Page 38 of Well Aware

Jesus, I was still witnessing the horror over and over in my brain.

I…

A hand closed around my own as he pulled away. “I’ll go sit with her, okay?”

I licked my lips and felt the loss of his heat like a punch to my soul the moment he let my hand go. “Sounds good. Thank you, Beau.”

He winked as he left, taking a little piece of my heart with him.

I hadn’t realized how much I needed him until he was here.

“Her father?” the doctor asked.

I shook my head. “No. Just a really good friend of mine.”

One of the best.

I would never admit this to Merrill, but Beau was what made it bearable not having her around.

“Wow, she’s actually talking to him.”

I glanced over to see Iris signing away, as if her long-lost friend had shown up and everything was okay in her world.

I knew Iris loved me.

However, she lit up when she was around Beau.

“I’d like to get an MRI of her head,” the doctor continued. “She’ll for sure have to be sedated for that, though. I can give her…”

The next few minutes he talked about what he wanted to do. What meds he would prescribe her.

It was decided that she’d be sedated for the MRI, which would be read immediately in case anything else had to be performed while she was still sedated. If everything checked out okay, they’d go ahead and stitch up her head where she’d hit the concrete curb, then they’d release her.

For the next several hours, Beau stayed at our side.

The two of them watched a documentary on African lions on Beau’s phone and I just watched them, content to do so.

I was so relieved that Iris was okay, that I hadn’t watched her die in front of my eyes, that I wasn’t jealous at all of the attention that she was giving Beau.

Hell, she was practically in his lap as she spoke to him.

The only thing keeping her in her own chair was that she needed Beau to be able to see her hands move.

A throat cleared and I looked behind me to see Gentry and Black along with the bus driver.

My eyes filled with tears.

She walked toward me and hugged me. “She’s okay?”

“She’s okay.” I sniffled and hugged her back. “She doesn’t even have a concussion. They sewed her head wound up and said she’d probably be stiff and sore for the next few days.”

“Good.” The bus driver, an older woman in her late fifties, pulled away with her eyes dripping with tears.

“I am so sorry,” she whispered.

“It wasn’t your fault,” I said. “It was that black car’s fault.” I looked to the two officers. “Did you find anything?”

I felt heat at my back and knew Beau was there.