{18+ COMPLETED • COLLEGE ROMANCE}
When a college freshman with a learning disability and a reputation collides with a straight-A, straight-laced girl in the dorm kitchen one night, he sees the darkest parts of himself reflected in her. But the two o...
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There was blood.
There was that spilling, seeping blood.
I just hadn't seen it because it had been hiding out of sight.
That was what the doctor told me after they completed a CT scan on Madie's head. I wasn't even sure that they should have been telling me about it. Maybe it was the look on my face or how I'd carried her into the emergency room or some other reason that persuaded Dr. Martinez to report back to me.
But blood was there. It was filling that narrow space between Madie's brain and her skull. It had been there, seeping beneath the bone when I'd found her in the hallway. I just hadn't seen it because it had been hiding out of sight. Everything was always hidden with Madie, wasn't it?
Nessa had gotten there as Dr. Martinez was telling me about the procedure they would do to remove the blood—the intracranial hematoma.
It wasn't a lot of blood.
But it was there.
They asked if I knew her parents and if I could give them a call. I didn't. I couldn't.
Dr. Martinez then said they were already prepping Madie for surgery. There wasn't time to go see her or talk to her or tell her anything.
Nessa's hand was now wrapped in mine, and I wasn't sure if I was comforting her or if she was comforting me. It didn't matter. Nessa, usually so full of banter, was eerily quiet. Her leg bounced restlessly, and it seemed to shake the entire row of waiting room chairs that we were sitting in.
But the jostling was almost comforting, like the motion of a slightly broken rocking chair.
Luckily, the emergency room lobby was relatively empty while we waited for news of Madie. Our only company was an overwhelming, sterile scent, the faint beeping of distance machines, and the chattering of bored secretaries. It was numbing.
But then Quinton flung open the doors to the emergency room, and a violent anger surged through me, breaking through my unfeeling state.
He stormed toward the front desk. His haunting, dark eyes were narrowed in, intently focused on his destination. Quinton's concentration provided my only advantage as I escaped Nessa's grip and intercepted his path, forcing him to rock backward with surprise. Without hesitating, I landed a punch to his face, and it crunched satisfyingly.
Pain shot up my arm from the impact. It was hard to know if it was my bone or his that broke, but I had no intention of stopping either way.
I grabbed the collar of his stupid football polo just in case he planned to escape. His whole body jerked forward with the motion. Quinton didn't even attempt to stop it. So I kept going, throwing punch after punch until his shocked expression turned slack, tainted only slightly with pain. Quinton was everything I hated, everything I dreaded, everything I came from.
