Page 28 of Love at a 7-Eleven

"I met a woman, and I like her a lot," he said, feeling like he had no other choice but to spit it out.

The words had only been out of his mouth for a few seconds when he noticed that the look on Bailey's face changed. She went to a blank expression and then an odd, silly grimace happened before she went limp and lifeless. Her eyes rolled back and her head tilted, and just like that, she was going down. She fainted so suddenly that Caleb was helpless to do anything but watch her fall. Bailey was instantly limp and lifeless, and she had no ability to stop herself from falling like a ton of bricks. Caleb could do nothing but watch in horror as she went down, hitting her head on the nearby dresser. Caleb yelled out in terror as he scrambled to the edge of the bed to help her, but there was no way he could get there in time to do anything but watch her fall the remaining way to the floor.

It was useless no matter how fast he moved.

It wasn't fast enough.

Caleb had been helpless to do anything but watch.

There she was.

Completely lifeless.

Definitely unconscious.

"Bailey! Bailey!"

Her body was in a lifeless heap on the floor.

"Bailey!"

Caleb forgot all about being sick or his own pounding head. He scrambled to the space next to his friend and turned her over, lying her carefully on her back.

"Baileyyy!" he whispered frantically, begging her to wake up.

She didn't wake up.

Caleb was too focused on the fact that she was unconscious to notice the blood at first. Her head was cut, and there was blood at her temple, near her hairline, dripping down the side of her head. Caleb felt sudden hot panic coursing through his veins. He instinctually reached and put his fingers below her jaw to check for a heartbeat.

It was no use. He didn't know what he was feeling for, and he gave that up without wasting any more time. He left her side and flew to the bedside table where he found his phone.

Adrenaline coursed through his body. He was trying to be calm and breathe as he called 9-1-1. He concentrated on the task at hand, telling himself to be methodical and focus on the details.

"Nine-one-one, what is your emergency?"

It was a man's voice on the other end.

"I-I have a friend at my house right now, and she just passed out and she's not waking up. She passed out from a standing position, and she hit her head on my dresser on the way down, and she's not waking up. There's also blood. She hit her head really hard. I saw it happen. There was nothing I could do to get to her."

"Okay, sir, are you in a safe location?"

"Yes."

Caleb took a deep breath.

He continued to answer the man's questions.

The next ten minutes passed in an absolute blur. Bailey was out for what must have been a full minute. It was fifty-one seconds from the time he placed the call with the operator. Caleb heard him make a note of that for the EMTs. Bailey had woken up before they got there, but she was out of it. Caleb followed the operator's instructions from over the phone, saying certain things to her until the paramedics arrived.

The medics tended to Bailey's head wound, and she left in the ambulance. Caleb promised that he would meet them at the hospital right away, and that was what he did. He got into his car and drove there.

Minutes turned into hours, and in what felt like the blink of an eye, it was afternoon and Caleb found himself sitting in a hospital room with Bailey, her parents, and her sister, Addy.

Bailey had been through two different scans. She had temporary amnesia, remembering nothing from the time right before the incident. The last thing she remembered was leaving her house to go to the grocery store. She didn't remember shopping, going to Caleb's, or talking to him. She asked Caleb if he was sick and said that he looked like he lost weight. She asked him what time had gotten back into Los Angeles, and was mixed up on a few other details from the previous evening.

The doctors had asked Caleb and her family a lot of questions. Twice, during the whole process, someone had asked what specifically happened right before she fainted. Both times, Caleb had answered with a half-truth. He had casually stated that he was talking to her about his trip to Chicago, which was the truth. It might've been a lie by omission, but he just couldn’t bring himself to say that the reason Bailey could have six stitches and a severe concussion was because he had just told her he loved someone else.

He would never forget the look on her face as she lost consciousness and went down. He cringed every time he imagined it.

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