4. Chapter Four
Chapter Four
B rooke hadn’t been left alone since she’d been admitted. She knew what everyone was worried about. It worried her, too, that she so easily thought about ending it. What did she have to live for now?
In the back of her mind, a whisper said, A lot.
At the moment, it was hard to conjure something, anything that made her feel even a glimmer of hope that she wouldn’t feel this grief and loss and rage for the rest of her life.
They told her she was well enough to go home today.
Home.
The dorm? The ranch? Not with Cody and Kristi there. Where exactly was home?
She’d planned to make a home with her daughter in the apartment she was having set up for them. Now, she could care less about her plans for the future. What did they matter when her daughter was gone, the dreams and plans she’d made nothing but fantasy, washed away by absence and aching sadness.
A knock sounded on the door.
The nurse who helped her shower, redress her wounds, and dress herself had left a few moments ago. The nurses usually gave a cursory knock before stepping in, but whoever was on the other side of the door waited for permission.
“Come in.” Was that her raspy voice? She remembered screaming and wailing when she found out her baby died. Until now, she hadn’t realized how much her throat ached.
Mindy Sue walked in with her father.
“You look better.” Mindy Sue tried to smile, but it didn’t reach her eyes.
“No, I don’t.”
Mindy Sue held something clasped in her hands. A round silver box. It could be mistaken for a trinket or music box. But no. It held something more precious to Brooke than anything else in this world.
She held out her trembling hands.
Mindy Sue stepped forward to place the vessel in her hands and covered Brooke’s with hers. “I’m so sorry.”
Brooke clutched her daughter to her chest and broke down in wracking sobs.
Mindy Sue wrapped her in a tight hug.
Doug stepped forward and brushed his hand down her hair.
Brooke flinched from the contact, but he didn’t say anything and only brushed his hand over her head again, offering her comfort as the tears fell like rain.
She held the vessel to her chest, sniffled back her remaining tears, and stared up at him. “Please. I need to get out of here.”
Doug’s eyes filled with understanding. “The car is downstairs at a side entrance just in case there are any media out front. The nurse will be here with a wheelchair any moment.”
Brooke wasn’t concerned about the media. Yes, they knew someone had been attacked on campus again, but they didn’t have her name. She could be anyone leaving the hospital, but Doug was being cautious and she appreciated it.
She didn’t have the strength or brain power to deal with anything more than getting from the hospital to her dorm room, where she could crawl into her bed and try not to think about anything anymore.
Mindy Sue stuffed the paper bag of meds and clean bandages the nurse had left for Brooke into the duffel Mindy Sue had packed and brought from their dorm room this morning. Her clothes had been cut off her body in the emergency room the night of the attack, so Mindy Sue had brought her some spare clothes and toiletries.
“Thank you for bringing my clothes and stuff.”
“Of course.” Mindy Sue hooked the bag strap over her shoulder and grabbed the bag of personal effects the emergency room staff had taken off Brooke the night she arrived here.
How long had she been here?
She wasn’t quite sure. The last couple days bled into each other.
The heavy-duty pain meds didn’t help her keep things straight either.
The nurse backed into the room with the wheelchair.
Mindy Sue steadied Brooke as she moved to the wheelchair on rubbery legs. The brace on her sprained ankle kept her off-balance. She settled in the seat and held up her feet as the nurse adjusted the footrests.
Doug and Mindy Sue stepped out of the room ahead of her. The nurse pushed her toward the elevator, where Doug punched the button.
She had a sinking feeling that it didn’t matter if she left this place where her trauma and injuries and loss had been tended and mended in some ways that she’d never escape. The cuts would scar. Her heart would forever be missing a broken piece. Her mind would never forget Adam, the attack, the death of more than her sweet little girl, but the loss of a life never lived and memories never made.
Would she spend forever wondering what might have been, daydreaming about what could have been?
What was better? These moments of sad realities or the fog that encased her in shell where she thought about and felt nothing?
Somehow, she found herself in the sunlight, blinding her. She winced and shied away from the brightness and heat that reminded her how cold she felt inside and out.
She didn’t remember the elevator ride or getting into Doug’s car as they pulled up in front of the dorms. She barely registered walking into her dorm room and lying on her bed, Doug and Mindy Sue whispering.
But she welcomed the shadows when Mindy Sue closed the blinds, the brush of her lips on Brooke’s forehead before she went to her own bed and lay down. And then she let the fatigue take her down deep, where nothing mattered except the feel of the silver box resting on her chest over her aching heart. Maybe in her dreams she’d see her baby girl and tell her she loved her and missed her and was so sorry she hadn’t been strong enough, fast enough, to save her.
Maybe then she wouldn’t blame herself for letting a monster so close he could take the one thing she loved above everything else.
I’m sorry.
And how was she supposed to tell Cody he’d lost another child? Not because nature had deemed it unviable but because of the violence unleashed by a man’s obsession.
Cody would hate her for not telling him, for not allowing him to be a part of the pregnancy and sharing their little girl with him.
He’d hate Brooke for not protecting her.
She truly had lost everything.