Page 86 of Wild

Erin gets to her feet and has to stop for a second to let the spinning settle. Her cheekbone throbs like someone is hitting it with a hammer every second, and it hurts so much that at first she can barely open her eye.

"Erin, are you okay?" Nell asks, but she's already running after the guy carrying Mia in his arms.

The man sets her carefully on the gurney and leaves the room, and just like the first time it happened, Erin clears everyone out except Noah and Nell, who stay off to one side in case she needs them. The first thing the doctor does is slide her hand behind Mia's head, checking for any wound from the fall, but she finds nothing, and she's still making sure when Mia's eyes snap open.

"Hey — look at me, it's me," Erin says.

The singer's gaze is unfocused at first, like she's trying to figure out where she is; then she starts to blink, and Erin watches the moment terror begins to take hold because she's disoriented.

"Honey," the doctor whispers, cupping her face in her hands and tilting her head just slightly so she's looking only at her. "You fainted, but nothing happened — you're okay, and you're with me. Noah and Nell are here too."

The doctor snaps her fingers in front of Mia's eyes when she seems to drift, but she manages to pull her back, and she watches the tears start sliding down her face.

"It's okay," Erin continues, wiping them away with her hands. "Look at me, honey. Do you know who I am?"

Mia focuses on her, her eyes wide open as if she needs a few seconds to recognize her. Then she nods and sniffles, and when Erin smiles at her, the relief hits the singer all at once. She exhales hard and tries to sit up on instinct, but Erin stops her and leans over her.

"You can't get up yet," she says, reaching for her wrist at the same time.

"Did I fall on the stage?" she asks, still pretty confused.

"No, the concert was over — don't worry."

"What happened to your face?" she says, lifting a trembling hand.

Erin catches it in midair because she knows if she lets it touch her she'll see stars again.

"Nothing, just a stupid bump. How are you? Does anything hurt? Your head? Your body?"

"No," she answers, but her hand goes to her stomach at the same time.

"Does your stomach hurt?"

"My period," Mia murmurs, pressing her other hand to her face to wipe the tears still falling.

"You have your period?"

"It must be coming, because I'm cramping."

"Okay."

Over the next several minutes, Erin puts in an IV line to start a fluid drip, and she accepts — at Nell's insistence — that one of the doctors covering the event put a butterfly stitch on the small cut the blow has opened on her cheek.

"Done," the man announces. "Do you need anything else?" he asks, looking at the singer, who is now sitting up with her back against the wall eating a sandwich Noah just brought her.

"No, thank you," Erin answers. "Her vitals are good and she came around quickly. She has a diagnosed vasovagal syndrome."

"Understood," he says before heading out. "Eat all of it," he tells Mia, and she gives a nod before taking another bite.

Chapter 32

"Erin."

The doctor, sitting on the edge of the bed with her back turned as she pulls on her pants, spins around, stands, and finishes tugging them up.

"Hey, hi," she murmurs, walking barefoot around to the other side of the bed. "I was going to go downstairs for coffee — I didn't want to wake you. How are you feeling?"

The woman with storm-gray eyes sits down beside her. It's early, barely seven in the morning, and for the first time Mia has slept after a concert without spending hours with her pulse racing, hunting down some woman for comfort and smoking a joint afterward. They'd stayed a while longer until she felt more clearheaded, then headed back to the hotel, where Erin had climbed into the shower with her because she was afraid to let her go in alone. Afterward she'd checked again that her vitals were within normal range and that Mia wasn't showing any symptoms or pain beyond the cramping in her belly.