Page 75 of We Drank the Dawn

His eyes flicked to the McDonalds arches not far from the car. “This is, without a doubt, the least romantic way I could ask you, but I don’t want to keep hurting you.” He lifted my left hand, swiping his thumb over my ring finger. Gently, slowly, he kissed the spot then his eyes met mine.

And I knew I’d always be captive to them.

Always swayed by his softness when he looked at me.

I knew he loved me. He always had.

And I loved him.

Oh, I loved him with every strand of my DNA.

“Sarah Elizabeth Dunn. Will you be my wife?”

I brushed my teeth, gazing at the shimmery ring on my finger in the reflection of the fogging bathroom mirror. It was stunning. Peter had the diamond removed from my old ring and laid it in a different, more intricate band. It had a darker, almost antique look about it now, and I was completely obsessed.

We’d been engaged for several months, but I still looked at it with awe and admiration.

Peter was in the shower, talking about something that happened at work with a client, and I only half listened, entranced by the fact that I was a fiancé. Soon I’d be a bride and a wife then maybe a mother…once we were ready for IVF anyway. My brain flitted around, thinking about my gorgeous wedding gown that was currently undergoing alterations.

“Isn’t that ridiculous?” Peter said, the scent of his spicy soap lifting in the air.

“Mmmhmm.” I said as I rinsed my brush and spat in the sink.

“I think that I should tell him…” His voice trailed off.

I tapped the end of my toothbrush against the sink, drying it, then dropped it in the holder. Pulling out my make-up bag, I prodded him, “Think that you should tell him what?”

He didn’t respond.

I gave a soft laugh. “Uh, hello? Are you still in there?”

“Yeah…yeah. Sorry.”

I frowned. His voice sounded funny. “You okay?”

“I don’t know.”

Abandoning my foundation on the sink, I moved to the shower and pulled the curtain back. Peter stood there, blinking repeatedly and rubbing his eyes. “There’s…spots in my vision.”

“Maybe you should get out.”

He nodded, turning off the water as I handed him a towel. Peter dried off and got out of the shower, wrapping the towel around his waist. He braced a hand on the wall. “I don’t know what is going on…my stomach feels like I’m riding waves or something.”

I frowned. Peter did get migraines so maybe he was having a bad one. “Do you have a headache?”

“No.”

“Lay down on the floor maybe. I don’t want you to fall.”

Expecting him to argue, fear slung through my chest when he instantly heeded my advice, going to his knees on the bathroom rug. Carefully, he eased onto his back and then I witnessed the scariest thing I’d ever seen in my entire life. Peter’s whole entire body went stiff, his back arching as a low, terrifying groan squeezed from his lungs.

I was saying things, shouting maybe, but he’d stopped responding.

Then full-body convulsions overtook him.

Instinctively, I grabbed his shoulders to stop him before I even realized what was happening. Then all the first aid training I had to take in order to become a massage therapist rushed through my mind. The pictures in my textbook resurfacing in my memory.

Peter was having a seizure.