“Do you know where you are?”
“Hospital.”
“Do you know what happened?”
My throat tightened.
“My father hit me with a brick.”
The doctor’s eyes changed—not with shock, but with a controlled kind of anger.
“All right. We’re going to take care of you.”
Wyatt appeared beside the stretcher, his shirt torn at the shoulder and his hands scratched from the rose bushes.
“I’m her fiancé.”
A nurse tried to stop him.
“You need to wait outside.”
“No.” I reached blindly for him. “Please.”
Wyatt caught my hand.
“I’m here,” he whispered. “I’m not leaving.”
They cut away part of my dress to check for other injuries. A nurse cleaned blood from my neck while another placed an IV in my arm. The ceiling blurred whenever I tried to focus.
I could still see my mother’s smile.
I could still hear Melanie saying, “I told you she wouldn’t move.”
