Chapter 46 Not Your Fault
“What the fuck happened?” Taron asked frantically as him, Greg, and Paul rushed into the room. “We were outside and heard a scream.” They stopped, though, and stared at me on my knees next to Rina, with my phone to my ear, and her stuck under the bookshelf.
“Jesus Christ,” Greg whispered. All color had drained from his face.
“Sir, our paramedics and rescue squad should reach you within two minutes. The teams closest to you have already been dispatched. Now, I can only ask you to relax and stay close to your girlfriend, but kindly do not touch anything. Can you do that for me?”
I nodded, then said, “Yeah. Yes, yeah.” I disconnected the call and slid my phone into my back pocket before gently placing a hand over Rina’s.
“Baby…” I almost choked on the word, and she turned her head before weakly twining her muddy fingers with mine.
“Myles…” Paul walked towards me. “Bro, what happened?” He looked shaken to the core, and rightfully so.
I gave the three of them a quick rundown of the accident, and felt Rina’s hand twitch in mine once I was done.
Taron and Greg marched over to the fallen bookshelf, but I whipped my head at them before they could touch it. “Don’t!”
They halted and looked confusingly at me.
“Her ankle is most probably broken,” I said to them, then swallowed. “If you lift the bookshelf with the wrong amount of force, there’s a strong chance it’ll worsen the injury.”
Their faces paled as they blinked at Rina, then at me, just as the sound of blaring sirens echoed in the street outside.
“I’ll go get them,” Paul said, then ran downstairs.
“I’m right here, okay?” I told Rina. “The rescue team will get you out, but I’m right here.” I squeezed her hand. “I’m here, alright?”
She whimpered softly, and I felt a lump form in my throat at that weak response.
Paul rushed back in, followed by three firefighters and two paramedics.
I reluctantly let go of Rina’s hand and got to my feet, and all but stumbled at the sudden heaviness in my head.
“Whoa, hey.” Taron grabbed me from behind. “Myles, hey. You okay?”
I nodded. I felt like I was floating; I felt fucking weightless.
I watched helplessly as the firefighters used cables to steady the bookshelf before slowly lifting it off of Rina, while the paramedics sat on either side of her, checking her pulse first, and then her head for any possible injuries.
Taron and the guys looked at me, and I knew what they were thinking.
They didn’t even have to voice the words, because I knew exactly what they wanted to tell me: We should have discarded the faulty bookshelf and started working on the flooring instead of wasting time on something we knew was a huge liability, to begin with.
And it had proven true to its nature, hadn’t it? It had ended up hurting the one person I didn’t want getting hurt by it.
My eyes landed on Rina again. She wasn’t moving…
Why the fuck wasn’t she moving?
I made to go to her, heart in my clogged throat, but Taron grabbed my arm and pulled me back. “Wait.”
I tried to jerk him off, but his grip on me tightened.
“Myles.”
I glared at him. “Let me go.”
His expression was crestfallen as he held my face between his hands. “Let them do their job,” he said softly. “She’ll be fine.”
My jaw tingled, and my eyes stung. “It’s–”
“No,” he cut me off. “It’s not your fault. I know what you’re thinking; I know what’s got you this rattled, but no, Myles, none of this is your fault.”
I was shaking again. Sweating, too. “I cracked that stupid joke, and she got upset wi–”
“Don’t.” Taron’s jaw hardened. “Don’t do that right now, because you and I both know it won’t help – not one bit. Carina will be just fine, and then, none of this will matter.” He touched his forehead to mine. “I love you, and I want you to keep your wits about you today. Tell me you can do that.”
I licked my dry lips as I nodded. “Yeah, I can do that.”
“Good,” came Greg’s voice, and when I looked at him, he slid the jewelry box into my hoodie pocket before giving me a faint smile.
Paul placed a hand on my shoulder in silent support.
“She’s lost consciousness; gone into shock,” one of the paramedics announced. “We need to get her to Med ASAP.”
The four of us turned to Rina.
She wasn’t moving…
“We have a steady pulse, don’t worry,” the other paramedic said to me when I ran towards Rina. The bookshelf had been taken off her, thank God, but her ankle…
I sucked in a breath. They’d wrapped it in some sort of a cast, but still, it looked crooked and…broken.
I took half a step back when the rescue team helped the paramedics in getting Rina on a stretcher, and they then began carrying her out of the room and down the stairs.
Her eyes were closed, but she was breathing.
Thank fuck she was breathing.
“Hey.” Taron tapped my back. “You go in with Carina. I’ll call Miguel and the others.”
I hadn’t even remotely thought about Miguel, or any of Rina’s friends, for that matter.
I swallowed and nodded to my brother. “Thanks, man.”
“Go,” he said.
With another nod at him, Paul, and Greg, I ran out and followed the emergency team to the ambulance.