Page 87 of I Am Salvation

“Really, it’s okay,” Diana says. “I took our one vehicle to the place where I fell. Dragon had no other way to get here.”

“Dragon?” she asks.

“That’s my name,” I say, my tone a little harsher than I mean it to be. “I’m going to call a rideshare. I would’ve had him wait, but I didn’t know she was ready.”

I pull up my phone and order a rideshare on the app.

“There’s somebody only three minutes away. You don’t have to wait out here with us,” I say. “We’ll be fine.”

“I need to wait until she’s safely in a car,” the nurse says.

“Really, it’s okay,” Diana says again.

“Those are hospital rules, I’m afraid.” She smiles. “I don’t mind.”

But I do. I don’t say the words. I’d like to talk to Diana. Find out why the hell she was at my mother’s trailer. Find out what they talked about, if anything. I won’t be able to do that in the car if another person is driving us. This is my only chance to talk to her privately, at least for the next half hour or so.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” I ask her.

She lets out a light laugh and nods. “Yes. I’m going to be fine. I promise. But your mother’s going to have to get those stairs fixed now.”

I simply nod. From the looks of my mother’s place, she doesn’t have any money to get the stairs fixed. She’s certainly not getting a dime out of me. Not that I have a dime to give her.

The rideshare arrives, and I help Diana out of the chair and into the back seat. I take the front seat and tell the driver to take us to my mother’s trailer.

“You got it.”

The ride takes about fifteen minutes. Once we’re there, I see Diana’s car.

Still in one piece, thank God.

“Thanks for the ride,” I tell the driver. I help Diana out of the car and close the door behind her.

She looks at me. “Do you want to knock on the door and say hi to your mother?”

I let out a humorless chuckle. “Not even a little bit.”

Diana unlocks the car with the key fob, and I help her into the passenger seat. “Are you sure you’re not in any pain?”

“Only a little now.” She shifts around in her seat. “If I don’t put much weight on it, I can do okay. They were going to send me home with crutches, but I didn’t want them. I’ll be fine.”

“Are you sure?”

She nods and smiles.

I get in the driver’s seat.

I’m ecstatic that she isn’t hurt too badly. This is all my mother’s fault, of course. Everything in my life is that damned woman’s fault. Hers…and my own.

And now I need money.

What is the best way to tell the woman you love that you need ten grand?

We could go back to the hotel. I could help her get onto the bed, make her comfortable.

But hell.

Sometimes it’s best to bite the bullet and get it done.

---