Page 16 of Crash

My thoughts trailed off. It wasn’t fair to be this rude to her. She did what any good human would’ve done when she called 911. And in fairness, I not only fainted again, but also suffered brief cardiac arrest. As soon as she heard that though, I knew Scarlett was going to launch into a lecture.

Scratch that. Based on the look on her face, the one I’d seen every time she caught me minimizing symptoms this past year, she was about to launch into a lecture right now.

“Look, I know you want to move on,” she started. “But maybe this all happened for a reason. Maybe this is the universe’s way of saying you have to keep fighting because if you don’t know what you’re up against, how do you know it won’t kill you?”

Yeah, not the best time to tell her my heart stopped.

For the record, I wasn’t taking the whole heart-stopping thing lightly. The memory of coming back to consciousness, of seeing Blake’s face tight with worry, haunted me. Of course I was worried why my heart stopped; that’s why I allowed myself to be admitted and tested ad nauseam by a cardiologist. And I would follow up with my primary care physician or said cardiologistafter this to address any lingering questions about the strength of my heart, but as for my medical mystery, I wasn’t having this conversation with Scarlett again.

At least being admitted meant Blake would hand me off to someone else. Despite growing up with him constantly at our house—my brother’s perpetual shadow—I knew surprisingly little about hospital hierarchy. But he was ER, which meant once they moved me upstairs, I’d be someone else’s problem. Cardiology or internal medicine. I didn’t care which. Just … not him. Not those careful eyes that had watched me as a teen, now trying to diagnose what was wrong with me. The universe owed me that much.

“I can’t imagine ever winding up in the back of an ambulance again, but if I do, please at least tell the EMTs to take me to a different hospital,” I added gently.

Scarlett’s attention swept around the pristine hospital room. “What’s wrong with this one?”

On cue, Dr. Blake Morrison ambled into the room, his white lab coat—I swear—looked somehow even more formfitting than before. So did his scrubs. In fact, his thigh muscles decided now was the perfect time to bulge against the fabric, competing with the broad plane of his chest and flatlands of his abs.

“Oh …” Scarlett mouthed far too long, her right eyebrow threatening to arch.

“You just said that out loud,” I chided.

“Right. Sorry.” She stood. “You look like a very … er, good doctor.”

The microscopic hint of a curl to one side of his lips preceded Blake clearing his throat.

“I’m Dr. Blake Morrison. It’s nice to meet you.”

“Blake,” Scarlett balked, her eyes bouncing to mine. “TheBlake?”

“Scarlett …”

Now she full-on smirked. And the little devil didn’t even try to hide it. Instead, she eyed him up and down with a fresh holy-crap, mouth-drooling mannerism, then came over to “whisper” a goodbye into my ear.

“No wonder you wanted to stay in a coma.”

“Goodbye, Scarlett.”

She smiled, ambling out of my room with the wave of her hand. “I’ll be back, Tessa. I’ll bring you dinner, and you’ll bring me details.”

Look at her saunter out of here. I could see her mentally compiling a list of interrogation questions for later.

Great. Just great.

If my heart hadn’t stopped, I’d walk out of here right now, but cardiac arrest had a way of keeping you planted.

“We need to talk.” The edge to Blake’s voice made me freeze.

Oh crap.

“Did my tests uncover something?” Was it something bad all along, and all those other doctors had been wrong?

“Tests thus far have been unremarkable.”

Unremarkable. A word I’d heard so many times before. I wondered if med schools taught doctors terms to replacethe tests came back normal so I don’t know what the hell is happening with your freakish bodyto make it sound more scientific.

“Then what’s with the funeral face?” I asked.

He stepped toward my bed and stared down at me the same way he’d done when he told me he’d been accepted into a medical school that would make family visits much less frequent.