I’m in the middle of a mental tug-o-war, fighting my urge to see Cross with my fear of being found by dirty cops or the cartel, and trying to decide what to do about the girl, when she starts talking through her tears:
“What’s wrong with me? What’s wrong with ME?!” Her eyes fly up to mine, and I blink.
The girl hops to her feet and spins in a circle like a cornered humming bird. Then she throws up her hands. “I don’t understand what’s wrong with me!”
I don’t either. I look the crying girl over, holding her desperate gaze with my calming one. I ask, “What happened to your shirt?”
She covers her face and starts to cry again. Just when I’m wondering how horrible it would be to bolt, she peeks at me from between her skinny fingers and heaves a teary sigh. “I tore it.”
I frown—that much is already obvious—and she shakes her head. “No, I’m saying I tore it. I got pissed off, and I tore it! Like a wrestler!”
I laugh a little, then cover my mouth, feeling terrible, but the girl starts cackling, too.
“It’s okay. I’m insane. I know.”
I shake my head, because even though I have no idea what’s going on with her, I definitely understand the sentiment. “You’re not insane. Just upset.”
She nods, and as she does, she’s looking me over. Probably noticing that I’m blood-stained and my hair is crazy. Her brows narrow, but only for a moment, and then she’s crying again. “My life is so messed up. You don’t even know. First my fiancé broke things off and then I fell for my best guy friend. It was messed up—really messed up—but I’ve had a crush on him since like, the dawn of time, and he was in the middle of a really awful time and I just… I don’t know.” Her voice cracks.
“I think I just wanted to be invaluable to someone.” She swallows, nodding as she holds my gaze. “He really needed me at the time, and I wanted to feel special.” She sniffs and wipes her nose. “I let myself get carried away. And then I embarrassed myself. And now he’s here, and I want to be his friend and be here for him but I’m not sure how I can.” Tears drip off her chin and she wipes them out of her eyes. She glanced all about the room, then her eyes land on the shelf beside me. Her lips pucker, and she glances to me, then back to the shelf.
“Oh my God, is that Cross Carlson’s jacket?” The crying starts again as she points a finger at me. “Are you his wife? Are you the biker chick he met in Mexico!”
I’m sure I must look like a deer in headlights. The pretty girl’s eyes pop out, and she turns her back to me. “I can’t believe I told you all that!” She wails. “I can’t—Oh my God!”
“I’m not his wife.” When I say that, she turns slowly around, and I get the feeling that whatever I say next is helping her off some kind of ledge. “I don’t even know him,” I say. And then the lie just goes from there. “I’m a nurse. I came in off-shift for a meeting with my boss and I got caught in the commotion surrounding, I guess your friend? Mr. Carlson. I helped them get him from the roof to the OR, and someone handed me this.” I feel like I’m giving this girl a piece of my heart as I pass the jacket to her. “I’m hiding in this closet to avoid…my boss,” I quickly lie. “He and I have this complicated thing…”
My heart is pounding and I feel like a lying sinner, but the girl isn’t focused on me at all. “You saw Cross? Oh my God, how was he?”
I don’t want to tell her. I’m being possessive of my knowledge, because at this point it may be the only thing I have.
“He was…” I fumble, then realize I can bypass my emotions by playing the role of a nurse. “Your friend had a gunshot wound, but I’m pretty sure it didn’t hit anything vital. When they took him to the OR, the general consensus was that he would probably be fine.”
“Oh my God.” She covers her face, then seems to remember her chest and covers it with her other arm. “I’m so embarrassed that I freaked out like I did. It’s just…I heard my friend got married to this random woman he met on this biker trip to Mexico. My other best friend is getting married, too, and…” She shrugs, and her face collapses like she’s going to cry again.
All my possessive pseudo-animosity is gone, and suddenly it’s like I remember how to be a woman. A normal, American woman…not a sex slave or a nun. I wrap my arms around her, and the woman’s pretty face is pressed against my shoulder.
It’s pitiful, because all I can think is that I’m happy I get to comfort someone Cross knows. Someone he cares about. I know he would like that.
I really shouldn’t care.
After a minute, she pulls away. “Thank you,” she says, and I can tell she’s working hard to hid her embarrassment. She slips on the jacket and I smile. “See? No one will know about your shirt.”
“Except my therapist.” She laughs, a hollow little sound. “I think I need to find one, ASAP.”
I shrug. “You don’t seem too crazy to me.”
“Maybe not,” she sighs. “I’m definitely terrible at the boy-girl thing, though.”
“Maybe you just haven’t found the right boy.” It sounds trite, but it makes my heart ache because I think of Cross. No son of Drake Carlson can ever be the right man for me.
The girl standing across from me bites her lip, then shakes her head—reminding me, in that moment, of someone years younger. “Not really,” she says, as her eyes glitter with tears again. “I’ve started thinking there’s just…no one.”
I hug her again, this time one-armed. “That’s not true. There’s someone for everyone.”
She sighs. “My guy is probably a missionary on some tiny island somewhere.”
This makes me laugh, and a second later she giggles. She has a cute-sounding giggle. As we smile, I can see why Cross likes her. Before I can wonder how much, the intercom hums on, and a woman’s voice calls my name. Well, she says “Meredith Carlson. Please come to the Operating Room Intake Desk.”
My lungs seize up, because the woman didn’t say who was paging me—a nurse or the cops. Maybe I should just walk out. Hitchhike to Vegas. I could do that, couldn’t I? It would suck, but I could do it.
The girl sniffs loudly. “I guess I can go meet the real…” She almost loses it. “His new wife,” she finishes gamely. “I think maybe that means he’s out of surgery now, and we can get an update.”