It was like his chest had been hit with a steel bar. Oliver couldn’t reply. He shifted his body into a full sitting position and tried to take a breath. It wasn’t coming.
‘Oliver?’ Hayley asked, pulling the sheet up around her and looking straight at him. ‘Wow, did I hit you that hard? I obviously don’t know my own strength, Man of Steel.’
This couldn’t happen now. He tried to raise his chest but everything was compacting down like someone had placed a railway sleeper on his ribcage. The beads of sweat were at his foreheadalready and his vision was starting to blur. This wasn’t like the last time. This was much, much worse. He fought to regain control.
‘Oliver?’ Hayley said again. There was concern in her voice.
‘I’m OK,’ he breathed out, the words scratching and jarring.
‘Oliver, please. You’re scaring me.’
Her eyes were wide and pricked with tears as she stared at him. She reached a hand out for his and he moved it away. He needed to manage this on his own. He didn’t want to let this touch her.
‘Really, I’m OK,’ he whispered through dry lips. His body’s reaction was continuing to tell him the exact opposite.
‘You’re not OK. I canseeyou’re not OK. Tell me what to do or I’m going to call an ambulance.’
He didn’t want to die. He especially didn’t want to die now, after a night that had meant so much. There was no denying he was falling hard for her and maybe this was telling him he was a fool to even think of it. What good was a dying man to her? What good was a dying man to anyone?
His heart galloped in response, pulsing the blood through his veins until it was all he could hear in his head. This was really happening, right here, right now, when he was probably the happiest he had been since his father died.
He used his arms to push himself to the edge of the bed, trying his best to shut out the pain and Hayley’s piteous scrutiny. He needed to get up. Somehow, he needed to find the strength.
‘Right, that’s it,’ Hayley said, grabbing his robe and wrapping it around herself. ‘This is crazy. I’m calling an ambulance.’
‘Hayley, please…’ The words barely made it from his mouth. ‘Please, just go.’
‘Go?! Are you completely insane? I’m not going anywhere.’ She picked up her sequinned bag and pulled her phone from inside. He watched her thumb move across the screen.911.
His throat was starting to get tight now and his head was fillingup like someone was tipping liquid cotton candy inside then letting it grow and morph. The pressure in his chest was unbearable. It would be easy to give in. Just let his body have its own way, sink into the pain, give in to it all. No more worrying, no more stress, just peace. As he tried to get up from the bed, he felt his eyes start to close.
‘Hello? Yes, I need an ambulance… I need an ambulance now.’
St Patrick’s Hospital, Manhattan
Oliver was in the same room and attached to the same machine he’d been strapped to the time Clara had accompanied him here. Hayley was sat where Clara had been sat but instead of spinning the beads on a statement necklace, she was chewing at her nails. They’d been left alone but he didn’t know what to say. What was there to say? Now everything was complicated. Ruined.
‘Didn’t think the morning after the night before, I’d end up in the hospital,’ Hayley remarked. ‘I’ve done police stations before but never hospitals.’
‘You should go,’ Oliver said, his voice tight.
‘Why do you keep saying that?’ Hayley asked. ‘What is it you’re not telling me?’
Her voice told him he’d hit a nerve. How was he going to play this? Where was he going to go with this situation now? Last night, he had had one of the best nights of his life; it had felt as close to real as he was ever going to get. Not just physical attraction but warmth, tenderness. The hot sex in the elevator had been one thing but when they’d come together on his balcony overlooking Central Park, she’d come apart so completely, so honestly. What the hell had he been thinking? He had absolutely nothing to giveher. He was like a convict on death row, biding time, just waiting to die. He had made this situation. He had let himself care. He had lethercare. He’d had no right to do that.Askingher to leave now was too late. He’d just have tomakeher and he knew exactly how he was going to do that. However much it would hurt him, it was his own stupid fault.
He put his hands to his chest and ripped a sucker from it.
‘What are you doing? Don’t do that,’ Hayley said, her jaw dropping.
‘Any second now, a very attractive Dr Khan is going to walk through that door.’ He ripped another sucker away. ‘She’s going to look me up and down and tell me I have stress and I work too hard.’ Another sucker came off. ‘She’s told me this week already.’
He reached over the cabinet for his T-shirt and pulled it over his head.
‘Is that what it is then?’ Hayley asked. ‘Stress?’
‘So they say,’ Oliver answered.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She pushed some errant hair back behind her ear. ‘You really scared me in the apartment. I thought you were… having a heart attack or something.’
