Page 103 of Dirty Player
Grace must have heard me because she turned, looking down at us.
“Sean!” she shouted, and he dragged listless eyes to hers.
“My chest,” he rasped, barely able to breathe, “hurts.”
His body began shaking and I stood paralyzed before I realized what was happening.
“Call nine-one-one!” I began screaming. “Call nine-one-one!” I flashed terrified, panicked eyes to Grace and realized hers matched mine. “I think he’s having a heart attack.”
“Fine,” he gasped again.
Melissa’s hand wrapped around my shoulder. “I’ll do it,” she said. “Get him inside and lying down on his left side.”
She took off then, running toward a phone at the wall of the box suite for emergency uses.
“Come on,” I said to Grace. “Let’s get him inside.”
“He has to be okay,” she chanted repeatedly. “My Sean.”
His hand reached up and held hers, but I could tell it was taking everything in him. “Love you, honey. All the love in the world.”
“Stop it,” she hissed, and tears began falling down my cheeks. “You’ll be fine.”
We moved him inside, his weight difficult for us. When we had him on the floor, resting on his side, Grace dug into her purse again and popped out an aspirin. “Swallow this, Sean. Now.”
He did, working his throat like he was swallowing shards of glass, and I stepped back while they whispered to each other, things I couldn’t hear.
It was minutes that felt like hours before the stadium’s paramedics rushed through the door. We could do nothing except stand there and watch. Waiting.
Hoping.
A loud cheer in the distance and the vibration of the stadium shaking with applause pulled my eyes to the field. “Oliver.” I snapped my head to Grace. “We have to tell Oliver.”
She shook her head. “After the game. We’ll get word to him.”
“Should I wait for him?”
“No. Come with us. He’ll meet us there. The driver will be quicker anyway.”
***
We were at the hospital sitting in waiting room seats much too uncomfortable for anyone scared out of their mind.
I’d spent much of the time pacing, unable to sit still while we waited for word from the doctor.
Grace and Melissa had sat down, Grace the epitome of calmness with hope in her eyes while she sat there, hands clasped together and stared out the windows. Melissa looked as scared as I was, and I didn’t know if it was because of what we had seen, or what we were afraid the result would be.
Damn it. Oliver had been right—Sean had looked too tired this morning. Too worn down. And the way Oliver had looked at me, so concerned about his dad and asking me to keep an eye on him, promising him I wouldn’t let his dad get too excited.
I’d failed him. I hadn’t listened. I’d trusted Sean and Grace when he’d waved off the earlier pains in his chest.
I couldn’t close my eyes, I couldn’t blink. Every time I did I saw Sean’s large frame, almost as tall as Oliver’s, lying there on the floor, motionless and pale as the paramedics worked him over before rushing him out to an ambulance.
It was a memory forever ingrained in my brain.
Movement coming from the double doors caught my attention and I whispered Grace’s name.
Two doctors hustled through the doors, stopping only at the nurses’ station before looking at us when she gestured in our direction.
