Page 121 of Love Me

I return the squeeze on his arm. “I’ll take care of her,” I say just above a whisper. “I promise.”

He nods before heading in the direction of the car they share.

I watch as they pull out of the parking lot and drive away. Diego’s right by my side, his hand moving to the small of my back.

“She’s trusting me with the one thing in her life she has,” I tell him, not knowing what else to say.

I feel his lips on my temple. “She couldn’t trust a better person.” He says the words with such confidence that I have no choice but to believe I’m going to pull this off.

“You need to eat,” he says, that telltale concern in his eyes. As if to prove his point, he holds up his phone, showing me the readout of my numbers.

They’re even more off than when we left the hotel about ninety minutes ago. Worry starts to build in my chest because I’ve been down this road countless times. So many times I don’t want to think about it.

“I may need to do an adjustment,” I tell Diego, trying to infuse my voice with nonchalance. “I’ll eat something from the food I brought and then we can wait fifteen minutes or so. I’m sure it’ll be fine after that.”

The look he gives me isn’t one of reassurance that I wanted. Concern is etched in his forehead. “Why don’t you eat something from the diner? It’s close by. I can call ahead and order you some of their oatmeal or a side of eggs and multigrain bread with some orange juice.”

“That’s way too much,” I insist as he starts to lead me to his car.

“You’ll have your pick of what to eat. What you don’t finish, I will,” he says like it’s not a big deal.

He picks up his phone and puts a rush order on the meal at the diner. We’re only about a ten-minute drive from it. We make it there in just over five. Our food arrives at our table as soon as we take a seat in the booth.

I weigh out the appropriate amount of carbs on my traveling food scale and proceed to eat my toasted bread with some butter and drink the fresh squeezed orange juice.

We make small talk as we wait fifteen minutes or so before checking my numbers again. A part of me wants to scream about how much I hate things like this. When I make plans for my day, or my life in general, and this uncontrollable part of my life rears its ugly head, it can put the brakes on all of my plans.

But I’m determined not to let my illness stand in my way today. I want to get to see more artists at the fair.

“We’re good to go,” I tell Diego. I thrust my wrist with my watch on it in his face so he can see that my numbers have gone back up to the safe zone.

He nods, eyeing the numbers. Minutes later we’re on our way. Unfortunately, I notice my glucose numbers start to drop again. Not quickly but they shouldn’t be moving so much when I’ve just eaten.

“What’s wrong?” Diego asks, glancing over at me.

I hadn’t even said anything. “How do you do that?” I ask. “I haven’t spoken a word.”

“The corners of your lips curled downward a little and you’re biting the inside of your cheek. You do that when you’re worried. That or you play in my hair,” he finishes.

I look down at my hands because I have them clasped to keep from reaching over to play in his hair. I thought that was my only giveaway. But he knows me too damn well.

“I’m fine,” I say, but he gives me a look. “My glucose dropped a couple of points but I’m still in the safe zone.” I rush to say that last part.

His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “How are you feeling?”

Instead of my immediate reaction to tell him that I’m fine, I take a beat to assess how I’m feeling. Am I feeling woozy, sluggish, or otherwise out of it?

No. On all fronts.

I do feel a little low on energy, but after a somewhat long travel day yesterday, accompanied by the excitement of the fair and meeting with Melinda to finally acquire my final artist for my gallery, that’s to be expected.

“I feel okay,” I answer with honesty.

He glances over me and looks me over, taking his own inventory.

“I’m fine for now. Let’s go to the fair. We don’t have to stay that long, and I’ve brought plenty of things with me to eat and extra insulin.” I pat the bag sitting on my lap for emphasis.

“We’ll be doing a lot of walking around at the fair. Are you sure—”

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