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"I'll sleep here," Vale says priainst the wall, shove et ready to watch the fireworks

"Youto eatprobably with less salt, and then I' to sleep I don't need you here"

Vale isn't swayed "Youwere to happen, I'd just as soon stay here so I can be close by"

"Nothing's going to happen--" Dave says calmly, but he's cut off by the cutest snarl

"You don't know that I just watched you have a seizure in front of me, which took ten years off my life"

"But I'm fine now," Dave placates

"But you may not--"

"Enough," Dave growls as he levels the sternest look I've ever seen hies her every whi of those words

Vale's eyes go wide and then she blinks at him in disbelief

With a gentler voice, Dave tells her, "Honey, I get you're worried, but you are doingto make o hoht's sleep You can come back at the crack of dawn if you want, okay?"

It's like a balloon deflating Vale's shoulders sag in resignation and she gives hi up froh and says, "Fine I'll go"

Vale leans over the bedrail and kisses her father on the cheek I push up off the wall, walk to the bed, and pat hi covered in crisp, white sheets "Take care, Dave We'll be back tomorrow"

"Don't you have practice tomorrow?" Dave, the athletic trainer and corunt

"Yes," I say with a cheeky grin "But it doesn't last all day"

Vale gives no less than three backward glances over her shoulder to her dad as I gently push her froive her a ride ho garage located outside the hospital

Once we hit I-40 east, Vale leans back in the passenger seat and says, "You re fro hole?"

I give a grunt of a laugh "Yeah, it took forever for you to get psyched up to make the jump, but once you did, you couldn't stop What elike seventeen or so?"

"Yeah, seventeen," she agrees softly She's quiet a uing her ue I can see from the corner of my eye her hands nervously tw

isting and rubbing in her lap "Before I made that first jump, I was so scared"

I nod in understanding I was scared too, as that tree sat on a sood twenty feet up fro around that so his neck in the jue Probably just a ru children

"I prayed right before I jumped," Vale says in an almost silent whisper, as if she's eious person, and as far as I know, didn't pray routinely We o to church "I told God that if he let me make the ju as long as I lived"

Understanding washes throughroom"

A laugh pops out of Vale's ation "I've been praying to God since nosed I' jump into Lollerman's Creek"

There's no thought to my actions, just instinct My hand reaches over, pries into her clenched hands, and pulls one of theive a reassuring squeeze "I don't think that's hoorks, Vale Besides, who's to say that one of your prayers didn't land on the Big Guy's desk and that's what led him to the clinical trial at Duke? Huh?"

Vale reactively squeezes my hand, and while I don't hear it, I feel an amused chuckle in that action "You always have an answer for everything"

"It got us out of a lot of trouble with your dad and Oliver's parents ere younger, that's for sure"

Another sh from Vale, and she makes no effort to move her hand froer , and we sit in coet to her apartment, where our hands finally part

I put the car in park and switch off the ignition Vale exits the car and doesn't say a word as I get out too It's dark outside, the light on her stairwell is burned out, and I'ets so she's been taken care of

And it feels goodnot going to lie