“So we’ll do it?”
I rolled off the couch and onto my knees, catching her hand as I stared into her eyes.
“Laney Kathleen Hennessey, will you do me the extreme honor of becoming my wife?”
She laughed as I kissed her hand.
“Yes, my secret husband! I agree to be your secret wife, for the period of no more than two years.”
I stood up, feeling foolish, and Laney’s gaze softened.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t expect you to do that.”
“How does this work?”
Suddenly, Laney was all business.
“They do the quick marriages at the Marriage and Civil Union Court. We get our license at the clerk’s office the day before, pay a fee and then sign the paperwork. Just forget to take in your contract to the theater for a few days.”
“That simple?”
“Let’s hope so!”
Of course it wasn’t that simple. Because right after we’d agreed to marry, she got sick.
“Ash! Ash! ASH!”
I jolted awake, my heart pounding as I almost fell off the couch. But this time it wasn’t my usual nightmares.
“Ash!”
Laney was calling for me, screaming, her cries raw.
I ran to the bedroom, throwing the door open so hard that it crashed into the wall. My eyes darted around wildly, expecting to see Sergei, or Oleg, some threat. But she was alone, splayed out on the bed at an awkward angle, one arm trapped under her body as if she’d tried to get up and couldn’t make it. Her face was wet with tears and sobbing gasps made her body shudder painfully.
“Laney! What’s wrong? Where does it hurt?”
“Ev-everywhere!” she cried out.
I half-knelt on the bed trying to put my arms around her but she screamed in agony.
“Don’t touch me!”
I felt her pulse hammering under my hand, her heart beating so wildly I was afraid she’d have a heart attack. I’d never felt anything like it, and my own anxiety went into overdrive.
“I’m calling an ambulance,” I shouted as I leapt off the bed.
“No! Drugs! I n-need my drugs!”
Sranje! Which drugs? Where were they?
I tried to speak calmly.
“Okay, I’ll get them. Where?”
Her sobbing was so uncontrolled, her gasps so fast, it was impossible to understand her. And even when I made out the words, the long, medical name meant nothing to me.
“Yellow ones!” she begged. “Bathroom!”
I ransacked her bathroom cabinet until I found some that were a pale yellow—her anti-inflammatory drugs.
“These?”
“Y-yes!”
I needed to get her upright so she could drink some water with them, but every time I tried to touch her or move her, she screamed.
“It burns!” she cried out, sobbing, her chest heaving.
I didn’t know what to do. We needed help, but she begged me not to call an ambulance. I even thought about calling the prick—he must have seen this before so he’d know how to help her. But if I moved an inch from Laney she cried out.
“Don’t leave me! Ash! Ash!”
I lay on the bed next to her, trying to wedge my body under hers so she could sit up. That didn’t work, so in the end, I wrapped my arms around her and pulled her up, wincing as her piercing shrieks knifed through me.
I popped out one of the large pills, and pushed into Laney’s mouth. She nearly bit my finger and I had to pull free quickly.
Trying to hold a glass of water to her mouth caused most of it to go over her and the bed, her hands shook and she gasped and coughed, retching as water went down the wrong way. After three tries, she managed to swallow the pill and I laid her down, her crying almost as wild as before.
Fifteen long and terrifying minutes later, her breaths began to slow, and her panic began to ease. Another half-an-hour, and she was able to rest in a normal position, instead of twisted and contorted as if she’d been dropped from a great height.
I rubbed her arm softly, trying to give comfort because there was nothing else I could do.
“Don’t leave me,” she begged, her voice shaking.
My chest ached at the desperation and fear I heard in her voice.
“I won’t. I promise.”
“Stay with me. Don’t go.”
“I’m not leaving you, Laney.”
Moving slowly and carefully so I didn’t jostle her, I eased myself into the bed next to her, covering us both with the quilt.
She gripped my hand and pulled it against her stomach.
“Don’t leave me.”
When I woke the next morning, I was confused. It was darker than I was used to. I never closed the drapes in the living room, so I should be seeing either daylight or street lamps. I rolled over and heard a soft, female gasp.
Memory came flooding back.
“Laney! Are you . . . how are you? Did I hurt you?”
Her head turned slowly to look in my direction. “I’m okay. Sorry about last night.”
I sat up cautiously, staring down at her.
“That was scary. Are you really okay?”
Her lips turned upward in a sad smile. “I can’t move, but I’m okay.”
“You . . . you can’t move?!”