Page 134 of Stupid Matchmaking Love

But I don’t move. I still hold her, hugging her to my chest like if I let go, she’ll die.

“Rhett, let them help,” Jessie says.

The look she gives me is pity and fear—like she knows exactly where my head is and it terrifies her.

“Sir,” a paramedic says firmly.

It’s the tone of his voice that snaps me out of the trance. I look down and see Cristina. Not Sarah. I’m not twelve, and I’m not in a hospital.

“She had an asthma attack. Her inhaler’s out,” I explain.

“We’ll take it from here.”

I slowly give her to the paramedics, letting them lower her to the floor. They don’t know her. They’re not cradling her like I did, holding her like she’s the most precious thing in the world.

They move with practiced efficiency. Oxygen mask on. Check her pulse, her breathing.

“O2 sat is eighty-two percent,” one of them says.

“We need to move.”

Eighty-two percent. That sounds bad.

“We have to intubate.”

Intubate?

They put in an IV. Hang a bag of something. Move so fast their hands blur. I stay back, frozen, useless, watching strangers save the woman I love because I can’t.

Her chest rises and falls. Shallow. Wheezing. But moving.

She’s breathing, still breathing. Thank God.

Dammit. I should’ve reminded her to refill her inhaler. Hell, I should have done it for her.

What’s worse is how I reacted.

I froze. Saw someone else. If the paramedics hadn’t arrived, it might’ve gone on until someone pulled her away from me.

So she could be saved.

The EMTs load her onto a stretcher.

Jessie comes up beside me and squeezes my shoulder. Willie and Cheryl hover near the paramedics, holding hands.

“They’re taking her to the hospital,” I whisper.

“Come on,” Jessie says. “I’ll give you a ride.”

I slip my hands in my pockets and walk over to Cheryl and Willie. “Would you like to ride with us to the hospital?”

Willie shakes his head. “We can follow, son. Thank you.”

Son.

I run my hand roughly through my hair and start to follow Jessie from the tent. Scattered across the floor are shards of painted clay. Dozens of them. Some no bigger than my fingernail.

The Bitty Being. The one she made.