Page 157 of The Trouble with Flings

Nobody moves.

I hear people trying to clear the hall, but I feel like I’m underwater, voices and sounds muffled by the panic consuming me.

Suddenly Clare crouches in front of me, her face draining of color. “Oh my God. Jennifer. Don’t move.”

“I’m okay,” I insist, though I hear a tremor in my voice and try to push up to sit on the steps. I wince as pain shoots through my elbow and hip.

“You fell down half the damn stairs. You are not okay.” Clare calls out to someone, “Call 911!”

Panic crashes through me harder. Ambulance. Hospital. My baby.

No. God no, please no.

“I’m okay,” I repeat, shakier this time. “I’m okay. I’m really okay.” If I say it enough, we’ll be fine. “The baby’s okay. She’s fine.” My arms remain wrapped around my stomach as I throw silent prayers out to the universe.

Several students stand frozen at the top of the steps, watching everything unfold with wide, terrified eyes. Something in me snaps, breaking through the panic back into principal mode. I lift my chin, square my shoulders, and push up to my feet. “I’m fine. Now get to your classes before every single one of you gets detention.”

That finally gets them moving, slowly and reluctantly, but they’re moving.

Clare and another teacher help me up the steps. I’m shaking. My breathing feels strange. Too fast. Too shallow. Someone is asking me questions. Someone else says an ambulance is on its way.

Clare says, “I’m calling Mia.”

I nod numbly, silently making deals with the devil, the powers that be, any fucking God that will listen and protect our little girl. I try to focus, to ward off the fear consuming me, but it roars through angry and villainous.

If I lose the baby, will I lose Fitz, too?

The thought detonates inside me so violently, tears flood my eyes. I squeeze them shut, fighting it, because I know better now. I know the answer. I do. But fear doesn’t care about logic, and it swallows me whole.

Fitz

By the time I get to the hospital, I’m halfway out of my damn mind.

Tessa barely had the plane on the ground before I was out of it, my thoughts spiraling through every worst-case scenario imaginable during the drive to the hospital. Every second between Mia’s phone call and now has felt like being skinned alive.

When I finally shove open the hospital room door and see Jennifer sitting upright in bed, hooked up to monitors, pale faced, puffy eyed, her neck and arm bruised, relief and torture twist inside me as I rush past Mia straight to Jennifer.

I cradle her face in my hands, needing to touch her, to know she’s okay. I kiss her forehead, her cheeks, her temple, and search her eyes. There’s so much pain there, it slays me. “Jesus. My poor girl, are you okay?”

Her lower lip trembles, but she nods.

“Thank God.” I sit on the edge of the bed and gather her gently into my arms, holding her against me, my heart slamming against my ribs. “I’ve never been so scared in all my life. I can handle a lot of things, wild girl. Thinking something happened to you isn’t one of them.” I kiss her softly. “And the baby? Is she okay?”

Tears spill from her eyes as she nods. “They want to monitor us overnight, but she’s okay.”

Relief crashes through me so hard I have to close my eyes against tears. I rest my forehead against hers, trying to steady myself. I’m vaguely aware of Mia sniffling across the room.

“I was afraid if I lost her,” Jennifer whispers shakily, “you wouldn’t want me anymore.”

I draw back, struggling to process what she said, because it feels so fucking impossible next to everything I feel for her. But then I see it in her eyes, the old wound underneath the fear. The part of her that still expects love to come with an on-off switch manned by Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.

I take her hand in mine, speaking softly but firmly, absolutely wrecked that she has probably been thinking about this since she fell. Holding her gaze, needing her to hear every word, I say, “I love our baby, and if something were to happen to her, it would fucking break me, and I might never be the same again.” My throat tightens hard around the words. “But, Jennifer, it’s you I can’t live without. You’re what matters most.”

More tears slide down her cheeks. “I know that. I do, and I love you, too. It terrifies me to say that, even now, and I know that’s irrational—”

“It’s not irrational. Some wounds take forever to heal, and that’s okay, because we’ve got nothing but time.” Emotion flashes across her face so raw, it damn near undoes me. I cradle her face in my hands again. “But hear me when I say this. I’m so damn in love with you, you could strip away every piece of my life and you’d still be one thing I’ll fight for.” I wipe her tears with my thumbs. “There is nothing this life can throw at us that will make me stop choosing you.”

“Ohmygod,” Mia says through tears. “Now I love you, too.”