Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 48187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48187 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 241(@200wpm)___ 193(@250wpm)___ 161(@300wpm)
Her brows furrow and she tears her brown eyes from mine. “It’s probably a fluke. I’ll go see my doctor if it happens again.”
I sense a lie in her words, but it’s not like I can force her. I’m about to continue my insistence she gets tested when chaos erupts nearby.
“Dr. Venable, you’re needed in triage one!” Chrissy calls from beyond the curtain, the frantic edge in her tone indicating I’m about to encounter something bloody.
Reluctantly, I leave the girl.
She may not be in a life-threatening situation just yet, but my gut tells me it’s only a matter of time.
Lauren
April Fool’s Day
Sweat beads across my brow as I desperately try to ignore the pain lancing through me. Of all the classes to fall ill, my senior English class with Mr. Hanks is the worst one. Neil Hanks is one of my dad’s closest friends. He’s a tattletale too.
As though he has access to my thoughts, he pins me with his dark brown eyes. His mouth moves as he discusses archetypes in stories, but his gaze is penetrating. If I know Neil, I know he’ll send a text to Dad before I even leave the classroom. Then, Dad will fly home from Chicago and baby me. More than baby me…he’ll pressure me to see a doctor.
I swallow hard and try not to come off as though I’m suffering in this hard chair. I hate doctors—even good-looking ER ones. They’re nosy and they reveal things about you that don’t deserve to be learned about. It wasn’t long after Mom was diagnosed by doctors that she deteriorated and died. One moment she was here and happy, the next she looked pretty in her favorite church dress lying in an expensive pearl-gray coffin.
Absently, I touch my silver heart necklace. It was Mom’s. A Mother’s Day gift to her the year before she died. Now it’s mine.
The ache inside me no longer belongs to physical pain, but one that comes from the soul. I miss her every day. Dad has thrown his attention into his career and Landon obsesses over his girlfriend, Callie. That’s how they cope. I’m still trying to figure out how to cope with her loss.
A wave of dizziness washes over me and I grip the edge of my desk to hold myself steady. Throbbing inside my skull begins pounding in tandem with my heartbeat. I’m soaked with sweat and lightheaded. Closing my eyes, I try to relax but my whole body jerks when I start to slump in my seat. I tense back up and suck in deep breaths.
“Miss Englewood?”
Neil’s voice echoes inside my head, forcing me to open my eyes. He blurs and becomes two. A wave of black slicks over my vision, blinding me and dragging me under.
“Lauren!”
I wake to find Neil’s worried face searching mine. Several of my peers are huddled around. I’m on the floor of the classroom. God, my head hurts. I reach up to touch my head and Neil shakes his.
“Don’t. I think you’re going to need stitches. You hit it pretty hard.”
Hit?
He pulls away a cloth that’s covered in blood before folding it and then pressing it to my forehead again. I’m embarrassed to be lying in my teacher’s lap with kids staring at me with worried looks.
“Uh, I’m fine,” I whisper.
“Where is she?” my brother barks out, rushing into the room. “Holy shit, Lauren!”
It must be serious because Neil doesn’t even get onto him about his language.
“Did you call your dad?” Neil, the tattletale, asks.
“He’s looking for a flight right now but won’t be in until later. Ambulance on the way?”
Neil nods.
Ambulance?
“I’m fine,” I try again, hot tears flooding my eyes. I just want to go home and climb into bed. “It’s just period pains.”
A few guys make gagging sounds and Landon frowns as he squats beside me.
“Nice try, sis.”
I try to scowl at my brother, but it hurts my head. It’s annoying sometimes that I have to share my senior year with him. Had he not failed the eighth grade, I could deal with this on my own.
“I got her a Sprite,” a girl named Penny says, kneeling beside Landon. But despite my brother being a football hero at our school, her eyes are all for Neil. Gross. Luckily, he ignores her.
They help me sip on the cold drink, but all it does is make my stomach churn. The last thing I want to do is get sick all over my teacher in English class with all the students watching.
“How long was I out?” I ask, blinking away another wave of dizziness.
“Fifteen minutes,” Neil says.
A cold sweat washes over me. Fifteen minutes?! Everyone just stared at me for fifteen minutes while I was passed out. Oh my God. I want to crawl into a hole and die.
“EMT is here,” someone calls out.
Commotion can be heard as two men roll into the room with a stretcher. My skin burns with embarrassment as the whole freaking class and two EMTs work together to get me situated on the stretcher. As the men assess me while simultaneously strapping me in, I can’t help but cringe. This is all a big deal over a bumped head. When Principal Renner shows up, a worried frown on his face, I decide I’d rather just die in this moment. Rather than facing all the curious stares, I close my eyes. By the time I get inside the ambulance, I don’t feel any less stressed. With Landon fretting at my side and Dad rushing to get home, I can’t help but worry this is all about to get worse.