Page 18 of Rush of Jealousy

“Sorry,” she sniffles, looking up into my eyes.

“Hanna?” I ask suddenly. “What’s going on? Why are you crying? Can I help you with something?”

“Oh no, you have helped enough,” she cries, placing her cardboard box on the ground with a thump. Her pixie brown hair blows in the wind as tears fall from her eyes.

I watch speechless as she frantically throws her loose photo into the top of the box and tries to pick up the pieces of broken frame.

I slouch to the ground to join her and retrieve the wooden back part of the frame. As soon as I rotate it in my hand, I feel a sharp pain and then watch as blood drips onto the concrete.

Blood.

It’s everywhere.

Flashes of light fill my vision and I see James’s swollen face.

No.

Stop.

I squeeze my eyes shut and shake my head back and forth.

My mind clears, and I open my eyes back up.

“Shit.” I moan and drop the wooden piece of frame onto the sidewalk. Blood pools in my palm, and I look up horrified into Hanna’s bloodshot eyes.

My heart rate accelerates. I feel nauseous.

“Wonderful,” she yells up to the sky and then turns her attention back to me, “now I am going to be out of a jobandgoing to probably have to move out of state.”

“What are you talking about?” I ask frantically, trying to see what I am cut on. “There is glass in my hand! Glass!”

I stare down in horror at the shiny plank that appears to grow from my bloody skin. I bite my tongue and then yank the piece out, dislodging it from its tight home. I feel bitter acid rise up in my throat. I see more blood gush out of my wound and figure the shard of glass was acting like a cork in my gashed skin. Now the flow is erupting, and I can’t seem to stop it.

Hanna looks like she is going to pass out. Her once angry face is that of sympathy. Sorrow even.

“Help, please help,” I beg. “I need help.”

As soon as the words leave my mouth, the doors open and four security guards burst through. I am lifted up gently from the ground, and I allow myself to freak.

“Blood. Bleeding. My hand…the glass…stuck. Hanna might be hurt. Help. Ouch, how…I don’t want to…”

“Calm down, Miss McFee. Someone is calling for the doctor. Let’s get you inside.” I have no idea who is talking to me.

Tissues are squeezed to my wound but just get saturated within seconds. I try to pull my hand away from the pain, but it is secured tightly by a man who I assume is the main guard.

I turn back to Hanna who now looks as pale as a ghost. She is just sitting on the ground—staring at me. Her hands are over her mouth, and I can tell she is crying harder than she was when I first ran into her. “I’m sorry,” she mouths. But I cannot hear the words. There is a buzzing sound in my ear, and I struggle to stay in the present.

“This is my fault, not Hanna's,” I say to no one in particular. “I ran into her. Made her break the frame.”

Once I am in the lobby, I am pulled toward the restroom.

“Angie, what the hell?”

It’s Graham. I hear him before I see him and start to wonder if he is a figment of my imagination. My eyes blur with tears. It hurts so bad, and I just want to curl into a ball and dream away this searing pain.

“What happened to you?” he asks me, and then snaps to his employees, “What the hell happened to her? Was she attacked? Someone better talk to me!”

“We found her outside on the sidewalk with Ms. White,” the guard explains. “She appears to have cut herself on a broken picture frame while Ms. White was leaving the building.”

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