Page 232 of Faking the Goal

I try to sit up and move my leg, but the second I shift my right foot, pain shoots through my ankle again. I suck in a breath and press a hand against my side when another ache catches beneath my ribs.

"Okay, don't move," she says quickly. "You fell pretty hard."

I nod, but my eyes drift back toward the stairs.

There's nobody there now.

But I still can't shake the feeling that there was.

*****

KENTARO

The drive to the emergency room is a blur.

Twenty minutes ago, I was sitting in one of the library study rooms with three guys from my finance class, half-listening to an argument about our group project when my phone started vibrating against the table.

Taylor.

I answered without thinking.

Ken-chan, don't freak out.

Which, naturally, was the exact sentence guaranteed to make me fucking freak out.

By the time she got to I fell down the stairs and they're taking me to the ER, I was already shoving my laptop into my bag and getting to my feet. I barely remember what I told the others before I left. Probably nothing coherent.

For one terrifying second, I swear my heart stopped.

Like my entire body had forgotten how to function the second I heard the words fell down the stairs.

Every possible worst-case scenario hit me at once. Her head cracking against concrete. Her neck. Her back. Internal bleeding. Something they hadn't found yet. Something she was downplaying because Taylor has this infuriating habit of treating her own pain like an inconvenience instead of a reason for anyone to worry.

I don't remember half the lights I hit on the way here. I don't remember what was playing through the speakers or whether I even locked my car before running inside.

All I remember is her voice.

By the time I make it through the emergency department doors, my pulse is hammering so hard it feels like my ribs are struggling to contain it.

I scan every bed I pass, barely registering the nurses moving around me or the voices calling from behind curtains. I'm looking for one person.

Red hair.

Freckles.

A sarcastic mouth that better still be running.

The relief that hits me when I finally spot her nearly buckles my knees.

Taylor is sitting upright on a gurney with a doctor beside her and a nurse finishing an elastic wrap around her right ankle. Her shoe is gone, the ankle already visibly swollen and propped on a pillow with an ice pack over it. My eyes sweep over the rest of her before I can stop myself, searching her face for blood, bruising, anything that tells me she's hurt worse than she sounded on the phone. She looks pale and shaken, her hair slightly mussed, but she's awake. She's talking.

Then she sees me.

"Ken-chan!"

The way her face brightens nearly fucking undoes me.

I'm at her side within seconds, and whatever restraint I walked in with disappears. I wrap my arms around her carefully but desperately, pressing my face into her hair as I hold her. "Please tell me you're all right. Please."