This was really going to ruin my day.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Winter cried in my ear.
“It’s fine.” I relaxed into her, her arms still around me. “I could die happily right here.”
“You’re not dying,” Winter argued. “You haven’t even told me you love me yet.”
Oh, that.
“Someday,” I teased.
“Damon, wake up.” She jostled me. “Come on, we’re doing this, right? We’re in love. We’re doing this.”
Their voices trailed off as if I were listening and not really here, and for the first time in my life, my entire body was relaxed. So completely relaxed.
“Is he gonna be okay?” I heard Winter cry. “Please, Will, hurry! Please, just get there.”
“I’m calling the ER to let them know we’re almost there,” Rika said.
Winter’s body shook under me, but fuck if I didn’t ever want to move from this spot. I let my body give in—falling, falling, falling—and soaking it up as long as I could, because who knew how long it would last. If I didn’t die from Anderson’s embarrassing little finger knife wound, she was gonna run off on me again to get more space, no doubt.
I needed to think, she’d said.
My dick was inside you four times last night. Now you needed to think? Really?
Winter
Present
I stood there, the speakers at the nurses’ station going off with calls, shoes squeaking against the linoleum floors, and the T.V. broadcasting a news channel as I leaned into the wall, rubbing my hands together and feeling his dried blood now grainy on my skin.
There’s so much you’re forgetting.
What was I forgetting?
What did he want me to have?
He’d said it as if he were leaving me something. Like he wouldn’t be back for it.
Needles pricked my throat, but I swallowed them down.
He was just going to bleed out? Because he couldn’t choke down his pride and ask for help?
I couldn’t believe him. He was insane.
And—in the back of my mind where I would admit it to myself—he was going to leave me. He was just going to let go.
I steeled my jaw, refusing to cry another damn tear for him.
Banks and Rika wandered about, offering me coffee or to find some scrubs, so I could get out of my bloody clothes, but I was rooted to this spot, waiting for the doctor or a nurse to come and let us know what was going on with him.
Kai and Will had also shown up, and it occurred to me to call my sister to let her know he was in the ER, but that fleeting thought left as quickly as it came. He wouldn’t want her here, and all she’d be worried about was if she still got her settlement if he died.
I heard doors swing open and closed and felt people surround me suddenly.
“Well, he lost a lot of blood,” a woman told us. “Right now, the doctor is working to close the wound, but Mr. Torrance does need blood. We’ve gone through our supply of B-negative, but it’s one of the rarer blood types, and he can only have a transfusion from other B or O-negatives.”
I was O-positive, so I was out.