Page 13 of Divorced from Number Thirty-Eight
“Right,” the nurse says dryly.
Fuck, he’s not going to let this go.
“Okay, I’ll level with you. We’re not married—” He opens his mouth, expression going fierce. “I didn’t—don’t—want her to be alone,” I add in a hurry. “I’ll leave as soon as her family get here. I promise.”
He falls quiet, studying me while I do my best to look innocent.
Something that’s hard to do when the memory of looking out my kitchen window and seeing the flames bursting through the roof of her house is still blazing through my mind. Right along with the abject terror that gripped me as I ran across the grass separating our houses?—
As I looked in through her front door, saw her sprawled on the floor.
Not moving.
With flames erupting, their heat so intense it felt like they were singeing my skin.
It wasn’t even a thought to kick her door down, to carry her out.
There was absolutely no way I could leave her.
Can leave her.
After a long moment, the nurse sighs. “We didn’t have this conversation.”
“What conversation?”
Mouth twitching, he turns his focus to Faye—the right move considering she’s still unconscious with an oxygen mask strapped to her face. “Is Ms. Sullivan allergic to any medications?” he asks.
I glance at her, as though her prone body will give me a hint. Well, shit.
“Right,” the nurse says dryly, correctly identifying my silence as not knowing. “Any surgeries in recent months?”
Double shit.
“Injuries or illnesses we should know about?”
Fuck.
“Pregnancy?”
“No,” I hear, the word rasped out.
I freeze, eyes flicking to the no-longer-unconscious woman on the bed. Her eyes are open and fixed on me, cheeks having gone from pale to bright pink.
“Not pregnant,” she rasps out. “No surgeries or illnesses or allergies.” A long, wheezing breath. “Injuries?” She shifts carefully, as though testing her limbs. “I don’t think so—aside from my lungs feeling like they’ve been rubbed raw on the insides with sandpaper.”
I wince.
Because her voice sounds exactly like that.
Raw and painful and uncomfortable.
“Don’t try to talk,” I say watching as her eyes come to mine. Then go wide.
As though she’s only just now processing that I’m here.
“But—” she begins.
I move to her side. “Don’t talk,” I order.
