Look out for the <>!

Peter's POV

I rolled onto my back and looked up at the angel face that was staring down at me. She flashed a beautiful smile that was full of confidence, but yet caution. She had such a beautiful smile, making me wish I saw it more often.

I smiled back at her. I love her, I really do. I never had said those words to her before, but she needed to know. I never loved someone as much as I did her. In the few months that we dated, she became my sun, and when she disappeared, it was like a light vanished in my life. I couldn't think, sleep, eat without thinking of her, wondering what she was doing or how she was. Even though she broke up with me to protect me, it did the opposite; it crushed me. What she didn't know was that I was already too far committed to her. She was my everything, and I wasn't sure if she understood that.

I brushed some hair from her face as I waited for her next move. I would never let her go. I would not accept that she was giving up. There was a treatment in California and I was going to convince her to go if that was the last thing I ever did. I didn't want to say goodbye to her, and I was going to do all I could to keep her here with me. Clare was perfect, and she was perfect for me.

My hands traced the small of Clare's back under her shirt. The feeling of her bare skin on my hands made my heart race even more. I wanted this moment to last forever. I wanted her to stay like this and stare down as she kissed me. The power and control she was giving off as she kissed my ear reminded me that she was capable of really anything. I just wish she realized that in herself.

I wanted to suck in every second of this moment before it was gone, not when I would get a moment like this again. I wanted her to kiss me harder than she had ever kissed me and I didn't want her to stop. She was everything that I had ever wanted.

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I felt her arms quivered beneath her weight and suddenly her face contorted into pain as she choked out my name. She then fell face-first onto the hard ground beside me as she flailed her small body around her.

Fear gripped around me as she stopped moving. I rolled onto my knees and shook her lightly, but there was no movement. I carefully rolled her onto her back to see Blood caked onto her lower face and her eyes closed, showing that she passed out. I had seen her pass out before, but this time it was different. There was something in her unmoving body that said she was finished.

"Clare? Clare? Please, can you hear me?" I beg as I waited for her to make a sound. There was nothing. I tried to feel her pulse on her wrist, only feeling a dull heart beat under my fingers. I moved my hand to her mouth feeling that she wasn't breathing.

I swore loudly, questioning why I failed that summer health class.

I brought my hand to her nose to feel her breath. There was nothing. I did CPR, grateful that at least the summer health course taught me one thing of value. I pushed on her chest to the beat of the song Staying Alive, feeling her ribs snap under the pressure of my weight, but I couldn't focus on that. I opened her mouth and breathed hot air into it, hoping that this would work. "Clare, I refuse for you to leave me like this," I said as I pushed against her chest again.

Adrenaline coursed through me, not allowing me to curl up in fear. I took a break to see if the CPR had done its job. Seconds ticked by until I saw her take a breath on her own. She coughed, then moaned my name with eyes closed.

I had to get her to the hospital, or she was going to die here. Without wasting a second, I picked up her light body and ran to the car. I held onto her tightly as I talked to her, hoping that she heard me and that it would give her power to hang on for just a little longer. "Clare, you can't do this to me. Not like this. Stay with me." I waited for a response, hoping that she would come to and say, "I'm here," but there was silence.

I saw the car in the distance and by now I was sprinting to it, not willing to have her die in my arms. I opened the car door and propped her inside. I tried to feel her pulse again but it faint it was hard to feel it. I looked carefully at her chest, not moving. She was gone again. No! This can't... then out of nowhere, she took a small breath.

I knew that I didn't have much time to get her to the hospital. She was fighting for her life in front of me, and I had to get her to help. I jumped over the hood of the car and without even buckling the seat belt; I sped away.

I don't know how many red lights I ran in those early hours of the morning, but there were many. I would look occasionally at Clare to see her breath, but each breath she took seemed to get more labored.

I made it to the hospital in record time of only 20 minutes. Under the awning of the hospital main entrance, I parked the car and ran around to where Clare lay. I picked her up and ran inside into the ER. I screamed at the top of my lungs for someone to help as I gripped onto her. I just wanted to make this better. I wanted her to be better. Within a second, nurses came up to me with a bed on wheels.

I put her on the bed and tried to fix her hair, which was a mess. "This is Clare May Atkins. She's on record here. She has cancer. I'm fairly sure that her heart stopped, and she stopped breathing, but I did CPR on her until she breathed on her own." I spoke so fast to the nurses I was barely sure they understood me.

They nodded at me and said, "stay here."

I watched as they rolled her away through some hinged doors, leaving me alone to stare at nothing important as shock finally took over. I could feel my hands shake as I relived the last hour, realizing that this was all my fault. I took her to the woods; convinced her to talk to me. I couldn't let her be alone like she wanted. I was the death of her.

I was the one that was bad for her health. I took too much of her. Her dad was right, I didn't get it; I pushed her to this. I killed Clare. I shook my head as ran my hand through my hair. She was dead, and this was my fault.

I shoved my shaking hands into my pocket as I fought back emotions, not willing to accept that this might be the last moment we shared.

I stood there for what felt like forever until the valet came up to me. "Dude, um, could I park your car for you?" he asked me.

I shook my head to clear my mind as I looked at the kid that was about the same age as me. I nodded at him, unable to speak.

"Ok. Here's a number. You give it to me when you want the car again," he said and gave me a little plastic number on a jump ring.

I shoved it into my pocket, then paced back and forth through the waiting room. I couldn't think straight as I thought about her lifeless body in front of me. This was my fault. I was the one that took her out. I was the one that started kissing her. I should have just stayed on the porch with her and watched the sunrise there. What would her parents think...her parents!

I had to call them about this. I reached into my pocket and turned my phone back on to see that it was already 8:30 AM and I already had three missed calls for Clare's father. I frowned, knowing that I was not winning any brownie points with him.

I dialed Mr. Atkins's cell phone and held the phone to my ear. It rang once, then on the other end I heard Mr. Atkins speak. "Where is Clare?" he demanded.

I felt my eyes well up with tears, unable to control my emotions, as I knew that I may have killed their little girl. My voice shook as I spoke to him, "Sir, I didn't mean to, I mean to say, I only wanted to show her something beautiful, and I took her to my grandparent's land... And I don't know what happened. She passed out. I don't think she was breathing for a few minutes. But I took her here." I wiped a tear from my face.

"Where is here? Peter, is my daughter ok?" he asked, his deep voice full of concern.

"We're at children's Hospital downtown, sir, and I don't... know," I whispered the last word, unable to think of the alternative. Unable to bring myself to think that I might have been the reason for all of this.

"We'll be there in 40 minutes." And the phone clicked, signaling he hung up.

I started pacing the room again, feeling the need to do something, but I didn't know what. I had to help somehow. I felt so out of the loop out here in the lone waiting room. Someone had to come out to talk to me, this silence was driving me crazy.

As if on cue, a soft voice spoke out behind me. "Peter?"

My head snapped in the voice's direction. There stood a short, middle-aged lady with two coffees in her hands. "Want a drink?" she asked as she handed the drink to me.

I nodded and took the plastic cup from her.

"I'm Gracey Jensen. I've been Clare's nurse ever since she stepped into these doors so many years ago. She put you down as an emergency contact a few months ago."

I smiled lightly; Clare was good at thinking ahead. It was as if she planned for this to happen, knowing I would take her and I needed to get information before going mad. Adding me as a contact was the best way for me to stay aware.

"She always talked about you to all the nurses. You really meant so much to her, it's just a shame we had to meet like this." She frowned. "I felt like I needed to come out and explain what's happening back there." She looked at the double doors as if she could see something that I couldn't. "Come, take a seat," she said, and she sat down on a vinyl padded chair and looked at the empty one beside her.

I sat down next to her and took a drink of the bitter hot drink. I scrunched my face in disgust, remembering why I never liked the taste of Coffee.

"Yeah, I don't like coffee either," she said with a tired sigh, making me wonder if it was because of Clare or just because of her long shift.

"What's going on in there?" I asked as I looked at the hinged doors. Beyond there was a different world that I was dying to know about. Here ideas held me captive, but through those doors, there were cold hard facts. As I looked at her, I knew that she held all the answered that I sought and no matter how hard they were to swallow, I wanted to hear them.

"Peter, you have to understand, none of this was your fault. Clare was a ticking time bomb, about to burst. It was only time until this happened."

I frowned at her, not truly understanding her words.

"Her lungs filled up with fluid. She couldn't breathe. What we didn't know was that her liver had completely shut down within the last nine hours and her heart, it wasn't strong enough to perform what it needed to do."

"So you're saying she's shutting down," I said numbly, barely able to force the words out of my mouth.

She frowned in silence, showing that I was right. "She probably only has a few days left in her."

I shook my head at her, unwilling to believe that. Her words were soft, but they cut through me like knives. "There has to be something else we can do. I can't say goodbye to her."

"Peter, where is she?" Clare's father's voice rang out.

I looked up at the tall, balding man that walked through the doors of the ER and frowned. I opened my mouth but closed it when I couldn't force words out of my mouth. I watched as his eyes welled up with tears as he took long steps towards me. He wanted to lash out at me, but grief took hold of him as if he knew what was happening.

"You told me you would watch her. You said you would protect her," he said accusingly, shaking with anger and fear as he pointed his finger at me.

I recoiled back from him as if he was fire, ready to burn me at a moment's notice. I deserved all of his accusations since I gave him my word and I couldn't live up to it.

"Scott, please keep your voice down," nurse Jensen said to him with a frown. "Take a seat and cool off." She pointed to a chair for him to go to but he stood still. He would not back down when I killed his daughter.

His words cut me deep like a whip. I said all of those things but could not live up to a single one of them. I stood up from my chair. I could see hatred in his eyes. "I'm going to make this right. I'm not giving up. I'm going to protect her," I said to him firmly. It would be the last thing I would do. And after that, after I knew I did all I could, I would walk away. Clare deserved that much.