Julianne glanced back at me when I gasped.
“But he’s okay now, right?” I asked.
Peter nodded, touching my shoulder. “He needs to rest. We’ll call you tomorrow.”
I nodded, and Peter left us for the hall.
Sam and Julianne breathed out a simultaneous breath of relief.
“I feel like I should have caught it earlier,” Coach Langdon said.
“Don’t blame yourself,” Julianne said.
The coach rubbed the back of his neck. “Ask Peter to keep me updated.”
Sam nodded, and the coach pulled his keys from his pocket and pushed the glass door, walking in quick steps to his car.
“You ready, honey?” Sam said to me, holding out his hand.
“He stayed out there because he wanted to win,” I said. “He probably knew what was happening, and he didn’t tell anyone because he wanted to finish the game.”
Sam offered a sympathetic smile. “It was his last game, Erin.”
“No, I agreed. He said if he lost his game today, then I wouldn’t have to go to prom with him.”
Julianne frowned.
Tears filled my eyes. “He didn’t want to go to Duke. He wanted to go to the Art Institute of Dallas. I gave him my word that if he told Peter, I would go to prom with him. He told Peter, but I couldn’t go. Not after…Weston offered a double or nothing. He asked me to come to game today, and said if he didn’t win, then he wouldn’t bother me about prom.”
Julianne’s lip trembled. “This isn’t your fault, sweetheart.”
“I was going to go anyway. I didn’t care what they did to me, I was going to go, but I’ve been torturing him the last two weeks, making him feel like I hated him. I know exactly how it feels to be hated, and I did it to him. That’s so much worse than what anyone has ever done to me.”
“Erin, honey,” Sam began, but I shook my head and took a step back from him.
“Everyone’s been saying how he was the awful one, and I was the victim. Even him. But you’re all wrong. I’m the terrible one. I know how hurtful it is, and I…I love him. I know what it’s like to feel rejection from someone who’s supposed to love you. I had no excuse to treat him that way, and he nearly died today over the stupid prom. Just so I would go with him.”
Those still seated in the waiting room watched the scene I was making, half of them curious, half of them making judgments.
“You’re exhausted,” Sam said. “Let’s go home, and we’ll bring you back first thing in the morning. As soon as you wake up.”
I shook my head. “I can’t leave him. I should be here.”
“I know you want to—” Sam said.
“No, I should. It’s a should, Sam, not just a want.”
“Okay,” Julianne said, taking my hand. “Sam, you have an early case. I’ll stay here with our daughter.”
Sam nodded. “Of course. Of course,” he said, taking Julianne’s keys when she extended them. He hugged us both and pushed the door open, disappearing into the dark parking lot.
Julianne spoke with one of the women behind the admissions desk, and then she gestured for me to follow her. We walked to the elevator and rode it to the second floor.
The waiting room was dark and empty. Julianne switched on the light, and we took a seat on a bench seat. She pulled me to lie down in her lap, and I did, letting the tears fall from my eyes, across my nose, and onto her jeans. She ran her fingers through my hair but didn’t speak.
“I was scared,” I whispered. “I didn’t know how to forgive him. I didn’t know how to be in love with him. I didn’t know how to make it work. I feel like I’ve been waiting for my life to begin, and Blackwell was the holding pattern. I thought Weston was part of that. I couldn’t see anyone from here fitting into my new life.”
“You were hurt by what you read in those journals. On top of the years of hurt you’ve already endured. No one blames you. Not even Weston. It’s obvious by his behavior. Did he say why he agreed to help Alder?”
“Just that she offered him a way to do something he already wanted.”
“Oh,” she said, but it was more of an aw. She placed her palm gently on my forehead.
“He makes me feel too much. I’ve spent my entire life not letting people get to me. The way I feel about him scares me.”
“Rest, my love. It will all be different in the morning.”
I lay there, trying to relax, but as tired as my body felt, I couldn’t close my eyes, afraid of waking up to bad news. Hours went by, and I felt Julianne’s hand relax, and her breathing leveled off.
Footsteps shuffled from the tiled hallway to the carpeted waiting room, and I looked up to see Veronica standing in the doorway.
“Guess who’s awake,” she whispered with a smile.
I sat up, waking Julianne.
“Is he better?” I asked.
“He’s asking for you. He won’t go back to sleep. I was hoping you were still here.”
“Can I see him?” I asked, leaning forward.
Veronica stepped to the side. “He’s in two ten.”
I shot up from my seat and tried not to run down the hall, searching every plaque on the wall with numbers until I reached Weston’s room. It was dark, and I walked in slowly.
He was sitting up, his dark form stiffening when he recognized me.
“Erin,” he said, his voice weak. He patted the thin blue blanket, wanting me to sit in the empty spot next to him.
His hand was taped, with IV tubing leading to a bag of saline. A cannula was in his nose and hooked over the back of his ears, the oxygen flowing from an apparatus on the wall.
He was still pale and seemed frail in the baby-blue hospital gown he wore. His feet reached all the way to the end of the bed.
I sat next to him, just like I’d wanted to since we’d arrived, but now that I was there, the words didn’t come.
He kept his head back, resting against several pillows that were used to prop him up.
“Did we win?” he asked.
I laughed once. “Who cares?”
“I do. I really don’t want to miss taking you to prom.”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll go with you if you still want me to.”
He frowned. “Well, hell. If I’d known all I had to do was have an asthma attack to get you to go with me, I would have had one weeks ago.” He winked.