Page 57 of Yours and Mine (Friends with Benefits)

“Yeah, I think so.”

The stage was still above us.

“Is it over?” someone else asked. The space slowly emptied as we made our way out from underneath the stage. That’s when I saw Carter, frantically looking around the room.

“Daisy!” he called out, and I ran to him.

“Where’s the last place you saw her?”

“By the fire truck.”

We both turned at the same time toward the barn door.

“Where’s the fire truck?” I asked.

We ran outside to a world I barely recognized. I turned around in a circle to assess the damage. If it weren’t for the few parked cars that remained untouched by the tornado in the parking lot and the now magically clear skies and the moonlight, we wouldn’t have been able to see anything. The wind had activated automatic alarms on a few cars, and the sirens echoed, bouncing off the mountains. Trees to the left of the barn had been torn out of the ground, and some of those still standing had been snapped in half, like matchsticks. When I looked back to the barn, the front half of it was gone. Boards from the roof as well as from its sides had been ripped off, which meant that the tornado had cut through the structure, missing the far end by the stage where we’d been hiding, but judging by the look of the mud and debris all around us, not by much. The fire truck was on its side, a hundred feet away from the barn, and so we headed in that direction.

I searched through the debris, despite Captain Clark’s instructions to stay back. I shoved the stray branches to the side when I saw a foot with a daisy sandal sticking out from underneath the rubble.

“This way!” I screamed, and climbed up the mound of trees, boards, and twisted metal the tornado had deposited. Daisy was pinned under a tree trunk. Her eyes were closed, and her dress stained with mud, ripped to shreds but still covering her body.

“Daisy! Daisy!”

She opened her eyes.

“Somebody help! She’s alive,” I screamed.

“I’m here, honey.” I took her hand, careful not to add any more pressure to the tree that had trapped her.

“What happened?” she asked.

“I think you were sucked out of the barn by the tornado, but you’re okay now.”

“I don’t think so, Jo. I think this is it for me. I can feel it.”

“Come on. Don’t talk like that. You’re the strong one. This is just a hiccup. You just got engaged, baby, and Carter’s been searching all over for you.”

“Daisy!” I heard him not far away.

“Take care of my man, Jo. Promise me you’ll take care of him.”

“Daisy, don’t talk like that. You’re going to be fine, and you’ll take care of him yourself until you’re old and gray.”

“It hurts so much,” she moaned. Her pain seared through me, and I saw blood pooling underneath the tree.

“Don’t move, Daisy. Just hold on. They’re coming.”

“Promise you’ll take care of him, Jo.”

“I promise, Daisy. I promise. Now you promise me to hold on for as long as you can.”

She sighed and her eyes closed. Peace swept over her face, and my heart constricted. She didn’t open her eyes again.

One of the firefighters was first by my side, with Carter right behind him.

“Hurry! She’s losing blood.” I squeezed my friend’s frail hand, on which she wore her engagement ring, but she didn’t squeeze back. “You hold on, Daisy Anne. Hold on.”

“Joelle, move aside.”

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