BRODY
I have no clue how to react. Neither of us has used the L-word, and it feels huge. I try to trust my gut, which is usually pretty reliable, but my gut is confused – it’s scared and thrilled in pretty much equal measures. Warmth surges through me, but doesn’t quite melt the polar ice-cap that lives around my heart.
She loves me? Like, yes. Admire, yes. Lust over, one hundred per cent. But love? That’s a big word. A big change. What happened to no strings attached? I need to speak. I need to move. I need to do all kinds of things that I’m just not capable of doing. I stare up at her in shock, and she rapidly shakes her head, hair swishing on her shoulders.
‘No! I didn’t mean that!’ she adds quickly, a look of panic on her face. ‘It was just a thing I said! Or maybe I did mean it… oh God, Brody, I’m sorry, I’ve gone and spoiled everything, just like I always do!’
I hate the way she looks right now – crestfallen, destroyed, racked with self-doubt. One man has already done that to her, and I don’t want to follow in his footsteps.
‘It’s okay, Kate,’ I say, sounding much more calm than I feel inside. ‘You haven’t spoiled anything.’
She hasn’t, I tell myself. It’s fine. It was only a figure of speech. Or maybe, just maybe, she’s right – could this be more than ‘like’? The way I feel about her is messy. I miss her when we’re apart. My body physically aches when she’s away from me. I think about her all the goddamn time. I’d kill anyone who harmed her, and I’d walk a thousand miles to see that smile. I’m planning a life back home that will feel empty without her in it. Maybe…
She stares at me as I think, the cogs in my stupid brain turning way too slowly, and teardrops spill down her cheeks.
‘I feel like such an idiot now,’ she says, her hands going to her face, angrily swiping away the tears. ‘And why am I crying? It’s rubbish being a girl, hormones are so stupid!’
She sucks in a deep, shuddering breath, and takes a step down. She’s upset, and not holding on, and the rest unfolds before my eyes in what feels like slow motion. Her foot slips, and she tries to grab the shelves, sending a flurry of books to the floor. A look of fear flashes across her face, and she tumbles to the ground. I run across the room to try and break her fall, but I’m too late. She crashes down in a crumpled heap, the puffin book landing next to her. The pages fall open, but I only have eyes for her.
‘Kate!’ I yell, crouching down next to her, absolute terror gripping me as I see her pale face, and blood oozing from her scalp. Her eyes are closed, and she doesn’t respond. She’s out.
I’m paralysed for a moment, trapped in my own memories: our kitchen back home. The day I found Sandy collapsed on the floor, after the heart attack none of us saw coming. She was young, she was healthy, but there’d been a ticking time bomb inside for years – and when it exploded, I was useless. I couldn’t do anything to save her, and I had to watch the woman I loved fade and die before my eyes, Shannon sobbing in the background.
I stare at Kate, heart pounding, immobile and yet again useless. It’s happening again, I just know it.
Some of my training kicks in, just as it did with Sandy, and I tell myself to get a grip. I automatically check her airways, and start CPR. I sing the damn song in my head to get the rhythm right, all the while praying, pleading, begging… please don’t let me lose her too. Not now. Not like this. I couldn’t survive another loss like that.
After a few moments, she weakly pushes me away. Her eyes flutter open, and her hands fall to her sides. ‘Brody, what happened? What are you doing?’ she murmurs, her voice barely a whisper. The relief that floods me chases away some of the adrenalin, and I want to pull her close, drag her into my arms and never let her go. I know I can’t, because if she’s injured her spine, I’ll just make it worse.
I pull my phone out of my pocket and automatically dial 911, thankful for the modern technology that reroutes me instead to the UK emergency services. I tell them what’s happened, that I need an ambulance, that she was unconscious and has potential injuries related to a fall from height.
‘I’m fine!’ she insists, trying to struggle up to a seated position then collapsing back down. Her hands go to her head, and come away red. She stares at the blood on her fingers, her gaze unsteady.
‘Oh dear,’ she mutters. ‘I think I must have fallen off the ladder! But I don’t need to go to hospital, I’m okay, I promise…’
I put the phone to one side, and gently take one of her hands in mine. She’s trembling, and her breath is coming too fast. She’s in shock, and I guess I’m not really helping. I’m fighting my own panic here, my own version of what a more enlightened man might recognise as a kind of PTSD. It’s all melded into one horror movie moment: Sandy dying in my arms, my fall from theparking lot, Kate plummeting to the earth with a flap of paper as the books came with her.
‘You are going to hospital,’ I say firmly, kissing her fingers. ‘You need to get your head checked.’
‘Huh,’ she mumbles. ‘People have been telling me that for years… are you okay?’
‘Am I okay?’
‘Yes. You look… not okay. Gosh, I’m so tired…’
I take a deep breath, ignore the twinging in my back. I’m not okay, not at all, but she doesn’t need to know that right now.
‘I’m good, Kate. I’m good. Just stay with me, all right? Don’t go to sleep, baby – keep your eyes on me. I’m here.’
I see the effort it takes her to keep her eyes open, and I make sure she talks to me while we wait for the paramedics. By the time they finally arrive, it feels like a year has passed – a year of me expecting to lose her. Of me waiting for her final breath, her final word. Of me dying inside.
When the first responders arrive, a man and a woman in green uniforms, they take over with a combination of efficiency and reassurance that I can only describe as jolly. They laugh, they joke, they chat to Kate, but all the while they’re checking for signs of serious damage before they load her onto a backboard and take her outside.
By this time we’ve attracted some attention, because not much happens in Bonnie Bay without somebody noticing. Rosie and Laurel arrive, running over to me as Kate is wheeled inside the vehicle. She looks up, one hand managing a small wave, a half-hearted smile on her face. I ask to go with her, but instead they tell me to meet them at the hospital. I have no clue where that is, and fumble for my car keys.
‘I’ll drive you,’ Rosie says firmly, looking at my hands. ‘You’re in no fit state to be behind the wheel, man. Laurel, keep an eye on your brothers, aye?’
I’m grateful for the offer, and for the fact that she doesn’t try and make me talk too much. She takes a sideways glance at me, and says: ‘She’s going to be fine, Brody. Bit of rest, maybe a few stitches, she’ll be good to go. It’ll take a lot more than a fall from a few feet to do any real damage.’
