I’ve never seen people move so fast.
They wheeled Erin through a set of doors. Trauma one, I think someone said, is where they took her.
Every second edges me closer to a breaking point. I’m worried that if someone breathes near me too heavily, I might snap
I step up to the nearest nurse before I lose my nerve.
“Excuse me. Can we get an update on how my girlfriend’s doing?” I ask, my words hanging in the air, anxiety tightening around them like the chokehold around my neck. “I know it wasn’t that long ago they took her in, but is there anything you can tell us?”
The nurse’s expression turns compassionate, but not enough to soothe the panic filling inside me.
“Your girlfriend is stable for the moment, Mr. Harper, the bleeding has stopped and is under control but her blood count is low. We ran her type, and…there’s a complication.”
Of course there is.
“What kind of complication?” is the only thing I can get out.
“She’s O-positive, but she has an extremely rare antigen profile on her red cells. We don’t have compatible blood in our hospital supply right now, so we can’t perform the surgery until we get a match," she says, her voice neutral.
For a second, my heart drops to the floor, and I know what it feels like to be stabbed with a stiletto.
“What do we do?” Rudy blurts, stepping forward and ready to tear his own veins open if it’ll help his sister.
“We can only transfer blood that won’t trigger a reaction,” the nurse explains. “This antigen combination is inherited and uncommon. None of you are biologically related, so the likelihood of a match is very low.”
“Fuck,” Rudy whispers, stuffing both hands into his hair.
“We’ve contacted regional banks. The important takeaway here is that she is stable, and the moment we have blood, we can operate. I’ll update you when I have more information.”
And then she’s gone, disappearing into the hustle and bustle of hospital life, taking the fragile thread holding me together with her.
We sit. We wait.
Ten minutes drag by.
No updates.
No news.
Rudy bounces his knee hard enough to shake the plastic chair under him.
Bella looks exhausted, bags under her eyes, hair spilling out of her bun, and barely holding herself together—she and Brodie raced over as soon as I called them.
The second I told Bella, “Erin’s mom is here,” Bella’s breath hitched like she’d been punched.
Thenshepunchedme—square in the jaw.
I deserved that.
Hell, I probably deserved worse.
Before I could blink, she crashed into me, sobbing. I could only hold her and apologize over and over.
Again.
I didn’t tell Bella about Erin being there the night her dad died. That’s not my story to give away, and I won’t take that from Erin.
Coach Avery drops into the empty seat beside me with a grunt.
