Page 19 of No First Kisses

“I’m going with her,” I tell everyone and no one at the same time.

It isn’t a question, isn’t up for debate. I don’t care if Andrea wants to go with her. Or if Dean needs to see his daughter being worked on. I give zero shits about anyone else but her. I’ve almost lost her once.

Never again.

“Take my truck.” I follow the paramedics into the ambulance and throw my keys, not caring who grabs them.

Poppy codes three more times on the way to the hospital. And every single time, another piece of my soul shatters right along with the flatline on the monitor.

By the time they unload her, I’m barely holding on to my sanity. When I try to follow her, a nurse stops me with one hand on my chest.

“You can’t,” she says simply. “Go to the waiting room. I’ll come get you when I know something.”

After one long second, I nod.

I know better than to argue with a nurse, especially when Poppy’s life is the one at stake.

When I step into the waiting room, the doors from the outside are opening and our families rush in together.

“Anything?” Andrea’s eyes seek out mine with hope, but I shake my head.

Swallowing down the bile that has been sitting at the base of my throat since the first time Poppy’s heart stopped in the ambulance, I pull her into a hug to keep her from seeing the devastation on my face.

“Her heart stopped in the ambulance. Three times.” I don’t bother sparing any of them the information that I know I’d want in their situation.

Dean is there, his hand on my shoulder. “Is she?”

“No.” I clear my throat. “They’re working on her, but she’s alive.”

Andrea starts crying again, this time against my chest, and I feel Dean’s hand clench and then release my shoulder in a silent show of support.

“Then we wait.” He coughs, hiding the tears I can see in his eyes when I look over my shoulder at him. “Because she’s a fighter. We all know it.”

With a nod, I take the seat closest to the doors, needing to be as close to her as possible. The entire time, wondering if I’ll have the chance to beg for her forgiveness. God wouldn’t take her away from me like this. Not after the life she’s lived.

“I love her,” I finally tell my mom hours later while my eyes are locked on the doors.

She grabs my hand in hers and squeezes tightly. “I know you do.”

“I’m gonna marry her.”

I haven’t said those words out loud. Not since I was eighteen years old and she was sixteen.

My mom’s eyes fill with tears, and she nods. “I know. You’re gonna need your grandmother’s ring and not the one you bought as a child. Come get it when you’re ready. She’d want you to have it. She always wanted it to go to you and Poppy.”

My dad, on the other side, brings his hand down onto my shoulder, pulling me into a half hug. “I’m glad you’re pulling your head out of your ass, even if it’s a little late.”

“In my defense,” I can’t help but tell him, “Finn already convinced me, before they even got to the campsite, to go after her. Life just decided to kick me in the balls for taking so long to realize it.”

Before anyone can agree with my idiocy, the waiting room doors open again, and I hold my breath. The first time they opened, it’d been someone leaving the emergency room. The other six times they opened weren’t for us, either, so I’m afraid to get my hopes up.

“For Poppy Blake.” The same nurse from before moves immediately to stand in front of me, her face completely unreadable.

In my entire life, I’ve never been unable to face anything. Bullets, grenades, the death of my friends or my sister. None of it compares to the anxiety and fear that eats through my gut in the five seconds it takes for her to open her mouth.

“She’s stable.”

Those two words knock all the oxygen out of my lungs, until I have to force myself to breathe.

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