Page 68 of The Emma Special

Careful not to move too quickly, he gathered her into a cradle hold. As soon as her body rested against him, she buried her face against his neck. She gripped a handful of his shirt on his shoulder and tensed.

“I’ve got you,” he whispered against her hair, begging and praying silently that he could fix whatever he’d broken.

When he got the passenger door opened, he lowered her to the seat with every ounce of care in his body. She let out a low wail and kept her grip tight on his shirt as he crouched beside the car. Her beautiful face distorted in agony.

“Emma.” He cupped her face in his hands. “What happened?”

She kept her eyes closed tight as she staggered through her words. “My. Knee.”

No. Not this. He couldn’t watch Emma endure the pain, knowing he was powerless to stop it. “What can I do?”

“I… I don’t know. It’s never been this bad before. It just…”

James wiped the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs and dried them on his pants before moving his attention to the hem of her red dress. “Show me what hurts.”

Emma rocked back and forth as the tears continued pouring from her eyes. “All of it,” she said, straining on every word.

Nothing looked different about her knee, but the damage was apparent in every jerky move and soul-crushing wail.

James grabbed her hand on his shoulder, desperately trying to anchor her to him through the pain. “I’m taking you to the hospital.”

“No! No, you can’t,” she said, eyes wide and scared even in the darkness.

“What do you mean? We have to do something. You can’t even move.”

“But I—I can’t. I’ll ice—I’ll—more careful.”

“Emma, this is beyond ice. You can’t even speak in complete sentences.”

Her grip on his shirt released, and her hand slid from his. She hung her head and let the tears fall freely.

It was going to kill him. He couldn’t watch her cry. She was in pain, and he couldn’t take it away.

Once the sobs began to subside, she raised her head and wiped her cheeks. “I can’t go to the hospital because I can’t afford it.”

“You have…”

Insurance.

But she didn’t have insurance. He did the quick math, and she’d been just short of the thirty-day waiting period for insurance at Anderson and Associates.

A wave of cold rushed down his spine. She didn’t have insurance. She didn’t have a job. She was injured and couldn’t afford the help she needed.

Her cries began anew as he stared at her. She wasn’t just crying from the pain. There was so much more to her despair.

What had he done? He’d lived his entire life with the assurance that he could walk into any doctor’s office or hospital knowing it wasn’t going to drain his bank account. His life, full of privilege and ease, was nothing like Emma’s, and the chasm between them reared its ugly head.

He rested his hand on her shoulder and gave it a small squeeze. “Listen, I’m going to take you to the hospital, and I’m going to pay for it.”

“No! You can’t.”

“Yes, I definitely can.”

She shook her head forcefully. “I know from firsthand experience how expensive a visit to the hospital is. And then they're going to tell me again I need surgery that’s completely outrageous.”

“I’m good for it.”

“You can’t. I won’t let you. I’ll never be able to pay you back.”