Simon paced outside Hannah's room. They had moved her into the ICU and wouldn’t give him an update because he wasn’t related to her. He thought he was going to go insane. His heart was pounding a million miles a minute. He just wanted to know that she was going to be okay.

Pacing back and forth in a juried frenzy, he almost ran into Hannah’s mother. Paige looked disoriented and still had the sallow look of a chemo patient.

“Simon, where is she?” Her voice shaky and high pitched, Simon heard real fear in her voice.

She grabbed his hand and he led her to the room where her daughter rested, and they peeked through the window. Two nurses flitted about the room in a rush, touching instruments and consulting charts.

“How long as she been here? I just got the call,” Paige asked him.

“She just got transferred to the ICU after being in the ER for a little over an hour. How did you get here so fast?” Simon asked.

“I happen to know the dance teacher. She called me as soon as Hannah went down. And then I may have broken a few laws getting over here.” It would have been cute to hear that from her under different circumstances, but right now all it did was fill silence.

“They won’t tell me how she is,” Simon added with a sigh. He felt terrible. His head hurt and he had been crying. Of course, he had excused himself to an abandoned room to get a good cry on, but crying had happened nonetheless. He had been assaulted over and over by past memories of his mother in the hospital. He’d only been a young teenager when the accident happened. But he couldn’t think about it. It was still too much.

Paige squared her shoulders, took a deep breath and turned the door handle to the room. A nurse much larger and more intimidating than Paige approached her.

“Are you her mother?”

Paige nodded.

“I want to reassure you that she is getting the best care possible. We know all about her history and your oncologist has filled us in on her kidney transplant. I don’t want to scare you; she will probably be okay. Her body is in shock right now and her blood pressure is through the roof. There is something going on with her kidney and she is fighting an infection somewhere, it seems.”

Tears had already begun to run down Paige’s face. Simon reached over and took the small woman in his arms, hugging her and trying to calm her. Being sick herself and still battling cancer, Paige weighed little more than a rag doll and felt thin and frail in his arms.

She accepted his comfort and began to sob. “I hope she is okay.”

“She’s going to be fine. She’s a fighter. She has to be fine.”

* * *

Hannah looked around the room. She didn’t remember how she got here or where she was. The person standing over her scared her. She shrieked and threw the sheet over her head.

“Oh, sweetie, it’s okay. It’s just me,” she heard outside the sheet.

Slowly she pulled the sheet down from her face and began to remember what was going on. The woman in front of her was her mother. She had no idea why she hadn’t recognized her before. Her frail face and pale skin made her green eyes stand out. She looked exhausted.

“Where am I?” she asked.

Her mother played with Hannah’s hair while she talked. “You are in the hospital, dear. You had a seizure during dance class and were rushed here. Your blood pressure was through the roof.”

“Am I okay now?” She was afraid for the answer. Guilt plagued her. It was her fault she had gotten sick. She hadn’t been following everything the doctor said.

Her mother paused for a moment and looked down at the sheet, grazing her hands across the surface to flatten out the wrinkles. “They had to give you treatments to get your blood pressure down, love. Have you been going in for your checkups every week?”

“I tried, but I just got too busy.” She felt defensive, even though she knew she should have gone. She had been putting it off because she felt okay.

“Sweetheart, you can’t miss your appointments. They might have caught the blood pressure issue. It’s because of the kidney transplant.” At this, Paige burst into tears and was sobbing and muttering about hurting Hannah and how sorry she was. Hannah couldn’t get up, but just put her hands on her mother’s shoulders, soothing her.

“She chose to give you the kidney,” Simon said as he entered the room.

“Simon!” Hannah exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

“Saving you,” he said with a smile.

She rolled her eyes. She seemed to do that a lot when she was around him.

“He really did save you,” her mother said with a sniff.

“Well, not really,” Simon remanded. “I just made sure you didn’t hurt yourself while you were having your seizure, and then I came with you to the hospital.”

Hannah smiled inwardly. It made her feel good to know that Simon had taken care of her. “Thank you,” she said to him.”You didn’t have to do that. There’s no reason for you to have to stay.”

After she said something, she realized that her mother was in the room with them and that she was supposed to be engaged to Simon. She looked at her mother, alarmed, only to find her with a sad smile on her face.

“I already know, dear,” she said quietly.

Hannah threw a glance at Simon, daggers in her eyes.

“Oh no, sweetie, he didn’t tell me,” she said quickly.

“Then how did you know we weren’t engaged?”

“Well, ever since Thanksgiving I keep asking about dates and trying to plan, and you keep putting me off. So, I actually talked to Tracy about it and she spilled the beans.”

“I’m going to kill her!” Hannah said angrily.

“Oh no, you can’t do that. She was so sweet about it. She just wanted what was best for you. But I have to ask, why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was embarrassed. And I know that you want me to get married. So I just wanted to make you happy,” Hannah said.

“Oh, love, I just want you to be happy. Married or not. I just want you to know you are loved.”

Her mother stood up, leaned over and embraced Hannah as only a loving mother could.

Simon cleared his throat. “I should probably head out now.”

“Stay, please,” Paige pleaded.

Hannah tried to object, but Paige silenced her with a wave and turned toward Simon. “I need some help with a few things and I have to get back to the hotel I’m staying at. Would you mind taking me somewhere decent to eat? All I’ve had is hospital food for a while.”

“Hey! You all are going to leave me here?” Hannah objected.

“Well, we need to eat and sleep, silly girl! Don’t worry though. Your sister is on her way. She should be here any minute, actually.”

Hannah laid her head back. Her mother kissed her forehead before leaving, and Hannah fell back asleep almost as soon as the door closed.

* * *

He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Paige sat across from him, telling him that she wanted to help him trick her daughter. Never in a million years would he have thought she would be recruiting him to fool Hannah. Paige had treated him to a delicious salmon dinner. The potatoes were covered in butter and rosemary.

Putting a forkful of fish into his mouth, he thought about how to respond in a way that wouldn’t hurt her feelings.

“It didn’t turn out so well the last time I tried to trick her,” he lamented.

Paige buttered a roll and began to nibble on it. “You didn’t have my help last time. I don’t want to trick her into saying yes, I just want to let her explore how she feels about you. You know, I could be wrong. She could just be indifferent to you, but I have this feeling in my gut that there’s something there. And see, Hannah has a hard time letting herself be happy. She’s been like that since she was a little girl.”

“That might be the case,” he replied to her, “but I really can’t mislead her again. I’ve already surprised her as it is, and then I deceived her about the dance class, and this just isn’t working out for me.” He hung his head, trying to focus on his meal but failing miserably. All he could think about was the way Hannah twirled her hair around her finger.

“Then let’s not fool her. Let’s just help her figure out what she feels. Let’s help her be happy. If you can help, so be it. If you don’t want to, then we have narrowed her choices down.”

Simon thought on her proposal. It would probably kill him if she didn’t choose him, but at least she would be happy. Hannah’s happiness was all that Simon craved. “Alright, let’s do it.”

“Okay, then we have some plans to make. A marriage scheme is never easy.”

* * *

The hospital had been utterly insistent about her riding out to the car in a wheelchair. There was no reason for it, nor did it help her in any way except to make her feel ridiculous. She had attempted to explain this to the charge nurse and tell her exactly why this was bad for her blood pressure, and that any irritation would only serve to raise her heart rate and put her at risk for more problems. The charge nurse wouldn’t have it and promptly told her that unless she sat in the wheelchair she was going to check Hannah back in to the hospital and make her stay another night.

“So, why did my mom have to go back home so quickly?”

Simon was kind enough to push the wheelchair out to the car, dismissing the orderly who had attempted to help them out to the car.

“She said she had a doctor’s appointment she couldn’t miss,” Simon replied.

That made sense. Her mother was still going through chemotherapy and had to be at the doctor’s office more often than any other place. Most days Hannah would call during her wait times or just before her chemo treatment. Unfortunately, the doctor didn’t allow her mom to talk while she was receiving her chemo medicine. Paige probably welcomed the distraction. Instead Hannah made sure she had plenty of Kindle books to take her mind off of the horrible concoction being flooded into her veins.

“But my sister could have stayed. Why didn’t she?” Hannah felt abandoned. She had a medical crisis and suddenly everyone was too busy to stay with her. It was lucky for her that Simon was able to.

“I don’t know. She was gone when I got back from sleeping. You’ll have to ask your mom.”

It was probably childish and she shouldn’t be upset, but they left her in the hospital all by herself and made Simon take her home. Traitors.

“Actually, your mom asked me to drive you out to see her,” Simon informed her.

“Right now?” Hannah asked incredulously. “We have classes to get back to. You need to finish up with your dissertation, and you have a job to do as an assistant professor. You’re still doing that, right?”

“Yes. I’m still working as an assistant professor. But I have time to drive you back home. Your mom was very insistent that you come see her. She said you needed a break and that the school had actually let her know you would be placed on a leave of absence until you were approved to go back to school. They take the health of their students very seriously.”

Overwhelming sadness and lack of control washed over Hannah in a wave. She felt, all at once, completely alone, crushed. Tears streamed down her cheeks. Self conscious at the way she appeared, she buried her face in her hands and bent her head to her lap. She hadn’t put on a lick of makeup since she got to the hospital, and she smelled sterile and gross. Add that to the ugly crying and she was a hot mess.

The wheelchair came to a sudden halt and Simon moved in front of her, kneeling down on the concrete sidewalk. He took her hands in his and held on to them before speaking. Hannah could feel her heart thud and the blood rising in her cheeks. She loved the feeling of his hands on hers. So warm and comfortable. Like they should be there all the time. She shook her head to dispel those crazy thoughts from her mind. But is it so crazy? He said he was falling in love with me.

“It’s going to be okay,” he said to her.

Thunderous waves of emotion broke through and the tears wouldn’t stop pouring out of her eyes.

“I know this wasn’t your plan, Hannah. I know you wanted to finish everything quickly, but God seems to have another plan for you. You have to take it easy right now. Your body is telling you to slow down.”

“I know,” she sobbed, pulling one hand away to wipe her face. Simon pulled a tissue from his pocket and handed it to her.

“Sometimes, we have to just go along with it. You can’t control everything that happens. I’m so sorry you are going through this, but it’s going to be okay. You are going to be okay.”

She took a deep breath, letting it out slowly and trying to compose her features. “Thank you.”

“Plus, this gives me a chance to get ahead of you in dance class,” he added with a grin.

“You’re already ahead of me.” She smacked him lightly on the arm. Leave it to him to ruin the mood with a joke. He got up and unlocked the wheelchair wheels.

After getting in the car and buckling up, Hannah felt a slow panic start to rise in her chest. She was going to be in the car with Simon for the next hour and half. That meant she would have to talk to him. There was no preparing for this. She had no idea what she would say and had found that without preparation she tended to be too open and vulnerable. Plans helped her to hide that vulnerable part of herself.

Hannah folded her arms across her chest and looked out the window. Maybe if she just stayed silent the whole way she could avoid the emotional breakdown she felt growing in her chest. It felt like a beast ready to escape.