Falling In Between (Falling Novels #1)

Chapter Fifteen

When Christmas vacation ended and January rolled in, I practically flung myself into Robert's waiting arms. We didn't even care that the common room was filled beyond capacity and that every single pair of eyes were probably watching us grope our 'hello, welcome back'. Three weeks was way too long to be without his lips and we were quick to sneak upstairs and re-familiarize ourselves – which Sophie and Jhett were more than willing to do back in our bedroom.

"You know, I'm glad you spent all those summers here, because now that I'll have to spend most of my weekends traveling for swim meets, I want more of our evenings to be spent like this."

My lips pressed back into his and murmured an agreement. Who knew all those summers taking classes just to get out of living in group homes would be so beneficial in the end? I was actually just a few classes shy of graduating and technically didn't have to take electives to fill the rest of my day. Instead, I chose to add on several study hall periods, which was basically the academy throwing me into the classroom where a teacher had the period off. It was perfect. I could spend half my day working on college and scholarship applications and also getting my homework out of the way.

Which was gonna allow me some time to volunteer at the hospital like Sophie suggested. I took the bus into town the second week of January – to Robert's dismay. He wanted to drive me but I wouldn't let him since he still needed his afternoons for homework, and driving me to and from both times would cut an hour and a half out of his day. He lightened up again when I reminded him he'd get his homework done a lot quicker without me there and then our evenings would be completely free for one another.

The bus I took dropped me off at the street in front of the hospital and I bolted through the slush before my body could freeze anymore. What the hell was I thinking volunteering while the snowstorms were still coming down every week and dumping endless piles of snow on the ground?

I stomped the snow from my boots and shook the damp flakes free from my hair as I crossed the threshold into the building. I headed toward the ward I was housed in during my stay and looked for Margaret, the nurse that agreed to take me on. I vaguely remembered her from my stay here. She was the head nurse in this ward and I could recall her popping in occasionally to take my vitals and change out my IV drips.

Margaret was sitting behind the counter at the nurses' station recording something in a patient's binder. She was an older woman, probably in her late forties, with brown eyes, light skin and streaks of gray beginning to fill in the black hair that fell to her shoulders. When I got to the counter she looked up and smiled when she recognized me, and pushed her reading glasses on top of her head.

"Miss Jenna Baker. Glad to see you're doing so well. No more jumps, I hope?"

"Nah, but the pond's frozen this time of year, so let's give it some time to thaw back out."

She laughed and reached for some paperwork behind her. "You'll need to read and sign some confidentiality agreements and then we can get started."

Why did they have to use all that legal jargon on those forms? If they wanted me to agree to something, shouldn't they just write the agreement in dumber words so I'll know exactly what the hell it was they were asking of me?

Whatever. I just signed.

Margaret said she was desperate for someone to help her out with entering the data from the patient files into the computer system so she could go through and approve it afterwards. The other nurses were just as busy as she was, so I spent the majority of my time doing this for her. A lot of time, in fact. Mid-February rolled around before I got to come out from behind the computer and breathe the...smelly disinfectant, germ-filled air. Lovely.

That's when she sent me to work the information desk in the front lobby, but even that was short lived once Margaret's ward got slammed and she needed me again for data entry. It was nothing exciting but I liked the people there and I now understood how Sophie found it so easy to become friendly with the staff. 

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Towards the end of February, Chance took me to the Vermont State Fair. I'd never been in real life, so it was interesting to see it through his eyes. Smelly petting zoos were never my thing and carnival rides that jerked and jiggled violently just made my stomach jump into my throat and made me sick, but having his fingers entwined around mine made it all seem bearable. His favorite part was obviously the demolition derby. Seriously, I just didn't get the point of thirty cars racing around intentionally trying to destroy one another just to be the last car running, but I had honestly never seen Chance so freakin' excited before. He didn't get why I kept watching him instead of the crashing cars. Sorry, but I actually found the most entertaining part of the fair to be watching him watch the derby. I don't think I've ever held a smile so long.

And when our trip to the fair was over, he took me back to our spot in the woods so we could camp beneath the twinkling stars for the night. As I lay there with him asleep by my side, I kept my eyes on the serenity of the night sky, still feeling this weird sense of déjà vu.

Since the first night Chance told me he loved me, he had followed it up with a few more instances, but always when he thought I was sleeping. I began to wonder if he found it difficult to admit it when I was awake. Hell, I could understand that, and I was a little grateful they had all come out that way so far. I wasn't sure or not if what I felt for him was love. I'd never been in love before. Truthfully, I'd never even had family members to love. And when I thought about the possibility of it being love, my insides twisted and knotted and this heavy suffocation sat down on my chest, making it harder for me to breathe.

And then I thought about Robert, and how my body did the same thing when trying to determine if what I felt for him was love too.