1

I can’t get married. Dizziness swirled in my brain the moment I realized I’d have to tell her. The muscles in my neck constricted like a rope. I felt as if I’d been strung up with the horse about to be kicked out from under me. I leaned against the wall. What’s happening? A thousand, galloping stallions pounded through my heart. Will she forgive me? Will I lose her forever? My chest tightened, breaths barely filling my lungs. My hands shook so much I dropped the photos of my parents’ wedding. Bailey wanted to see them, use them in our wedding.

I can’t get married. Why hadn’t I felt this crushing grief over Mom’s and Dad’s deaths before now? Why now, of all times? I’d be no use to Bailey like this. Get a grip, man. Can’t have this. A flash of heat raced up my face. Nausea stung the back of my throat. I looked around the diner’s storage closet for some kind of container. Boxes and cans of food distorted. The room spun, slowly at first, then whirling faster. Another heat flash exploded perspiration all over my face and neck. I dropped to my knees and sprawled on the floor in darkness. The concrete felt like sand in my hands, first rough, then sinking into quicksand.

~*~

I lay at the bottom of a dark pool. Shadows flickered above me. Father God? Strains of music set to the Twenty-Third Psalm floated above me.

“The Lord is my shepherd.” Bailey? Where are you?

“I shall not want.” Dad?

I rose further toward the surface with each word of the psalm. Suspended just under the edge of the dark pool was a sea of faces. Why did they look so sad and afraid in all this peace?

Flashing red lights assaulted my eyes. I broke the surface and blinked rapidly trying to focus. My neck and face sweltered in the East Texas heat and humidity. I wanted to tear open my shirt, but my arms wouldn’t budge.

“Oh, God, please don’t take him,” a voice cried out. Red hair framing wild eyes came into view. “Don’t move, Scott,” the red hair said.

I tried to reach for my chest, but strong hands pulled my arms down to my side. Was I floating in the air? The lifting sensation dizzied me. So much noise. Someone crying.

Scattered phrases from various voices.

“Conscious, breathing, early thirties, his name’s Scott West.”

Screeching tires. A car door slammed. My vision cleared.

Bailey.

We are meant to be together. How could I have thought of postponing our wedding? I’d been trying to ignore my fractured heart for months. Half of me danced in the clouds with my brown-eyed girl, the other half grieved, missing my folks who’d been gone only a few months.

The panic in her face caused a different kind of pain. I’d never seen her velvet brown eyes so frightened. Her dark caramel hair seemed to fly in slow motion as she ran toward me.

My fractured heart solidified into one driving force. I loved her. How had anything else mattered?

The medics wouldn’t let her near me. Panic choked me.

Ambulance doors slammed shut.