I fight the tightness in my throat. “When did we start caring about each other’s well-being?”
“Since you’re not covered under my liability insurance.”
I fake a sniffle. “For a second, I thought you had feelings for me.”
“Only the negative type.”
“Please stop now before I swoon.”
His chuff of air could be interpreted as a laugh. “Jokes aside—” He is interrupted by someone in the background calling out his name. “Sorry. I gotta go.”
“It’s fine. I should get going anyway.”
“Dah—”
“I’ll be careful. Bye!” I hang up before Julian has a chance to expand upon whatever he wanted to say.
It’s for the best. I sigh at the ceiling.
And blink.
Is that…
I rub my eyes to make sure they’re not deceiving me.
My heart thunders as I take off downstairs in search of the ladder Julian left behind for me. I teeter and nearly lose my footing twice while hauling the heavy thing up the flight of stairs, but I power through and make it up to the attic without any slipups.
I set the ladder beneath the wood beam and climb the steps toward the rolls of paper tucked between two support beams.
Gotcha. I swoop in and grab them before making my way down the first few steps.
A faint tickling sensation on my right hand has me looking up to find a gray spider crawling toward my elbow.
“Ah!” I scream as my foot slips. The rolls of paper go flying, along with the spider, as I do everything in my power to catch myself.
Wrong move.
My arms flail in a wasted attempt to secure my balance. I fall with a gasp, only for all the air to be knocked from my lungs as I crash against the floor on top of my left arm.
I nearly pass out from the sharp pain that shoots up. The idea of rolling onto my back so I can check out the damage seems impossible, especially once shock kicks in and my body goes numb.
You need to call for help.
My vision blurs and my body trembles as I pat my pocket with my right arm, only to remember I placed my now-fixed phone on the window ledge before I went to retrieve the ladder.
“Fuck.” A tear slips out. Anxiety builds within me like a nuclear bomb waiting to detonate.
Please don’t have a panic attack right now.
My brain ignores my plea as questions pummel through my last bits of sanity.
How am I supposed to call for help when I don’t have my phone?
How many hours will it take for someone to notice I’m missing?
Will they know where to find me?
With every unanswered question, my anxiety grows. Black spots fill my vision, and my deep breaths do little to stop the panic clawing at my chest like a wild beast.
Think.
That’s the thing. I can’t think when I feel like this. I’m taken hostage by my thoughts, and there is nothing I can do but wish for this feeling to end soon.
Try grounding yourself.
I start the exercise my therapist taught me, but I’m interrupted by my obnoxious ringtone. How the hell can I reach the damn thing to call for help when I can barely move?
Think. Think. Think.
“Hey, Siri. Answer the call.” I copy the way my mother talks into her phone whenever her hands are occupied at the shop.
“Help! I’m hurt and can’t get to my phone to call anyone. Call Julian and tell him I’m stuck in the Founder’s attic. He knows where it is.” I repeat the number I know by heart twice in hopes that the other person gets it.
While I can’t receive any confirmation from the other person, I know they’ll figure it out or call someone who will.
I refuse to believe otherwise.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Julian
I didn’t think when I ran out of my office.
Or when I broke five different road rules in my panic to make it back to the Founder’s house.
In fact, my body is running on pure adrenaline and a single brain cell as I rush into the house, shouting Dahlia’s name while searching for the attic.
She cries out from one side of the house, and I rush to the stairs. My shoes slap against the wood, matching the staccato beat of my heart as I hurry up the steps.
The sight of Dahlia cradling her left arm to her chest nearly brings me to my knees.
This is all your fault.
“What happened?” I do my best to tamp down the edge in my voice.
“Oh, thank God you came alone. I don’t think I could deal with my mom or sister hyperventilating and praying the pain away right now.” Dahlia’s voice cracks, betraying the calm mask she’s fighting to keep.
My gaze bounces between her, the ladder, and the rolls of paper a few feet away. “What the hell were you thinking?”
“Can you help me first, lecture me later? I’m pretty sure I broke my arm.” She points at her limp limb.
“I’m going to call for an ambulance.” I kneel beside her and fumble for my phone.
“No!”
“Why not?”
“No need for that whole production.”
I check out her arm again. “We could make everything worse by moving you.”
“The thought of being in an ambulance…” Her voice shakes.
Shit. In my panic, I nearly forgot about how Dahlia had a front-row seat to her dad dying in the back of an ambulance from a stroke.
“Will you drive? Please.” She attempts to sit up.
I hold her down by pressing her shoulders while assessing the situation. “I’m going to have to carry you.”
“I can walk! Watch. But help me stand up first.” She attempts to sit up with a hiss.
“Stop moving or I’m calling an ambulance.”
“Wait! Can you get my phone first? It’s on the windowsill.”
“Fine.” I grab her phone and tuck it into my back pocket.
I kneel and slide my arms beneath her. Her eyes water as I hold her against my chest and rise, doing my best to avoid aggravating her injury.
My hands tighten around her. “You good?”
“Never been better.” Her overly cheery voice grates on my frayed nerves.
When she answered the phone, my mind jumped to the worst conclusion based on Dahlia’s muffled, panicked voice. I couldn’t stop the graphic images from playing in my head after years spent working in construction.
Cracked skull.
Broken spine.
Paralysis.
You’ve seen it all, yet you never reacted like this before.
I shake the thought away, only to have it return with a vengeance as Dahlia hides her face against my shirt, dampening the material with her tears.
You still care about her.
Mierda.
I’m not given more than a second to process the thought before Dahlia speaks up again.
She sniffles. “This is all so stupid.”
I stalk toward the exit. “What is?”
“Breaking my arm like this.”
“How did it happen?” I walk toward the stairwell while doing my best to keep her steady.
“I had a run-in with a spider.”
“A spider?”
“I know what you’re thinking. But that beast was the size of a tarantula and had a set of fangs like a snake.” She trembles against me when I take the first step down the stairs.
You should have been here.
I knew leaving Dahlia behind to finish what we started wasn’t polite, but I had a phone call I needed to take and a meeting I couldn’t miss.