Page 50 of Rival Hearts

Riley jumped and gently squeezed Jett’s fingers.

“Jett?” she said. “Jett, are you awake?”

Riley saw Jett’s eyelids flutter before Jett let out a low groan. It sounded pained, and Riley pressed the red nurse button on the bedside remote.

“Hello?” an unfamiliar voice answered. “How may I help you?”

“Hey,” Riley said. “Jett is waking up and I think she’s in pain. Is there any way you can give her pain meds?”

“I’ll tell the nurse,” the voice said.

“Thank you,” Riley said before she heard the call cut.

Riley looked at Jett and smiled, the first real smile since Jett was brought into the emergency room. “Hey,” she said in a soft voice, “the nurse will be here with some pain meds soon.”

“Where am I? Jett croaked, looking around the hospital room. “What happened?”

“You’re at the hospital,” Riley said, “and I don’t know exactly what happened, just that you sustained a head injury and smoke inhalation in a fire. You’ve been in surgery, but they fixed you up.”

Jett nodded, clearly disoriented, but then her eyes went alert and she immediately jolted up in the bed. “The woman,” she said, “that I gave my breathing apparatus to. Where are she? Is she okay?”

Riley had no clue what Jett was talking about, but she knew that she needed to calm her down quickly. The readings on her heart monitor had begun to spike and Jett was clearly distressed.

“Hey, it’s okay,” Riley said, taking Jett’s hand. “I’m sure she’s okay, and you can talk to your Aunt Becky about it tomorrow when your family comes. You know Becky knows everything!”

“Aunt Becky,” Jett repeated with a nod of her head. “Okay.”

Leah came back and put some pain meds into Jett’s IV, instructing Jett and Riley to call if they needed anything else.

Jett nodded her head. “Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” Leah said before leaving.

Riley waited for the pain meds to kick in, expecting Jett to fall back asleep as soon as they did, but she didn’t. By the time Riley had managed to text Jett’s family with the update, Jett was already forming more coherent sentences and beginning to ask questions, like how long she had been out, how many casualties there had been, and if they knew what caused the fire.

Riley could only answer Jett’s first question, fires certainly weren’t her speciality, but she tried her best to reassure her that she could get all the answers she wanted in the morning. It was hard, though. Jett was persistent and really wanted to know what had happened.

After a moment, however, the fire-related questions died down and Jett looked at Riley while holding her hand.

“Have you been in here the entire time I’ve been here?” Jett asked.

“Yeah,” Riley said. “Your mom wanted to stay, too, but Brody convinced her to go home for some sleep as long as I gave updates.”

Jett nodded. “Good,” she said. “I wouldn’t want my mom to stay the night in the hospital and sleep on that uncomfortable couch.”

Riley smiled, and then she frowned and started crying. Loud and hard. She pulled her hand away from Jett and went to cover her face. Jett was alarmed. She sat up and reached for Riley’s hand.

“Riley?” Jett asked, “Riley, what’s wrong?”

Riley continued to cry for a couple more minutes, just gasping and sobbing until she could finally form words.

“I was so worried about you, Jett,” Riley said when she could finally speak again.

“Hey,” Jett said, “it’s okay. I’m right here. I’m okay.”

“But you almost weren’t,” Riley said. “You almost weren’t okay and there’s nothing I could do about it.”

Riley uncovered her face and Jett took her hand back. “Hey,” Jett said, “it’s not your responsibility to watch out for me and make sure I’m okay. That’s my job.”

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