I stop immediately, sitting up and pulling her to me to find out what is wrong. I see the blood and panic.
It’s a lot of blood. Too much blood oozing down her arm.
“What happened?” I ask, as I grab the nearest clean dish towel and grab her hand to apply pressure to her wound that is most definitely going to need stitches.
She winces when I wrap the towel around her hand.
“I was trying to grab onto something because what you were doing felt so good… I think I grabbed a knife.”
“I know we will laugh about this later but right now I need to get you to the emergency room. I think you need stitches.”
She nods and I help her get dressed and then into my car so that I can rush her to the emergency room. As soon as we are both in the car, I step on the gas to get her to the emergency room.
“Slow down Sean,” she says.
“No. I need to get you help,” I say speeding up instead of slowing down.
“Sean. Stop,” she says more firmly and I sigh but slow down a little.
I look at her to make sure that the bleeding hasn’t gotten worse. I know it’s only a cut on her hand but it’s deep and I don’t know what I would do without her. I don’t think I could survive without her.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asks.
I shake my head. “I’ll tell you after we are finished.”
We make it to the hospital and after waiting twenty minutes in the waiting room, far longer than I was happy with, Olive was finally brought back to a room where they stitched up her hand.
“So how did this happen?” the doctor asks Olive when he finishes stitching her up.
She looks at me and blushes but says, “Baking accident.”
He nods. “Well, you should be all better now. Hopefully we won’t see you back for any more baking accidents,” he says emphasizing the last words and looking at me like he knows what really happened even though he couldn’t know.
He finally leaves us alone in the room and I kiss Olive’s forehead. “I’m so glad you are okay. I was worried about you.”
She laughs. “You need to stop freaking out every time something like this happens. I’m a klutz. Stuff like this happens to me all the time. If you are going to be with me you need to be used to going to the emergency room.”
“I’ll never get used to you being in pain or almost dying.”
She shakes her head. “You’re over exaggerating. I didn’t almost die.”
“I know. It was still hard to watch you go through that much pain.”
“What did you want to tell me earlier in the car?” she asks.
I look at her in the eye and know that this is the wrong place and the wrong way to do this but I don’t have a choice. I have to tell her how I feel.
“That I want to marry you,” I say.
Her eyes widen a little but she doesn’t seem that shocked that I would ask. We’ve been dating for a year. We love each other. It’s the next natural step.
But she doesn’t say anything. She doesn’t show excitement or say that she wants to marry me too.
“What do you think? Will you marry me? Or do you want to wait to answer until I do it right? Get a ring and find some romantic place?”
“Why do you want to marry me?” she asks.
I frown. “Because I love you and I want to spend the rest of my life with you.”