With her average physical stamina and inability to deal with the summer heat, the combination zapped away any possibility of alertness she had in dodging the next flying object that was heading towards her at an alarming rate.
Chapter 5
Adrian
It wasn’t like he wasn’t coordinated enough to catch or thow a ball, but the minute he felt that familiar tug pull him into the direction to where the football was going, he immediately knew that the flying projectile was now dangerous.
Not a second later, that same football collided against its unintended target.
“Aria!” Mira immediately ran towards the fallen girl in a burst of panic. “Aria!”
Adrian didn’t know what to do.
The tug he felt that led him to the girl who fell was unmistakable. It was the same type of tug he felt at the mall and when he first met Mira.
The girl on the ground must have been his soul mate and the sensation he felt was unreal. He didn’t know whether to run around in joy until his adrenaline wore off, or call an ambulance.
Nick moved before he did, and Adrian realized that the girl who fell was still not awake.
“Aria.” Mira shook her friend’s shoulder. “Aria? Wake up, Aria!” she called out.
It didn’t take long for Adrian to realize that he had unintentionally hurt his soul mate, where soon enough, a sense of panic immediately settled in.
And to think, they hadn’t even officially met yet.
He quickly dashed towards the three in a matter of seconds. His thoughts were in a frenzy, and he was trying his best to calm down.
What if he just killed his soul mate?
He quickly pulled his phone out from his front pocket and was ready to call the ambulance until Mira cried out,
“Aria! Oh my God, Aria. I thought you died!”
The girl’s expression had a mixture of bewilderment and something else he couldn’t quite place. She didn’t speak right away, and looked like she was still trying to process on what just happened.
She glanced towards Mira who quickly explained the situation.
“You were hit with a football,” Mira explained. “Because this dipsh*t . . .” She shifted her ire at Adrian. “Can’t catch.”
Aria then turned to look at the two of them, and Adrian noticed that his heart rate wasn’t going to slow down anytime soon.
“The hell?” Aria groaned.
Adrian couldn’t speak. He was stunned and his mind was in a flurry of chaos right now.
Is she gonna say something?
Does she hate me?
Will she think I’m incompetent?
Why isn’t she saying anything?
Even if she was angry at him, he would appreciate it if she said something. Anything.
“We’re getting you to the ER.” Mira grabbed ahold of Aria’s shoulder before she slowly sat her up. “You were out for a minute. We have to get you checked.”
Aria blinked in confusion. “Really?”
“For a few minutes at least.” Mira then grabbed Aria’s backpack and handed it to Adrian. “Nick, can you help with the other side?”
Adrian didn’t complain and simply followed orders because he wasn’t sure if he could even trust himself to help her. A part of him wanted to grab the opportunity and say, “I’ll do it!”, and be completely confident with that he was saying, but he couldn’t even convince himself that he was reliable enough.
He watched as Aria stood up and walked with a little sway to her step. The guilt began to eat at him and he couldn’t help but hate himself.
“I’m fine, really,” she insisted.
“No, we’re taking you to the ER,” Mira said.
“No, seriously,” Aria said as she walked over and leaned against Mira’s car. “I’ll be fine.”
“You have to get checked for possible concussions, so we’re going.”
“That’s—” Aria stopped and Adrian wondered what she was about to say.
Mira looked at him with a glare. “I’ll cover it, don’t worry.”
The cogs in his mind started to turn.
“Mira, it’s okay. Seriously,” Aria said.
“I can cover it,” Adrian offered. “It’s my fault that you got hit.”
Aria turned to him. “I don’t even know you,” she said which felt like a hit to the gut.
Why’d she have to say it like that?
Nick spoke out, “It’s really important to get checked out. Otherwise, it could get worse.”
“He’s right,” Mira said, using this as an opportunity to get her friend to cave in.
He heard Aria whisper something to Mira, and immediately pulled away to avoid listening in out of respect. It was hard because for some reason, all he wanted to do was to observe every little thing she did.
In the end, all three of them won the battle because Aria was too tired to continue fighting with them on the matter.
The whole ordeal with the hospital was rather quick. They managed to get Aria some brain scans to check for any possible concussions, and as they waited for the results in a separate room, Mira continued to give him the evil eye.
Adrian, on the other hand, felt like he really screwed up with this situation. The only reason he was able to breathe a little lighter was because Aria wasn’t being rushed off to some other unit to deal with some sort of complication. However, that guilty feeling still continued to eat at him.
Eventually, Nick had to leave early to pick up Leila from the university, and as the three of them waited for the results, Adrian made sure to observe Aria as discreetly as possible. Of course, it didn’t help that Mira literally confronted him the minute Aria got her x-ray results.
“Adrian,” Mira called out to him softly, while Aria was going over the test results with the doctor. “We need to talk.”
He nodded. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t expecting this. After all, Mira was Aria’s
