He Bet My Life and Lost Me Instead novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: Nobody Counts

Sam's POV

They let her out on the fifth day.

Dylan's confession was four days old, and the state's attorney had called twice.

Nina hadn't called back.

"He doesn't get to decide what I do with it," she had told me. "Not the plea, not the prison. I'll answer when I know."

The pulmonologist wrote the orders herself and handed them to me, because Nina was busy arguing with a nurse about the wheelchair.

"No wheelchair," Nina said. "I walked out of a tower."

"Hospital policy," the nurse said.

"Then I'll walk out of the policy."

She walked out.

I carried the bag and the portable oxygen tank, and I kept my mouth shut.

At the two-flat I set the concentrator up beside the bed, plugged it in, and ran the tubing across the pillow.

It hummed.

I had set up forty of these for strangers.

I had never once wanted a machine to be unnecessary.

Nina watched me from the doorway with her arms folded.

"You're doing the face," she said.

"I don't have a face."

"You count my breaths. I can see your lips move."

I looked at the floor.

"Six years," I said. "My partner went into a smoke call on Forty-Seventh Street and I counted his breaths on the way to the hospital. The count stopped on the ramp."

She came across the room and took the tubing out of my hands.

"Sam."

"Yeah."

"I'm taking this off."

"The doctor said you should wear it at night."

"The doctor said I could take breaks when I felt strong." She hooked the cannula over the lamp. "Ask me what I want."

I made myself say it.

"What do you want, Nina?"

"I want one night where nobody in this house counts anything."

She pulled my shirt out of my belt.

"Not you. Not me. Not the machine."

My hands were already on her face.

I kissed her, slowly, and she opened her mouth under mine and made a low sound that went straight down my spine.

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