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“Yes.” Coach nodded and turned his attention to me. “Miss Lynch, I suggest you go take your seat on the bus,” Coach barked, dismissing me.
“Are you okay?” I asked, turning to look at Johnny.
He didn’t look okay. He looked like a cornered animal. Wounded and desperate.
He stared at me for the longest moment, blue eyes churning with anxiety, before nodding in resignation and releasing my hand.
“I can stay?” I whispered, unsure whether leaving him was the right thing to do. “Or wait outside?”
It didn’t feel okay or right to leave him.
It felt all wrong actually.
“I’ll be okay,” Johnny told me, giving me a wink before grunting in pain when the paramedic prodded his thigh. “Fuck!”
“Out, Miss Lynch,” Coach barked, pushing me toward the door.
“Can I go with him?” I heard myself ask. “Please?”
“You can go back to the bus like I told you,” he ordered. “Now out!”
Shame, guilt, and responsibility filled my body as I moved for the door.
“Bye, Johnny,” I whispered, hovering in the doorway, fighting back the urge to run back to him.
His pain-filled eyes landed on mine. “Bye, Shannon.”
I love you.
I am so in love with you.
Please be okay.
64Waiting Game
SHANNON
“Shan?” Claire whispered in my ear. “Are you still awake?”
“I’m awake,” I croaked out as I lay on my side, completely motionless, and stared out the window at the city lights of the capital.
I hadn’t moved from this exact position since being thrust into the hotel room with Claire, Lizzie, Shelly, and Helen several hours ago, and told to stay put by a frazzled Mrs. Moore.
The girls had long since fallen asleep, with Lizzie in the single bed next to ours, and Shelly and Helen in the double bed on the opposite side of the room. Not me, though. I hadn’t closed an eye. I was drowning in my concern.
Every once in a while, I checked the time on the analog clock on the nightstand.
05:38 was its most recent reading.
Johnny was out there somewhere, lying in one of those big, lit-up hospitals, having god knows what done to his body.
I didn’t know what was happening. No one would tell me anything.
I didn’t have his phone number, and even if I did, I didn’t have a phone to use.
My heart was frozen in my chest. Fear unlike any I had experienced before was battering me. I was terrified for him.
“Do you think he’s out of surgery by now?” Claire asked.
