Page 6 of Hate to Crave You

“Yes, sir.” He nodded again, but couldn’t stop himself from looking over at Julianna. Her shoulders were rising and falling rapidly with the struggle it took to breathe. “She’s having trouble breathing. She probably needs the nurse to get her another breathing treatment before she starts to wheeze.”

He expected Julianna’s father to snap at him judging by the way the man’s face looked, but all he did was give him a short nod. The mother reached out for the call light and hit it before turning her gaze to the two men.

As Roman retreated to his bed, she said in a cool voice, ‘Surely there’s a better place for the two of you to do this.”

Roman lay in bed, struggling to make sense of what was going on.

He’d heard a little bit before he’d gotten out of bed, but the raised voices had woken him up. No telling how long they’d been talking before they woke him.

He curled back up on his side, but this time, he faced the curtain that separated them as he waited for the nurse to arrive with Julianna’s breathing treatment. Miss Léonie would be gone by now, if he had their shifts right. It would be Nurse Schmid. She was the worst of all of them, but the good news was, she was mean enough she just might scare Roman’s dad into behaving. Roman’s dad and Julianna’s father with his stiff jaw and shoulders.

Why were they fighting?

He had no idea, but he’d ask Julianna about it as soon as everybody was gone.

* * *

He never had the chance.

Less than a half an hour after Nurse Schmid brought a breathing treatment for Julianna, one of the hospital orderlies arrived with a wheelchair for Roman.

He eyed it narrowly.

“Do I get to go back to school?” he asked, glancing at his parents as he sat up on the side of the bed.

“No.” His mother brushed his hair back from his face while his father stood by the window, staring out over the quiet countryside. “You’re going to a private room. Both of you are ill. You need room to rest and heal.”

“I’mfine,” he bit off. “I get headaches. And Julianna gets scared—”

“She’s not your concern,” Father snapped, turning around to glare at him. “You’ve got no business being roomed with that girl and that’s all there is to it. Do you understand me?”

Roman lapsed into silence, rising at the prodding look from his mother. He moved into the wheelchair and sat down. On his way out the door, he glanced at Julianna’s parents, then once more at Julianna.

“Get better,” he said, not knowing what else to say.

She stared at him miserably, her big, dark eyes looking almost black in the pale circle of her face.

That image lingered with him. For a long, long time.