Page 9 of A Love Unfaltering

Shewas that spark.

“It makes sense that you worry. And I don’t have anything I can say to stop you from worrying, other than you’re the one person that I’ve always wanted to be with. So we can take things slow, wait things out, and you can leave whenever you want to. But I want to try if you’ll have me,” I said softly, hoping that she’d say yes.

“I want to try too,” she said. Those words set my heart on fire because they were everything I’d ever wanted to hear. Being with her was a goal that I’d given up on long ago, and now I was finally coming to terms with the fact that she might want to be with me too.

“We can go slow, and give it a shot,” she said quietly before leaning forward and pressing a kiss to my cheek. “And you can stop doing stupid stuff like getting into car accidents.”

I laughed a bit, which hurt my ribs just a bit more than I would’ve liked.

“That sounds like a deal.”

Chapter Five

Amy

I visited Jared in the hospital every day after school and work, making sure that he was as happy as one could be while confined in a hospital bed.

Luckily enough, after a week, they finally said that he could come home, with the promise that he’d be careful so he wouldn’t rip the stitches in his chest and cheek.

It was a cloudy Thursday afternoon when I drove to the hospital for what was hopefully the last time so that I could pick Jared up and take him back to wherever he was staying. I had asked my boss to take the day off because I needed to help a friend, and because it was Thursday and Thursday’s were dead.

Checking in at the front desk, I showed them my ID and made my way to Jared’s room.

Even after a week, it still felt surreal that he and I were actually… A thing. After so many years of just being friends and with me liking him intermittently, we’d both finally acted on it.

It felt insane.

Walking into the room, I found Jared standing with a nurse, crutches underneath both of his arms. I chuckled a bit and leaned against the door frame, alerting both of them to look up at me.

“There’s my ride,” he said, smiling at the nurse. “Thanks for making sure I didn’t die over the past week.”

“That’s what I’m here for,” she said, nodding at both him and me with a smile. “Just don’t do any strenuous physical activity and don’t operate heavy machinery for the next few weeks.”

“I’ll make sure he doesn’t,” I said, to which Jared rolled his eyes.

“Alright, big guy. Let’s get you out of here,” I said, waving at the nurse, and walking back down the hallway with Jared following behind me.

“Crutches are so stupid,” he muttered, trying his best to keep up with me as he walked. “I didn’t break my legs. I shouldn’t need these.”

“Your ribs are cracked. If you try to walk normally, you’ll just make that worse,” I replied, shaking my head with a bit of a laugh.

“Yeah, whatever,” he said, though there was a sarcastic smile on his face.

I led him out through the hospital and into the parking lot to my small red Nissan.

“Damn, I guess my car won’t be around any time soon,” he said, sighing and ducking into the passenger seat.

“No, it was trashed pretty thoroughly. It made me pretty sad, too. A lot of memories in that thing,” I replied, thinking back over the years of being driven everywhere in that small blue Pontiac.

I’d miss that car just as much as he would.

“Damn. I guess I’ll have to get another eventually,” he muttered as I started the car and backed out of the parking lot.

“Not until you’re healed up from this, at least. You heard what she said; no heavy machinery,” I replied, pulling out onto the road before looking over at him.

“I, err, where are you staying? I guess I should have asked that before this.”

He chuckled and shook his head before pulling out his phone. “The Lakewater Inn. It’s a couple of miles from here. I’ll pull it up,” he said, opening his GPS app and punching in the address.

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