She blinks a few times and dashes away while the ambulance crew brings the stretcher to the ground. The male doctor the women all love strides to us, then he’s talking to Mercedez and the paramedic. Milly pulls me by the arm when we step inside the ER, but Mercedez screams out for me.
With a frown, I shake my head at Milly. “I can’t do this right now. I must be with Mercedez.”
“I’m sorry—you have to wait in the waiting room while we assess her,” Milly replies.
My shoulders drop. “Just let me talk to her first.”
I walk to Mercedez. “The doctor needs to talk to you. I’ll be in the waiting room. I’m not leaving here, okay?”
Mercedez starts crying again, and as I walk out, she calls out my name. I flinch, but I keep on walking.
Milly ushers me out to the waiting room, where I plonk down on a seat.
“What happened?” she asks, concerned. “She tried to kill herself. Why?”
I raise my head. “She put a tracker on my bike, and she followed me. She has photos of us kissing outside the hotel.” I shake my head in disbelief. “We were so careless in doing that. Now she knows, and she threatened to kill herself over it.”
Milly gasps out loud. I can see the guilt written all over her face. She moves to touch my cheek. “Is that a hand mark?”
I pull away before she can touch me.
With wide eyes, she asks, “Did she hit you?”
“Yep, she did,” I answer bluntly. I still can’t believe it. Did I deserve a slap? I don’t think so, but another part of me still questions it, like maybe I did. Maybe I was giving her the wrong impression, and I should have ended it when I thought she was getting too serious and overprotective of me. But I didn’t, and here I am... at the hospital.
Milly lets out a deep sigh. “Does anyone else know about us?” she asks quietly.
I cringe. “No, she didn’t tell anyone. Well, not that I’m aware of, and no one mentioned it.”
Milly looks deep in thought.
I run a hand through my hair and peer off into the distance. “What will happen with Mercedez now?”
“The psychiatrist will talk to her, but if she’s a danger to herself, she may be put on a psych hold.”
My head falls into my hands. I’m overwhelmed. “Everything happened so fast. I knew she liked me, but I never thought she was capable of this. If I had thought she would go to these lengths, I would have ended our fling a long time ago.” I feel a hand on my shoulder.
“You can’t predict how someone will act. It’s not your fault.”
I let out a cold chuckle and glance up at her. “Then whose fault is it?”
Milly presses her lips together and stays silent.
“Whatever this is between me and you... it needs to be on hold for now. With everything that’s going on.” I throw my hands up and gesture around the hospital. I can’t have a death on my conscience, no matter how much it hurts for us to have a break. Though there’s a part of me that questions whether we’ll ever be able to have a good time again like we did yesterday.
Tears glisten in her eyes, and I feel as though I’ve been stabbed in the heart. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, with an aching pain in my voice. “It’s not the right time.” To be honest, I don’t know if there’ll ever be the right time for us.
She forces a smile, but the tears fall. “I understand.”
I know she does, but it doesn’t make this any easier.
“I’ve got to get back to work,” Milly says, before walking away and back into the ER.
I watch her disappear through the ER doors, her shoulders stiff, her head held high. But I know her well enough to see the cracks beneath the surface. She’s hurting, and I’m the one who put that pain there. My chest feels hollow, like someone’s ripped out a piece of me and left nothing but an aching void.
I lean my head back against the hospital wall. The weight of everything presses down on me—Mercedez, Milly, the club, Reaper. It’s all too much. I feel like I’m standing on the edge of a cliff and one wrong move will send me plummeting into the abyss.
The automatic doors slide open and a nurse steps out, her eyes scanning the area. “Reece?” she calls.
