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“Mina!” I yell over the heavy bass, pushing by two girls stripping off some of the clothes they were prancing around in a second ago, when a different kind of scream cuts through the chaos.

A blonde in a some stretchy, elastic looking mini-red dress, with a champagne bottle in her hand is jumping up and down at the far end of the pool, as five stumbling partygoers move around the diving board in an attempt to avoid my wrath. “They pushed her! She’ssinking.”

My blood turns to ice as I catch the murky outline of her blouse in the dark water, sliding into the deep end. My whole world is under that water. I push the blonde out of the way and dive. The cool water envelops me, dragging me down by the weight of my clothes as I kick and pull at the water, reaching out, out, out, finally slipping a hand around her waist, securing her against me as I push off the bottom.

She’s dead weight as I swim to the surface, then, her fingers tug at the collar of my shirt. Thank fuck.

I pop through the water with a gasp, Mina coughing and gurgling as I hold her, willing my life into her. My heart races, each pulse hammering against my chest wall as I spit, shaking my head, then find my footing on the shallow end of the pool, cradling her against me up the steps and into my lap.

“You’re going to be all right,” I whisper into her dripping hair, brushing my fingers against the scratch on her forehead. “I’m going to make fucking sure of it.”

Four

Jackson

The pressure behind my eyes builds as I glare at the young intern with her star-struck eyes under the too bright fluorescent lights of the hospital hallway. She’s explaining Mina will be okay, going over the discharge packet. Repeating what the other doctors have been telling me all night while I made them run tests they insisted weren’t necessary and keep her overnight for observation just in case.

Nothing to worry about. It’s a trauma response. A fear trigger.

Her memories should come back.

Memories.Should. Fucking should? I need more than fucking should.

“You, you’re a student, right?” I bark, causing the intern to shrink back. “You don’t get to learn on my…” I shake my head. “Where’s Dr. Mumford? I want the head of the fucking department not some first-year.”

She deflates, stuttering, but I don’t care. She’s not my priority, Mina is.

The low hum of hospital sounds thrum in my ears as I ask for the hundredth time if they’ve run every possible test. Taken every precaution.

“Yes, Mr. Sanders.” The head of Neurology, Dr. Denise Mumford, nods, releasing the terrified young woman, and takes over outside the closed door to Mina’s private room. “It’s not usual, but it happens. You said she is terrified of the water. The slight bump she took isn’t enough for concern. Her brain is…” She tips her head back and forth, crossing her arms. “Fine. But, she’s protecting herself subconsciously. It’s psychological. Not neurological. I can have Dr. Ozmec, the psychiatrist, come back to talk to you again. Explain—”

I wave my hand then run it over the top of my head. All I want is to get back inside the room where she’s started singingSimply the Bestby Tina Turner at the top of her lungs. She’s never going to win American Idol, but normally she’d never sing outside of the shower where she never knew anyone listened.

I listened.

She was asleep still when I stepped out here to talk to the other doctor but she’s clearly awake now and I need to be next to her.

“No,” I groan, weary because unlike Mina, I’ve been up all night. As she slept, I kept an eye on the monitors. Watched her chest rise and fall. Made sure any blip on the screen was checked by a doctor. “But I want your cell numberandDr. Ozmec’s. If there is oneflickerof anything in the next couple days, I’m fucking calling you both and you better come running.”

She nods. “I wrote the numbers on the discharge paperwork myself. Oh and…” I spin toward the door, tugging the cool metal handle, the throb down low reminding me of what a perverted asshole I am thinking of when I stripped her clothes and put her in the hospital gown unwilling to let anyone else touch her. “That was an amazing eighty-yard hail Mary in the Cotton Bowl. You brought it home. Go Trojans!”

I shake my head, squinting at the dark-haired woman. Who the fuck cares? Have I been reduced to this one moment in my life? I’m a fuck for being grumpy about everyone bringing it up all the fucking time but especially right now when Mina could have fucking died. If I wasn’t there, if no one noticed she’s fallen in…what could have happened?

I shake my head, stomping through the door, fighting off the thoughts of the could be’s and what if’s, determined to not waste one more fucking second of my life on anything that doesn’t work toward the only thing that really matters.

Mina being mine. In every way possible.

And today, somehow it feels like I could make that happen. Our parents are in South Africa on their second honeymoon, a trip booked so long ago there was simply no way my dad could avoid it without telling my stepmom the truth about the financial disaster that’s looming. They’re not even on the same continent as we are, which means they’re not around to stop whatever is about to happen between their two children. What started last night with my little sister’s hand on my dick.

If only she hadn’t slipped and fallen into the pool...where would we be right now?

Back under the bright lights of the room, she looks so small in the bed my heart clenches in an invisible fist. Each breath I take is agony, thinking of her under the water, struggling for her own, but she flashes me a smile that releases the knots in my chest. I unclench my fists as she waves like she’s having the time of her life.

Once the doctors gave me the test results, assured me they were all clear, and moved us to the room, I’ll admit I leveraged my ‘celebrity’ status to get into the closed gift shop and damn near emptied it of every flower and stuffed animal they had.

Now, wearing the shitty blue hospital gown, Mina is surrounded by teddy bears, unicorns, frogs, dogs, cats and every other plush thing money could buy. And I swear, even with what’s happened, she’s the happiest I can ever remember. The room smells like roses and lilies but somehow it’s her scent that rises above it all.

She sits up when she sees me, crossing her legs Indian style, the blankets falling from her thighs and, there’s a flash of that pink dream between her legs before she tugs at the faded blue gown, stuffing it in the bowl of space in her lap.