitor and some wire." He squinted at the plug. "Doesn't care what it's called."

I should have said no.

It was two in the morning and I had nothing else.

"Don't electrocute yourself," I said. "I'd have to use the pads on you."

"Those pads?" He held them up. "I'd be fine."

He went to the garage and came back with a tool roll and a headlamp.

He laid the AED open on my exam table.

I held the light.

He hummed while he worked, some old country song with no words.

"You do this a lot?" I asked.

"Fix things at two in the morning? Seven winters. You get used to it."

"Why seven?"

"Why not eight?" He didn't look up. "Hand me those tweezers. No, the little ones."

I handed him the little ones.

After twenty minutes he sat back.

"The machine's fine. The pads are junk. The wire inside the plug is green all the way through."

"Corroded."

"Somebody stored them wet. Or they're old as dirt." He turned the packet over. "There's a sticker on these too."

I peeled it.

The pads had expired three years ago.

Boone said a word I won't write down.

"The fire team has a kit," he said. "For drills. Real pads, not dummies. The summer crew used them for the training course."

"Are they in date?"

"Let's go find out."

***

The fire team's locker was in a hallway that smelled like rubber boots.

Boone knew the combination.

I didn't ask why.

The training kit had two sets of pads, sealed, with dates printed right on the foil and no stickers anywhere.

Good for another two years.

Boone cut the bad plug off, stripped the wire on the good pads and soldered them to the AED's connector at my exam table, with his tongue sticking out the corner of his mouth.

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