Total pages in book: 69
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68500 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 343(@200wpm)___ 274(@250wpm)___ 228(@300wpm)
And he also knew that I was the universal blood type and could share with anyone who needed it because we’d worked a blood drive together about two months ago where we’d found out that we were both the same.
I looked down at his arm to see that he’d already donated.
If it was that serious that he was coming out here and asking for it after he’d donated, then I was worried.
“Sure thing,” I said. “I’ll head back with you.”
I didn’t bother to tell the family what I was doing.
A: they didn’t need to worry unnecessarily, and B: they’d offer to donate themselves, and without having their blood tested first, they’d feel horrible when we told them it wasn’t possible.
Mackson put me on tap himself, and I bled two pints worth of blood which he promptly left to deliver.
I cleaned myself up and was just pulling the needle out of my vein when she found me.
“Oh,” Val said. “It’s bad, isn’t it?”
I looked up to see her standing in the door.
She’d changed.
She looked much more vulnerable in black leggings and a…
She was wearing my sweatshirt.
My. Sweatshirt.
Something weird in my stomach started to bloom.
I wasn’t sure what this feeling was, but I wasn’t entirely ready to acknowledge it, so I didn’t point out that she was wearing my anything.
Or how freakin’ cute she looked in it.
Yeah, there was no way that she was thinking straight, or she wouldn’t have put it on. Not to mention, her siblings must’ve packed her the bag, because she wouldn’t have chosen to wear something like that up here on her own.
“It’s not bad,” I lied. “They just needed more blood, and since I’m a universal donor, they asked me to donate.”
“You never were a good liar,” she mused as she came farther into the room, almost hunched in on herself. “I really appreciate you helping her, Felix.”
“It’s my job,” I pointed out.
She flinched, but then her eyes narrowed as she said, “Yeah, but I’ll bet you don’t usually donate blood for your job.”
True.
“Well,” I shrugged, “I didn’t want you to worry.”
She deflated even more, and it felt like my heart was breaking all the more as she stood so close to me with her sad eyes and her heartbreaking body language.
“I’m going to worry regardless,” she pointed out. “I don’t think I could’ve done that today.”
“You could’ve,” I agreed. “From what I hear, you did do it at the scene, and in the helicopter ride over.”
She nodded, then walked toward me, her fingers going to the bandage that was on the table for me to wrap my elbow.
She held it up as if to offer, and I nodded. “Sure.”
She wrapped my elbow with Coban and then patted it to get the bandage to stick well to itself before backing away.
Before she could take three steps, I hauled her back into my arms and hugged her.
“Why are you hugging me?” she asked, shivering in my arms.
“Because you need a hug,” I said, unable to stop myself from inhaling her scent. “We can go back to hating each other tomorrow.”
She sniffled before saying, “I never hated you, Felix. And I never will. There’s nothing you can do to change that.”
With that, she pulled away and didn’t look back.
I didn’t go back out to the lobby with them.
I stayed outside the OR and waited for news.
It took four more hours, but eventually it came.
Crimson made it through surgery, but she would have a very long road ahead of her.
The man who’d come in at some point to get his own artery repaired as well, would make it, too.
That made me happy enough that I chose to sleep.
Tomorrow would come, and in it, another day of trying to find a way to make it without Val being in my life where she belonged.
CHAPTER 6
Live weird. Fake your death.
-T-shirt
VAL
One good thing about having my sister in the hospital? I no longer had to eat my lunch alone.
I could go to her room and eat with her, instead of sitting in the break room by myself while people ate around me, had fun, laughed, and treated me like I didn’t even exist.
Though, Rose, the one good thing about this entire place, was one who would talk to me. But she wasn’t here this week due to her daughter having a baby.
Which left me with the regulars—about seven women who took their cue from Tammy—who went out of their way to pretend I didn’t exist.
That did work out in my favor, because if they did end up talking to me, it was asking if I did that kind of thing with doctors before.
Which only pissed me off, so I chose to ignore them all, eat my lunch, and wonder if it was bad to wish away three years.
I couldn’t find a different hospital to work at, either, because this was the only teaching hospital in the area that had room for me.