Page 105 of The Do-Over

The door slammed into the wall when he pulled it open. Lilah slid to her knees and puked again. I bent over and shoved a bowl under her face, rubbed her back.

I let her have those cookies without even thinking about what might be in them. What had I done?

“I’m scared,” Lilah said. Her voice sounded strange—thick and garbled—through noticeably swollen lips.

I was scared too. Terrified. My hand shook as I brushed back hair from her face.

Lilah closed her eyes.

“Your dad will be here with your medicine, and it will be okay,” I said, trying to sound soothing. I’d never felt so helpless or hopeless as that moment, watching her struggle to breathe while my own lungs constricted with panic. I couldn’t live with myself if something happened to Lilah.

Nate stormed into the room and slid to the floor beside Lilah, clutching a thick tube in his fist. He yanked off the top cap and placed a hand on Lilah’s knee closest to him. “Hold on, Lilah.”

He stabbed the end into her thigh, hard, and counted to three before pulling it out and tossing it on the ground. With his palm, he rubbed her thigh where he’d injected the medicine. It took only a handful of seconds before Lilah’s breathing came easier, but it felt like forever. Relief coursed through me. She would be okay now. She would be. I dropped my head and took some deep breaths of my own.

Nate pressed his forehead to Lilah’s. Tension layered his back and shoulders, evident in the harsh set of his jaw, the ruler-straightness of his back. I put my hand there, and he jerked. Alarm zinged through me. But I knew he had to be sick with worry. It meant nothing. But when I didn’t move, he slid from under it and stood with Lilah in his arms.

“We need to get to the hospital,” he said.

I rose slowly, my heart beating heavy in my chest. A feeling of foreboding settled in my bones. Something was wrong. It wasn’t that Nate moved in sharp movements, or that he shrugged off my touch, or that his voice held a shaky quality.

No, the wariness sliding through me had everything to do with something else: he couldn’t quite meet my eye when he said it.

The emergency room at the children’s hospital had Lilah in a bed faster than Nate could say, “allergic reaction” and “epinephrine.” An hour later, she was breathing well and looked much better. She’d have to stay several hours under observation, but otherwise, tragedy had been avoided.

Nate hovered around her, sitting, then standing to adjust her pillow, helping her flip through the channels on the television, and staring at her with a mixture of love and relief that almost brought tears to my eyes.

I’d been responsible for this—for letting her eat that cookie. The ball in my stomach tightened each time I thought about what could have happened.

Later, after Lilah drifted to sleep, I rose from the chair I’d been sitting in for the better part of two hours and stretched.

Lilah shifted and then curled on her side. Dark lashes resting on her cheeks, she propped a fist under her chin. Her mouth curved into a small smile from whatever dream played in her head. Tears pricked behind my eyes for the second time this evening.

How close had we been to losing Lilah? My hands tingled just remembering her labored breathing, and the terrified glint in her eyes as she’d struggled. But she was okay now. She was okay. I brushed aside a tear that had escaped, unable to quell the rush of gratitude.

“Can I talk to you in the hallway?” Nate asked.

This time his eyes met mine. He looked as though he’d aged twenty years in a few hours. I bit my lip and nodded.

He followed me and closed the door with a quiet click before turning my way. A hand ran over the top of his head and stopped to rest on the back of his neck. His face was drawn tight with tension. But his eyes were busy looking anywhere but at me.

I held my breath and waited for him to speak, waited for what I knew was coming, the moment Nate Russo was going to break my heart. I knew he wouldn’t mean to. He wasn’t cruel, but I’d just put his daughter in grave danger. She could have died. And I was responsible. I’d break up with me.

We both spoke at the same time.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I should have checked the cookies.”

And he said, “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

A small gasp escaped as my heart deflated. I tried, and failed, to come up with any kind of response.

He squeezed the back of his neck. “My job right now is to keep Lilah safe. It’s my number one priority.”

I nodded, forced myself to look him in the eye. “I know tonight was scary.”

He straightened and set his shoulders. “I’ve already lost my sister. I can’t lose Lilah. I can’t lose another person I love. You’re a distraction I cannot afford.”

The words felt like a punch to my gut, so much so, I took a step back to steady myself. My fingers twisted at my waist as I fought back tears and forced myself to get the next words out.