“No, please, no,” I whisper as I brush his dark hair away from his face. I don’t care about the blood or bruises or anything but him living. “Nate. Please, no. Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me.”
The boy’s eyes flutter open, and he takes a breath deep enough to make his chest rise before that same breath hisses out in pain. “Mercy?”
“I’m here, Nate.” Words tumble out before I can stop them or have time to wonder why I’m calling him Nate—the same name as Mercy’s secret boyfriend in my dreams. I smooth his dark hair back and kiss his cold forehead. “I’m here.”
They’re getting ready to take Nate away, and I can’t let that happen. I don’t even know if his name is Nate, but that’s what I called him, so I’m going with that until I know otherwise. His hand is still in mine, holding on so tight that both our knuckles are white.
“Miss, what is your relationship to the victim?”
I jump, startled to remember we’re not the only two people in the rotunda. One of the EMTs is looking at me.
“Um, relationship?” I ask.
“Sister? Girlfriend?” He flips open a little notebook, poised and ready to write everything I say. “We need to load him up into the ambulance, and we can’t take you along unless you’re related.”
I smooth the boy’s dark hair away from his forehead. His face is surprisingly cut- and bruise-free from the fall. I’m no doctor, but it looks like he took the brunt of the injuries to his ribs and left side. His breath wheezes and catches as it tries to maintain a rhythm akin to normal. My eyes fill up with tears for a boy I just met and know nothing about. Or do I?
I get that prickly hair-standing-on-end feeling that means a ghost is near. I look up to the scene of the fall. Abigail leans over the wooden, waist-high railing. “Go with him,” she says.
If I answer her, I’ll be the crazy girl talking out loud to herself with a death grip on the hand of a boy she doesn’t know. It would only take one person in the crowd to pay attention to me for once for that rumor to spread. Instead, I shake my head just enough for Abigail to know I heard her and mouth, “How?”
“Think of something.” Abigail shimmers in her earnestness. “Anything—just don’t leave him. Go with him. He needs you.”
The thing is, I’m the world’s worst liar. If you want to clean up at cards, play poker with me. Rather than work on my poker face, I gave up any attempts at lying while growing up and decided it was easier to fall into the “good girl” role. It didn’t help that I had no siblings to blame anything on. What was Abigail thinking asking me to lie my way into the boy’s ambulance now? I give her an okay, it’s your funeral look before opening my mouth.
“I’m his fiancé,” I tell the EMTs. “Or-or, I would be. He didn’t have time to propose. I was on my way to meet him when the accident happened.”
What was that? I resist the urge to clamp my hands over my mouth. It’s almost like the words belong to someone else. Someone who is way better at spinning stories than I am. The best part is, the EMT buys it hook, line, and sinker. I glance up at Abigail, who grins at me before disappearing.
“Do you know anyone else we can call to tell about the accident?” the first EMT asks.
I shake my head. “No. Sorry. There’s just me.”
I glance around the crowd, remembering where I’m at. I hope to hell my little performance piece doesn’t get back to Jay. Things are awkward between us already (at least on my part). I don’t need to explain why I made up a story about being engaged to someone else so I could ride along to the hospital. I flick my gaze around the crowd to find someone I think I can trust. In a room full of Patrice wannabes, I see Ritzi Carmichael. She’s standing close to Nate, looking at him the same way I was a few minutes ago—like she knows him from somewhere. She blinks hard and shakes herself out of wherever she mentally ran off to. When she looks up, she sees me, and I motion for her to come closer. Ritzi lives in the dorm next to me and we share a bathroom. You learn a lot about a person when you share a bathroom. I can trust her.
“Ritzi, don’t tell Jay I’m riding along to the hospital,” I say.
She plays along. “Tell Jay what?”
“And let my dad know I’ll be back when I can, okay? If anyone else asks, I’m just helping out the EMTs. I know more about the school than anyone else.”
Ritzi gives me a salute. “Promise to tell me everything when you can! Patrice will have a fit if I know something before she does.”
“I will!” I yell as the EMTs usher Nate and me out of the room and into the waiting ambulance.
There’s a whirlwind of commotion as we arrive at the hospital. I stay focused and single-minded as I follow the gurney. Abigail’s words echo in my head: Go with him. He needs you. Don’t leave him. My little stunt at school gave me a front row seat to his care I don’t deserve, but I need to figure out why. Why is he so familiar? Why did I call him Nate? Why did he call me Mercy? Why did I hyperventilate at the thought of losing him? There’s way, way too many whys and not enough answers.
I tune in and listen as the EMT rattles off the details of the accident.
“Sixteen-year-old male, Nathan Vale, fell a single story over a balcony onto marble tile. The extent of the injuries appears to be cracked ribs, facial lacerations, left dislocated shoulder, and bruising. I recommend an MRI to rule out internal damage. This is—” he motions at me— “his fiancée.”
“Meredith,” I supply. “Meredith Monroe.”
“We’ll take it from here, Miss Monroe,” a female doctor says as they wheel him away before I can say anything else. That’s it. He’s gone as suddenly as he appeared.
I find a chair in the waiting room and sit down to do what the room wants me to do—wait. And I think. Nathan. His name is Nathan. Nathan Vale. Not Nate, just like my name is Meredith, not Mercy. I have plenty of time to run those words—Nathan Vale—over and over in my head while I wait for an update on his condition. I hope they don’t think to check my shoddy cover story. Now I think of it, it sounds like something straight out of a 1990s romantic comedy. Except no one’s laughing—especially if they find out it’s not the truth, which it definitely is not. I never saw the guy before today.
At least, not while I’ve been awake.
I fidget with the Claddagh ring on my right hand. It’s a simple silver design, nothing flashy, which is weird considering Jay, the master of flashy, over-the-top gestures, gave it to me. I’ve always liked that the crown, heart, and hands represent loyalty, love, and friendship. If the heart is turned in toward your body, it means you’re in a relationship. I remember the night he gave it to me, I tried to wear it out, and he corrected me. “No,” he’d said, slipping it off and turning it around, “you wear it this way. It means you’re my girl, Mer. You’ll always be my girl.” Now I’m in a hospital chasing a stranger. How did I get to this point?
“Are you Nathan Vale’s fiancée?”
A nurse is hovering near me with a clipboard. Good. No one checked my cover story. To the hospital staff, I’m still a fiancée instead of a complete stranger.