Kapitel 9: How Did This Happen?

Sierra knew Nathan was an overly helpful person, to the point of it being somewhat annoying at times, but the last thing she expected was that he would literally jump in front of a bus for her. She would never be able to live with herself if someone died saving her life so she immediately began to panic.

"Nathan! NATHAN! You have to stay awake, okay? Don't close your eyes!"

He didn't listen to her. It appeared that he had passed out. She frantically looked around to see if anyone had called 911 yet and saw that a woman standing nearby who had seen the accident was on the phone.

"…yes, he jumped in front of a bus to save someone who was stuck. I think he landed on his arm and hit his head. He appears to be unconscious now," she explained.

Sierra's heart was still racing from the shock of nearly being hit herself and losing the heel of her shoe in the process but it was also weighed down by guilt. Why on earth would Nathan do that for her? They hardly knew each other!

They hadn't even known each other's names until a couple of interactions ago. They had never once held a conversation of any real significance. Would he have done that for anybody or was it about her specifically?

She already knew he was all about the emergency preparedness and helping strangers considering she had been one most of the times he helped her but still… Jumping in front of a bus was a much bigger commitment than tripping a thief or preventing someone from falling over.

Sierra didn't know anything else about him aside from his profession. Oh geez. If she killed him, Scarlett would never forgive her! She had been thrilled to get his book autographed.

Somebody needed to tell his family about this. She knew he had a little sister but that was it. These days phones had 'emergency' options even if they were locked but that only worked if he had filled it out and included his emergency contact's information on there. She needed to find his phone.

She dug around in the pockets she could reach considering he was sort of on his side and found a bunch of strange objects. He hadn't been kidding about that rope not being all he had before.

Eventually, she did find his phone and prayed he had filled out the emergency contact information. He had! It was for a woman named Lisa Carlin.

Sierra made the phone call nervously. She really hoped she hadn't inadvertently killed him. There would be no recovering from that kind of guilt and she already owed him a lot for saving her purse.

"Hey, Nate! What's up?" a cheerful female voice answered.

That only made her feel guiltier. "Hi…I'm an acquaintance of Nathan's and felt that you should know he's been hurt. I'll be sure to find out where the ambulance is taking him when it gets here so you can go be with him."

"What happened?!"

"He got hit by a bus," Sierra said miserably. "It wasn't going very fast since it was slowing to a stop but I think he hit his head on the ground. I'm so sorry; this is my fault. It only happened because he was pushing me out of the way."

The other end of the line went silent for a minute before Lisa responded. "He wouldn't want you to feel guilty. Thank you for calling me."

"No problem. The ambulance should be here soon so if you don't mind staying on the line—"

"Of course not!"

She sounded vaguely insulted and Sierra couldn't help but wonder who this woman was to him. Was she his girlfriend? He didn't wear a ring and the 'about the author' blurb she read didn't mention he was married but that didn't necessarily mean he wasn't. She might be his wife.

Would a wife or girlfriend be so generous as to say he wouldn't want her to feel guilty though? If she had a boyfriend who sacrificed himself for another woman, she wasn't sure how she would feel about it.

The ambulance arrived three tensely silent minutes later and she stayed on the phone as the woman who called 911 explained what happened to the EMTs. Sierra was sure to jump in and explain she was on the phone with his emergency contact and would need to know where they were going.

"Why don't you come with us, ma'am? I would like to speak to them and get some questions answered about his general health since he's unconscious," the EMT suggested. "I'll need someone to hold the phone as I administer first aid."

"That's fine," she said quietly. Nathan had saved her life. It was the least she could do.

Sierra got into the back of the ambulance with them and put the phone on speaker. "Lisa, the EMTs want to ask you some questions about Nathan. Can you do that?"

"Absolutely. What do you need to know?" she asked in a shaky voice.

"Name, age, any underlying health conditions…whatever you can tell me," the EMT replied as he hooked Nathan up to some machinery that would monitor his vital signs. "Anything you know helps."

"His name is Nathan Grant. He's twenty-seven and other than an allergy to certain fruits he doesn't have any health problems. As far as I know, he's never even broken a bone. He's always so careful…how did this happen?"

The last bit seemed to be rhetorical but it made the weight on Sierra's heart even heavier. If she hadn't been the idiot that got her heel stuck in a grate, none of this would have happened. Nathan jumping in prevented her from getting hit; she knew that for a fact.

But why did he do it? How did he even know she was going to get hurt? Wouldn't it be more natural to assume the bus was going to slow down in time?

She didn't know what to make of this. Or any of the other times he prevented her from getting hurt. Somehow he always seemed to know what was going to happen right before it did…

"He wears glasses," Sierra added. "I don't know where they went. They may have flown off when he fell."