Page 33 of Professor Obsessed

Paramedics hauled my body away from him as they stood over him shouting orders and team lifting him onto a stretcher. All of this played before my eyes in a grotesque ruse of events.

And I never said I love you back.

30

EMMA

Days had passed. I almost forgot what the outside world looked like, I spent every waking moment in the hospital as Chase underwent several surgeries. When he was brought in he was alive, but barely. He’d been shot three times, the one in his arm had pretty much torn his muscle to shreds. The entrance and exit wounds were tattered and uneven.

It was the other two that nearly cost him his life.

The one in his back tore through his kidney.

He was rushed into surgery immediately to stop the bleeding that was entering the surrounding tissue, removal of the bullet and the kidney itself happening at the same time was risky enough. The last one went through his side landing somewhere in his stomach. When talking to me, the Doctor told me there was only a 10% survival rate and to prepare myself and our families for the worst. The cold lack of compassion in his voice told me he’d seen this many times.

I sat in the waiting room, the pop music blasted loudly through the speakers, the intake nurse sat behind the desk humming the words. It had been three days. And this was the last surgery that would make or break everything. Chase was in a medically induced coma. His body looked like a wax sculpture, fragile and eerie when they rolled him back.

The image would outlive me.

The hours whittled by slowly, painfully, mockingly, before the surgical team came out to give me the news.

“The surgery, while successful, was tough on his body,” the doctor started as my mind focused on the only words that mattered to me, it was successful. I would do anything to make sure Chase had the best recovery, anything.

The medical terminology was lost on me as he described the organs he repaired, the internal bleeding that they stopped, as well as the road to recovery Chase had. But he made it through and would be taken out of the medically induced coma in the days to come.

“What questions did you have for me?” the surgeon asked. I barely listened to a single thing he’d said. My thoughts were still on making Chase the happiest, the same way he made me. I was determined for this to be the start of our lives together. Not the end.

He lived and he was going to be okay, relief crashed over me, tears overflowed stronger than the current of the Monongahela river.

I’m determined to make him forgive me.

Then, I was going to make him mine.

Forever.

31

CHASE

Asteady beeping, a drip, the scrape of a chair, the cold of hands on my bare skin, my senses came back to life one by one. The memories of what happened slowly crawled back to me before pulverizing my mind in a crushing grip. My body felt thick as I shot up in a bed, covered in a scratchy shock blanket in a white room with the news playing softly on a TV in the corner.

“The hero of that night stays in critical condition at Allegheny General,” the reporter's voice spoke professionally, “All suspects were deceased on the scene.”

My arm roared as I clutched the limb in my lap, cradling it against my body as the burning sensation throbbed. Fuck, I was in so much pain. My consciousness threatened to take me back under.

Emma, I needed to see her, I needed to know she was alive.

I needed to know I hadn’t failed her.

My eyes adjusted to the brightness, followed by a sharp gasp.

I turned to the doorway, where my sweet kitten stood, a tray of food and coffee in her hands that tumbled to the floor the moment our eyes locked.

Words were futile as she threw herself into my arms, my body convulsed with pain but having her against me was worth every ounce of it. She shook in my grasp as tears wracked her body.

“God I thought,” she sniffed, her tears leaving wet spots on my chest, “I lost you forever, I thought you were gone.”

I stroked up and down her back with my good arm, the one with the IV lodged painfully in the back of my hand. The other, shook under the weight of my body, the threat of it giving out was imminent. She shifted her position.

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