Total pages in book: 90
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 84802 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 424(@200wpm)___ 339(@250wpm)___ 283(@300wpm)
“Where did you wake up this morning?”
“In my bed.” He folds his hands.
“Alone?”
“Wench,” he says, laughing. “Okay fine, we woke up together.”
“When is the last time you didn’t wake up with him?” I ask him, and he smirks. “And not because he was traveling but because he stayed home.”
“I think it’s been six.”
“Seven months,” I tell him, “that we know of.”
“We aren’t putting a label on our relationship,” he says.
“Are you saying you guys can see other people?” I ask him, and he glares at me. “I’m just asking.”
“We have an understanding,” he says.
“That you don’t see other people?” I point out. “So you’re a couple.”
He rolls his eyes at me. “This isn’t about me. This is about you and finally letting someone past your steel exterior.”
“I don’t have a steel exterior.” Now I roll my eyes at him. “I just was busy becoming the best doctor I could.”
“Then love would come later?” he says, and I get up.
“I’ll tell Melissa and the nurses.” I walk to the door, grabbing the handle, and I’m about to leave when Steve calls me again.
“I’d better be a bridesmaid,” he says right before I slam the door. I walk past the nurses’ station. “Morning,” I say, smiling and going to the lounge to dump my purse and jacket and grab my lab coat. Walking out to the nurses’ station, I take the charts and start reading through last night’s activity.
“How is she doing?” I ask Janet when I walk to Evie’s room.
“She is so happy that her brother and father are here.” She smiles as she looks at Evie lying in bed curled up in her father’s arms. Her brother lies beside her, the sound of the Trolls movie playing on the iPad they are watching. “She’s a daddy’s girl.”
I smile at her and observe Darryl not watching the iPad but instead looking at his daughter, watching her. Kissing her head every second minute. She would look up, and her eyes just shined a little brighter.
“Love you,” he whispers to her.
“I’ll come by later and check on you.” I smile at her and walk away, but she grabs my arm.
“What if that was your daughter in there?” she says quietly. “What if that was your daughter in there dying a little bit more every day, and you couldn’t do anything for her? Would you just give up?”
“No,” I answer her honestly. “I would fight until I had no more fight left in me.”
She nods her head. “Then help me do something. Help me do anything.”
“Janet,” I say, shaking my head and looking down so I don’t have a breakdown in front of her.
“Please,” she begs, begs for her daughter, begs for herself; she begs for her family.
“Let me see what I can do,” I tell her and walk away from her to my next patient. I do my rounds, and I’m walking to the nurses’ desk when the phone buzzes in my pocket, and I see it’s Allison.
“Hello,” I say to her. Smiling, I look at the nurses and say, “I’m going for a coffee.”
“Hello,” Allison says while the nurses just nod at me.
“What’s up?” I ask her.
“We got it,” she says, and I stop walking mid-step.
“Got what?”
“We got a generous donation this morning from a new donor,” she says, and I’m hearing the words, but I don’t think I understand them.
“Allison,” I whisper at her, and she must know by my tone that I need more.
“We got the money for your patient,” she says, and I have to hold on to the wall, or I’ll be on the floor, falling to my knees.
“Are you sure?” I whisper, my heart beating as I turn around and ask the nurses. “Where is Steve?”
Mallory answers right away. “In his office.”
I run to his office while Allison tells me that they will send over the check today, so we can put it in her name and bring it over.
“Yes. I have to go tell Steve,” I tell her and hang up when I get to his office door. I knock because the last time I didn’t, I caught him pinned against the wall by Olivier.
“Come in,” he says, and I walk in panting.
“We got it,” I say, and he just looks at me. “We got the money for Evie.”
He gets up and rounds his desk. “Are you serious?”
“I am. Allison just called; they got a donation this morning, and it’s all going to her.”
“Have you told Janet?” he asks me, and I shake my head.
“No, I came to you first,” I tell him, and he puts his face in his hands and cries. I walk to him and put my hand on his shoulder. “We got her.”
“We got her,” he says, and then I turn to walk out and he follows me while we walk to Evie’s room.