Page 6 of Vows of Betrayal

I tried to remove my hand from his—but he wouldn’t let me. The man stared at me, his eyes open wide—and he slowly shook his head.

He wanted me to stay.

“Francesca, get out so we can take the X-rays!” one of the nurses yelled at me. But the man’s grip increased tenfold on my hand.

I guess I wasn’t going anywhere.

“Just take it. I’ll stay with him.”

The nurse yelled at me some more, but I refused to leave. Then the resident walked up to me. “Let go of him. We need these X-rays now.”

I inhaled deeply. “It’s fine. Take the damn pictures,” I said with no small bit of frustration. They needed to hurry up. If there was something they could do for this guy, they had to do it. And fast.

“Francesca, listen to me. You can’t be in here. There’ll be radiation. It’ll take us too long to get another lead apron for you. He doesn’t have that kind of time to waste. And think about how many X-rays you’ve had in your life. You don’t need this repeated exposure. It can be dangerous,” he explained point blank.

And I laughed. I couldn’t help it. I’d had exactly zero X-rays in my life. There wasn’t one time that my dad would have taken me down and paid for one. Even when I broke my arm. All he did for that was find a couple of pieces of old baseboard and wrap an elastic bandage around them and my arm.

“I’ll take the risk,” I told the resident.

He rolled his eyes and shook his head. Then he lowered his voice. “What if you’re pregnant? It can hurt the baby.”

To that I laughed even louder. “I’m not pregnant.”

He closed his eyes briefly and opened them. “No birth control is one hundred percent, Francesca. You might be pregnant and not know it yet.”

I couldn’t help laughing again. “Unless it’s the immaculate conception, I’m okay. I’ve never had sex before.”

Realization hit him because he backed off. “Fine. But I’m writing you up to the disciplinary committee after this.”

I shrugged and played it off. Even though I was shaking inside. If he wrote me up—I might get canned. And I’d barely even started working here. I needed the money to keep afloat.

“Do what you need to do,” I said, hoping like heck he’d maybe forget all about this, or decide writing me up would be too much work.

After that, he gave up and took the stupid pictures.

The man still held onto my hand. To tell you the truth, it was starting to go a bit numb.

But, gosh.

He looked so freaking scared.

Like he knew exactly what his fate was.

I wondered if I’d know when the moment of my death would be upon me. I wondered if I’d be frightened, too. Or if I’d be grateful. And ready.

For some reason, I pulled my face shield off and tossed it onto the floor. And I took off my mask.

I didn’t want the last thing he saw to be some human covered in P.P.E.

“Don’t be scared. They’ll look at the X-rays and get you up into surgery before you even know it.”

His eyes bounced all over my face, and I was glad he could see me.

“Just hang on a little longer and they’ll fix you right up.”

His eyes burned into mine like—well, I didn’t really know. All I did know was that he wasn’t letting me go.

“What’s your name?” I asked him in a gentle voice. “I’m Francesca. But you heard that already,” I said, remembering that the resident had used my name several times.

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