The Girl in the Love Song (Lost Boys #1)(116)

I nodded and kissed him softly. “Okay. I love you. So much.”

“Love you, Vi…” he said, and that was the last thing he said to me before he slept.

I drifted off more slowly, floating on the currents of a new life that was just on the horizon.





An alarm jolted me out of the warm, sleepy comfort, and I sat up, blinking, Miller’s name falling from my lips automatically. He was still sleeping, though his alarm was beeping frantically.

“Miller? Wake up.” I flipped on the nightstand light. A cry caught in my throat. He trembled as if an electric current were running through him, breathing in short, hiccupping gasps. His face was as pale as the pillow.

“Oh my God…” My gaze darted to the numbers on his watch. Forty-five. Then forty-four… “Oh my God.”

Instantly, my mouth went dry, and my blood thrashed in my ears. The words catastrophic hypoglycemic event streaked across my mind, called up from my years of researching diabetes as a kid. Research I’d done for him. So this wouldn’t happen.

A sense of preternatural calm came over me. The terror balled itself into a stone, and I pushed it down deep where it sat in my stomach so I could do what I had to do. I threw off the covers, rushed for the minifridge where his medicine was stored. Insulin to bring his blood sugar down if the numbers were high, and emergency syringes of glucagon if the numbers were low.

“Miller! Miller, I’m here,” I said, my voice jagged with fear. I tore the plastic packaging off a glucagon injection pen. “Stay with me, Miller. Stay right here.”

I climbed back onto the bed and pushed up the short sleeve of his undershirt. I pinched the skin with trembling fingers and injected the needle, depressing it until the vial was empty.

“Wake up, Miller.” I tossed the syringe and reached for my phone on the nightstand. “Come on, baby, wake up.”

I dialed 911 and put my fingers to Miller’s neck while I waited for an answer. His pulse thumped so fast, I could hardly distinguish one beat from another.

“911, what is your emergency?”

Calmly but quickly, I explained the situation, watching Miller’s numbers rise but not fast enough.

“He won’t wake up. Please hurry. He won’t wake up.”

An eternity crammed itself into the next fifteen minutes—the time it took for EMTs to bust in the door. I scrambled out of their way, the ball of terror in my stomach wanting to rise up into my throat.

Chaos ensued as Miller’s security team poured into the room with Brighton and a handful of assistants and tour managers. I threw on jeans, shoes, and a sweatshirt as the EMTs lifted Miller onto a gurney. Faces swam in front of me, but I pushed past them to stay with Miller. He still hadn’t woken up.

The EMTs asked questions about his medical history as Brighton and I hurried alongside the gurney through the hotel. Guests were peeking out of doors, gawking at the commotion. I told the EMTs about his past and Brighton explained his more current issues. Miller’s numbers had always been hard to manage, but my heart cracked to hear how he’d been struggling recently.

I demanded to ride with him to the hospital, afraid to let him out of my sight, even for a moment. Afraid if I looked away, he’d disappear. In the chaos of the jouncing ambulance, with EMTs talking over the beeping of machines, I sat beside Miller, held his limp hand in mine, and leaned over close. My face was on fire, still too panicked for tears. There wasn’t a drop of water in my body.

“Stay with me. I mean it. Stay right here,” I told him, over the thrashing of blood in my ears. “Stay with me, baby, please.”

Under an oxygen mask, Miller remained pale, eyes closed, mouth half open and slack.

At the hospital, they whisked him away, out of my sight and to the ICU. Someone led me to the waiting room, just outside the swinging doors. Someone else gave me a glass of water.

Dr. Brighton arrived. He touched my shoulder in a fatherly gesture. “You did good,” he said, then pushed through the ICU doors. Because he was a doctor and I wasn’t.

Assistants and managers arrived to crowd the room. I recognized one young woman, Tina, as his new assistant, a phone pressed to her ear.

“His mom,” I said in a hollow voice. “Someone call his mom.”

Helplessness pressed down on me now that Miller’s care was taken out of my hands. I had nothing to do but wait. The terror had gripped my heart in an icy fist and wouldn’t let go. Finally, a young doctor with a bald head but a full dark beard came out looking for Miller’s family. His face was inscrutable, no way to tell if he had good news or…

A flash of memory streaked across my vision: Miller climbing up the trellis and through my bedroom window. Miller and me, thirteen years old, lying in bed face to face. Miller sitting across from me, his guitar in his lap, singing songs he wrote for me and I never knew…

“Me,” I said hoarsely, mustering every ounce of courage I had. “Me. You can tell me.”

I’ll take it. I’ll take whatever it is because he’s mine and I’m his. Always.

The doctor sat across from me, a quiet smile under his beard. His nametag read Dr. Julian Monroe.

“Miller is in a diabetic coma.”

My head bobbed in a nod. “Yes. Okay.”

“We’ve given him fluids and glucose, and he’s now flitting in and out of consciousness. A very good sign.”