Page 59 of Whenever You Call

He shrugged like he couldn’t care less. “The next time you’re smiling at your phone like a dumbass, though, don’t expect me to keep quiet about it.”

“You’re an idiot,” I said with a feigned huff of laughter, turning away from him in the hope he didn’t see anything I didn’t want or need him to see.

Hannah’s smile flashed through my mind, and I had to push it away as I rested my elbow on the window and pressed a knuckle to my mouth. The streets of Los Angeles whizzed by, but I didn’t take much of them in. Not the dark, murky poverty that sat on display for the rich to ignore or the way we quickly slipped into the bright, airy, palm-tree-lined streets of the Hollywood movies.

In such a short space of time, Hannah Moore had become my only focus. I wasn’t sure how I’d let it happen, and I didn’t know how the hell I was ever going to get out of it. Not without far too many people getting hurt. Especially her.

Every scenario possible played out in my mind, morning, noon, and night.

What if I confessed?

Maybe she’d forgive me. Maybe she’d understand.

Maybe she’d stare into my eyes for a second before she screamed and told me to get out of her life forever. Maybe she’d hate me for the rest of time.

I secretly hoped for both outcomes. I wanted her to listen and believe that I never intended to lie to her for so long, but I also needed her to punish me for doing what I’d done. Her forgiveness would almost hurt more than her hatred.

Jerry turned the wheel and took a right. “You think that last patient who refused our help will be our next callout or what?”

“No doubt about it. I give her thirty minutes, max.”

You could almost set your watch by it with these people—the kind who ran their bodies into the ground, only for those same bodies to finally falter. Then they refused the care they so desperately needed, knowing they had no medical insurance or savings for medical bills when every spare cent they had went up their nose or got injected into their veins.

It was a vicious cycle far too many were caught up in, and the world had no solution other to keep making more of that toxic shit that destroyed good people so easily.

Sure enough, twenty-two minutes later, the call came through letting us know the woman had crashed again. Jerry turned on the sirens and spun the truck around in the middle of the street, making me cling onto the Oh Shit handle above my head until he straightened us out, and we flew down the boulevard to save someone’s life again.

It was the worst possible time for my cell to vibrate in my pocket, and I side-eyed Jerry to see if he’d noticed before I pulled it out and tried to take a discreet look at the screen.

Hannah: Thought-provoking quote incoming. Bear with me here.

Hannah: I’ve realized it’s possible to miss someone you barely know when they’re not with you because that someone, somehow, brings a piece of you back to yourself that you’d never meant to let go.

A small smile tugged at my lips. Her face had been all over the Internet since she dared to step out into real life again, only five days ago. Most of the reports had been positive, too, showing respect for a young woman and mother who’d lost a husband and father to her daughter. I’d been drunk on pride the moment she’d called me to tell me where she’d been and how it had gone. She’d been giddy on her success for days after, while I’d been unable to stop looking at one picture of her in particular where she stood facing the ocean, her feet in the water, her baseball cap and sneakers in her hands, and her head tilted back slightly as though she’d closed her eyes and lost herself to the temporary calm she found herself in.

A moment like that had been all I’d ever wanted for her.

My only wish? That I could have been there standing beside her to see it for myself.

Another message came through before I had a chance to respond to the first two.

Hannah: Thank you, Logan.

Logan: Quit thanking me all the time. I’ve told you. I don’t need it.

Hannah: You’re not the boss of me. ;)

“Get your head in the game, kid. We’re almost there,” Jerry said, making me push my cell back into my pants pocket, and stare straight ahead as I tried not to think of all the things that I’d do to her if she’d let me be the boss of her for just one night.

One hour.

One chance.

But I had to let those thoughts go the moment we jumped out of the ambulance, gathered our medical kits, and we ran back into the house we’d not long since left, hoping for a better reception than the first time. Hoping we’d be allowed to do our jobs.

Thankfully, knowing she was finally out of options, the woman and her boyfriend co-operated. We transported her to the nearest medical center without too much interference, and while Jerry drove us through the streets as quickly as he could, I pretended to be friends with the people in the back of the truck, keeping them on side until the time came to pass them over to be someone else’s problem.

It had always been the best way to get them to comply; to act as though you were genuinely interested before you led them to a place they didn’t really want to go. Reverse psychology worked, and it worked well in these types of situations. Making them think something was their idea all along meant they were more likely to go through with it in the end, doing what was best for them, even if they didn’t realize it yet.

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