Page 19 of Fixation
Wait, he knows my name? I haven’t told him.
But I feel so comfortable in his arms. It’s so nice here, that I don’t care. I let him take me away, carry me out of the waiting room.
Where to? I don’t care. He told me he had me. Despite the faint warning I can’t seem to shake, I trust him.
“You’ll be fine,” he murmurs close to my ear. “I promise you’ll be okay. Can you talk?”
Wish I could. But I’m so tired.
My eyelids close. Heart slowing.
I’m falling…falling…falling…
4
ANDERSON
“Hey! We were here first!” a man calls out behind me, righteousness and entitlement tainting his voice.
“What is wrong with you? Can’t you see she blacked out?” a woman hisses at him. “What was he supposed to do, leave her there on the floor?”
“He was supposed to let the nurses prioritize the cases.” A huff.
No wonder he’s pissed. That motherfucker.
I stalked past every other person in the waiting room, blatantly ignoring them. Plus, there’s a woman in my arms. A woman who just walked in. She just walked in, and here I am, pressing her soft body close to mine.
Carrying her to where I wouldsupposedlytreat her.
Everyone here can be pissed all they like.
I have her. At last.
God, she smells good.
She feels even better.
I imagined she’d be perfect. But this, actually holding her, it’s taken me by surprise.
Goddamn otherworldly.
She’s a warm ray of light on a particularly cold day. That first sip of coffee in the morning, or whenever the fuck it is that I wake up.
Holding Harper is like getting through a complicated procedure. One where every move counts, and I get it fucking right.
Most of all, she feels like mine.
That doesn’t calm my nerves at the slightest. I’m furious at myself.
My temples throb as I stalk toward one of the exits in the back. Heat rushes under my skin like acid through a vein.
I curse under my breath as Harper’s matted, red hair caresses my wrist.
She’s so sick that she fainted.
She needed me, and I was here, in an emergency surgery for the past ten hours.
The signs were there. I was the idiot who ignored them. It all started yesterday morning when she sneezed. When she worked in her pajamas instead of changing into comfortable yoga pants and a loose T-shirt.
