Oh God, this is not who I am.
With no sound of sirens on the horizon, I can’t just leave him there to die all alone, or worse, surrounded by strangers. I’m no friend to him, but now I’m obligated to make sure he gets help in some twist of fate that has tied our lives together.
Without a thought, my feet move slowly at first, but I’m driven faster by desperate fear. My heart is still racing as concern takes over. I push around a guy holding a box fan in his hands and past a lady sipping her coffee over the body. I kneel beside my newfound enemy and run the tips of my fingers gently over a scrape on his face. “Warner? Warner, can you hear me?”
When he doesn’t react, I look up through watery eyes and see that the woman with her coffee is now filming as if she wants to memorialize the moment. Anger courses through my veins, and I shout, “Have you called 911?”
“They’re on their way,” replies a woman next to her, holding a grocery bag in one hand and her phone in the other. You’d think it was a planned exhibition and not a man’s life on the line by how many phones are out and filming.
I return my attention to the man who showed me no kindness or understanding toward my plight, and I offer it to him. Touching his shoulder, I look him over only for my chest to tighten when I discover blood in his hair. “He needs help.” I look up to scan the crowd. “Anyone? Please.”
As if I willed it, the crowd parts as two emergency techs cut through and kneel beside him. “What happened?” asks a paramedic in a blue uniform. He drops a medical bagbeside him, looking at me as he lowers his ear to Warner’s mouth to listen for him breathing.Oh God, is he breathing?
He checks for a pulse while I scramble for an answer. “He was hit by a car, one of those driverless cars. It stopped and then drove off.” My words are rushed like my heartbeat that’s threatening to leap from my chest. “Is he alive?”
“He has a pulse.”Thank God. Another paramedic maneuvers to secure his neck in a brace. “Name?” the first paramedic asks me.
“Warner.” I pause, his last name at the top of my shitlist for the past week as I tried to end this nightmare deal he’s doing to destroy my parents’ restaurant, but my mind momentarily blanks under pressure. “Um. . .” I glance up at the building towering over us. I can’t see any names on the side of the building, but the metal letters before the receptionist flash like gold in my mind. “Landers Ventures. Landers. Warner Landers.”
Another medic comes through carrying a stretcher and places it on the ground beside him. “On the count of three,” he says to the others.
As soon as he’s safely on it, they stand together, lifting the stretcher into the air and cutting back through the crowd. I rush through before the opening closes, sticking close to their heels. I'm unsure what to do in this situation, so I'm following as if I have the right. It’s self-serving, and he’d hate it, but that thought only inspires me to stay closer.
Warner is loaded into the ambulance, and then the paramedic who asked his name turns back to see me aimlessly standing there. Holding the door in his hand, he asks, “Are you going with him?”
“Yes,” I answer with no other excuse than I replied without thinking. I don’t owe Warner a thing, and in fact, heowes me, but I’m climbing in like a besotted fangirl. I sit where I’m told as the door is slammed shut.
What am I doing?
I glance toward the tiny back windows as if they’re an option to escape when I’m found out.
What if he wakes up?
That would be great. Ideal. I can disappear as soon as we arrive at the hospital knowing I didn’t cause his death.Oh God.I close my eyes and drop my head into my hands, wishing the events of this afternoon had played out differently.
How will I explain who I am?
I’m the girl who practically assaulted—verbally, of course—this . . . this . . . this jerk of a CEO, causing him to look back when I yelled “Hey” like a psychopath on the street to get his attention. I couldn’t bear the thought of him getting the last word in, so I was going to outdo him. That sounds awful, even to me, and I know the reasoning behind it. I’m a horrible person. They might as well call the cops on me now. Holding out my wrists, I’m mentally letting them lock me and throw away the key.
“Ma’am.”
I look at the EMT on the other side of Warner . . .Do I really have a right to call him by his first name?I’m acting like we actually know each other. We don’t. He’s the asshole who’s—“Miss?”
I bring my gaze from Mr. Landers (that’s better) to the EMT again. “Yes?”
“His birthday?”
The gasp of shock strikes my vocal cords and dries my throat. I glance at Warner again, feeling worse than I did before, and that was already pretty awful. “It’s his birthday?”
“I’m asking the date of his birth. When is it?”
“Oh.” I sit straight again, my mind fumbling through the question like I might stumble upon the answer. “I’m not sure,” I reply quieter. How is it possible for me to feel embarrassed that I don’t know this stranger’s birthday? I have no idea, but I do. “Maybe he has his wallet with him. We can check.” I feel his pant pocket on the side closest to me, hitting something hard . . . “I think it’s here.”
The EMT stares at me with a brow so furrowed it might be a pinched nerve. “Do you know this man?”
“Do I know this man?” I laugh nervously. “Do I know this man?”
“Do you?” he asks again, his gaze unrelenting in its severity.
