Control Freak

I accelerate toward the main road. I guess I’m about to find out.

There’s a gravel path next to the road that skirts Bushy Park, and I see a runner in a gray-blue jogging outfit. Something about the way her ponytail swings looks familiar. I keep watching, certain that I recognize her. She bends over her knees as if she’s dizzy, then puts one desperate hand to her chest and crumples to the ground.

“Jävlar!” I pull up onto the grass verge and get out of my car. “Lacey.”

Several people are crowding around her, some of them reaching for their phones to call an ambulance. I think I hear someone say, “Isn’t that Chris Petrou’s daughter? Quick, call him.”

I push past them all and fall to my knees beside Lacey. I turn her over, and her eyes are closed and her face is a deathly white. “Lacey, oh jävla Kristus.”

Don’t be dead. Please, God, don’t let her be dead. I cradle her in my arms, searching for any sign of life, and I’m shocked by the change in her. There are dark circles under her eyes and I can see the orbits of her eye sockets through her skin. When did she lose all this weight? How did I not see this was happening?

I hear ambulance sirens, and then there are hands on me. They’re trying to take Lacey away from me. People dressed in dark green and fluorescent yellow jumpsuits speak urgently to me, and I finally realize they’re paramedics. I get shakily to my feet as they get to work on her. A moment later they’re strapping her onto a gurney and loading her into the ambulance.

I go to follow them, but one of the paramedics stops me. “Are you her father?”

Thin and weak as she is, Lacey looks fifteen, not twenty-five. “Yes.” Whatever it takes to get me into that ambulance. I don’t care.

A voice speaks behind me. “I’m her father.”

I turn and see Petrou behind me, his face blank with shock as he looks at his daughter unresponsive on the gurney with an oxygen mask over her face. He pushes past me into the ambulance, and the doors slam closed behind him.

I run back to my car and tailgate the ambulance to hospital, running every red light and hearing the honking of angry drivers. I don’t fucking care. I’m not letting that vehicle out of my sight. I can’t let Lacey out of my sight. Look what happened to her in just two days without me.

At the hospital, the ambulance disappears into a bay and I pull into what I think might be a parking space and run into the ER. Lacey’s not there, and neither is Petrou. I see a set of double doors and I start toward them, but a security guard steps toward me, his thumbs tucked into his belt.

I swear under my breath, wondering what to do next. I speak to the triage nurse, but because I’m not bleeding or passing out, she snaps at me to get out of the way. I try calling Petrou, but there’s no answer. I pace up and down inside the ER waiting room, clutching my phone, dialing Petrou’s number every other minute.

Where’s Lacey? What’s happening? What are they doing to her?

A woman comes hurrying into the waiting room from the street, her eyes wild with fright and worry. I recognize her dark hair and the shape of her face even though I’ve never met her. It’s Lacey’s mother. Petrou himself comes through the doors that were barred to me, and the woman cries out and hurries into his arms.

I stride over, and Petrou sees me over his wife’s shoulder as he embraces her. He looks as terrible as I feel.

“What’s happened to Lacey?” I demand, at the same time as Mrs. Petrou.

“They think she had a heart attack,” Petrou tells his wife, and she starts to sob. “The doctors are examining her now. She was unconscious the whole way here.” He glances at me. “Thank you for coming along, Stian. I guess they wouldn’t have let you in the ambulance if you said you were her boss.”

This isn’t the time or the place, but I haven’t got a choice if I want to get nearer to Lacey.

“She’s my girlfriend,” I say hoarsely. “We’ve been seeing each other for the last six weeks.”

Petrou and his wife both turn to me in shock. An accusing expression slides across Mrs. Petrou’s face. I think she must have suspected something was going on between us, and now Lacey’s been taken to hospital. She thinks it’s my fault.

I don’t blame her, because I think it’s my fault, too.

A heart attack. She’s only twenty-five. She’s too young to die. It should be me in there. Why isn’t it me?

A man in scrubs comes through the doors, looking for the Petrous, and Mrs. Petrou grabs her husband’s arm. “Chris, the doctor.”