Page 39 of Free Fall

“You fell off a table, numb nuts.”

She groaned, tried to move her hand and found it still tangled up in my own. Her eyes opened again so she could study our entwined fingers. I didn’t want to let go. Her eyes didn’t shift from where we were connected, but they did soften.

“Luca…” she breathed.

“You have a concussion, a head wound. Jesse drove you here. Your parents are out getting coffee, I’ll call them back—” I reached for my phone in my pocket when she stopped me.

“Just give me this moment,” she whispered, her gaze still foggy. I kissed her hand again, each of her fingers in turn, then her wrist. Her body relaxed into the bed. “Just a little moment…”

She fell back to sleep without finishing her thoughts, her voice trailing off, and I stood, stepping from the bay to find Dr. Sterling. I needed a breather, a few seconds of space, and she’d woken up. He said he wanted to know. If I didn’t leave, I may never.

The emergency room was busy with patients and staff, all moving about at random paces and in different directions. Beeping machines, tapping on keyboards, ringing phones and shouts echoed, but I located the nurses’ station after a few minutes.

A nurse directed me to a bay at the end of the ward, and I found Dr. Sterling leaning against the wall, flicking through a chart with a frown on his face as he spoke to another doctor. “I’m going to page my brother, I think, this is reading quite advanced…”

“Hey,” I said, mustering all the politeness I could, getting his attention. “Zelda Summers woke up for a minute. She’s back to sleep now, though.”

He took a beat, blinking, then responded, holding the chart close to his chest. “Right,” he said. “As long as she wasn’t complaining of any pain, she’s bound to be in and out. I’ll come in shortly to check on her.”

Feeling an idiot, I nodded and turned, walking back to Zelda, catching Henry and Delilah coming from the other direction. Henry looked at me in concern, but I shook my head, pointing to the bay and slipping into it. I returned the chair by her head to the corner, just in time for them to pull the curtain aside and crowd up the small space with me.

Zelda was still asleep, but her hand was curled up like she was missing something.

I didn’t know how much longer I could pretend.

Twenty One

Zelda

Thatmotherfucker.

The evil, bastard, dickhead twat-head who’d taken so fucking much from me and continued digging and gouging and ruining every fucking thing he could. How dare he? What was did he think he was doing with his idiotic virile massive dick and his stupid fertile spunk and his dumb, animal lizard brain that could do nothing but fuck and think later?

I hope his balls hurt as much as my head did.

Pregnant.

The asshole had knocked me up. I sat in the hospital bed, two handsome doctors staring me down, thinking over every single moment of my time with Luca. The tenderness we avoided, the precautions we didn’t take. I had the injection every three months, but shit,did I?I rubbed at my head, throbbing in pain. I couldn’t be pregnant with Luca’s baby. This was too fucking much. Too far.

I wanted to kill him.

“Zelda?” the first Dr. Sterling repeated, the ER doctor with dark hair and permanent purple smudges under his eyes, like he didn’t know what sleep even was. “You feeling okay? I can get you something for the pain.”

“I’m feeling a lot of things, doctor,” I muttered into my palms, trying not to scream at the two men giving me the worse damn news of my life.

Good on them, though. They waited until my parents were busy with paperwork before ducking in, giving me all the privacy I needed to mourn this… this fuck up. Holy shit.

“Well, I invited my brother here because he’s a specialist. We just wanted to ask a few things because you’re, well, I’ll leave it to him.” The doctor muttered something to his similar looking brother and left us alone, slipping around the curtain with a last nod of his head at me. Shock was making everything blurry, surreal, like I was watching this unfold rather than experiencing it for myself.

The second Dr. Sterling, a much more put together looking man, sat in the chair beside me, a tablet in his hand. “So, you’re twenty-four weeks pregnant. Do you know what that means?” He looked so pristine. His clothes were neat, his hair short and styled, no dubious stains or scruff like his brother. They were both annoyingly handsome though, and if I didn’t have my own handsome prick to be worrying about, I might have flirted. A little. Shit, though, pregnant. I fought back an inappropriate giggle. This was such a mess.

“Over halfway,” I whispered, the realization dawning as I counted backwards. My brain was too foggy, though, and it didn’t matter when I was impregnated. What time his swimmers had struck gold. It was Luca’s. I did laugh then, a cackle really, which Doctor Sterling just watched, failing to hide his amusement. He waited until I was done, slumping my body back in the bed with an obnoxious sigh.

“We’ve missed a lot of key dates… cut offs,” he continued, scrolling through something on his tablet screen kept tilted out of view. “I have a clinic down the street we could play catch up at, if you wanted. You’re welcome to find your own OB, though…”

“Why does she need an OB?” mymothersaid, striding into the bay like some demon from the underworld come to ruin everything. I didn’t even care. My heart didn’t speed up out of fear or anything. I was ready and resigned to my doomed fate. Mom and Dad knowing meant nothing to stop it, to change the fate set out before me. Shit, I hadn’t even finished college. I’d been swinging from the damn rafters of a gymnasium justyesterday.

Jesus hell christ.

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