I knew that in my head, but my heart didn’t give a damn. It just wanted to see Ax. I took a bite of my pasta and fought to keep it down. I knew I needed to eat for the baby’s sake, but my morning sickness usually stretched well into the afternoon. I took a sip of my lemon water, which always seemed to settle my stomach, and thumbed through the job ads on my phone. I wanted to do something to help pay my expenses this summer because I knew I would be too busy to hold down a job once medical school started in the fall.

A medium-height man in a designer-looking suit approached my table. He appeared to be about ten years older than me, with a touch of salt and pepper hair at his temples. “Excuse me, may I borrow some of your Stevia?” he asked, pointing toward the little container full of sugar and artificial sweeteners on my table. “There’s none on our table.”

“Are you going to return it?” I teased.

“Um, actually, no. Can I just have some?”

“Oh, I suppose,” I said, and he smiled at me before grabbing two packets and turning back to the table next to mine.

I had just looked back down at my phone when I registered the alarm in his voice. “Mom? Mom, what’s wrong?” I glanced up and saw an impeccably groomed woman leaning back in her chair, clutching her chest. Her face and neck were covered with perspiration, and my mind instantly said, “heart attack.”

I leaped into action, throwing instructions to the man who had just been at my table. We got the woman, his mother, on the ground, and I did a quick assessment. Fuck, she was definitely in cardiac arrest. This mall had emergency AED devices, and I yelled out the location of the one I had noticed earlier as I had walked through the mall, and a fellow patron took off to find it.

Shit, shit, shit. She wasn’t breathing, so I ripped open her suit jacket and started chest compressions as I directed someone to call 9-1-1. The AED was thrust into my hands only moments later, and I slapped the pads on her and shocked her. Then I continued doing CPR until I felt hands pulling me away from the woman. The paramedics had arrived, and they took over as they loaded her into the ambulance. For some reason, I hopped in the rig with them, and nobody saw fit to stop me.

Once at the hospital, I spoke briefly to the ER doctor assigned to the woman, who I learned was named Serena Cavanaugh. Then I went to the cafeteria and purchased a ginger ale and a chocolate chip cookie since I hadn’t gotten the chance to finish my meal.