Chapter 24
Brooke
Something hurts.
Pain, distant and dull, blooms somewhere in the center of me.
Then sound creeps in.
A thick, wet noise. A sharp exhale. The slap of skin against skin. It echoes strangely, like it is traveling through water before it reaches me.
Pressure follows.
My chest caves inward. My body reacts before my mind does. A violent jolt runs through me as something heavy drives down on my sternum. My ribs protest. Another impact. Then another.
Where am I?
The question drifts through slowly, like it has to fight its way up.
A voice breaks through next. Muffled at first. Then closer.
“Come on. Come on. Breathe.”
Hands. That is what the pressure is. Hands pressing down, hard enough that my spine feels it against the tile beneath me. The floor is cold. I register that now. Cold and unyielding against my back.
Another shove.
Then heat.
Air is forced into me.
It tears down my throat like fire. My airway spasms violently. My body bucks without permission, rejecting it.
My sense of taste slams back all at once.
Chlorine. Metal. Blood.
I cough, and water erupts from my mouth and nose in choking bursts. It splashes against my lips, my chin, the floor beside my head. My throat feels shredded raw.
My ears ring, then clear in fragments. I hear my own coughing. I hear someone swearing under their breath. I hear water lapping softly somewhere nearby.
The pool.
Memory flickers. Blue light. Hands in my hair.
My sense of smell follows. Chlorine. Sweat. Damp fabric. The faint, metallic tang of blood.
Another breath shoves its way in, this time on its own.
It hurts worse than the first.
My lungs drag in air unevenly, like they don’t trust it yet. Each inhale stutters. Each exhale trembles.
My fingers twitch against the tile. Sensation creeps back into them in painful pins and needles. My legs feel heavy and distant, but they are there. My skin feels tight and cold, soaked fabric clinging to me.
Sight comes last.
Light bleeds in through half-opened eyes. Fluorescent panels above me fracture into halos. The world tilts. Shapes move at the edge of my vision.
A face leans over me.
“Good,” the voice says again, closer now, shaking. “Good. Stay with me.”
My heart slams hard enough to make my chest ache.
Then the memory hits fully.
Water filling my mouth. My lungs burning. Kristie’s voice on the screen.
My stomach clenches violently. My hand jerks toward my abdomen.
Air scrapes in again.
Miles is kneeling beside me. His hands tremble where they hover near my chest. His face is pale, a bandage wrapped tight over one eye. He looks like he might fall apart if I stop breathing again.
I cough harder. My chest aches from the inside out, every breath shallow and painful, like my lungs are bruised. My head pounds viciously, pressure building until it feels like it might split open.
“Brooke,” Miles whispers. “Brooke. You’re okay. You’re breathing.”
I am, but barely.
Everything feels wrong, heavy and delayed. My limbs refuse to respond the way they should. My vision swims, edges blurring in and out like a screen about to go dark.
Then hands grab Miles and rip him away. Guards haul me by my arms. My body feels like deadweight, useless and dragging, while my mind floats somewhere above it, watching without permission.
Everything after that fractures.
And slowly, I slip away again.
I wake up choking.
Not on water, but on air that burns on the way in. My lungs spasm violently, dragging breath into themselves like they don't trust it yet. Each inhale scrapes, shallow and incomplete, like my chest forgot how to open all the way.
I roll onto my side and retch.
Water comes up. Just enough to scorch my throat and make my eyes flood. I gag hard, coughing until my chest aches, like something inside me was beaten. My head throbs in slow, nauseating pulses. Even with my eyes closed, the room refuses to stay still.
My body feels wrong, dense and sluggish. Like it has not fully come back to me yet.
Drowning doesn't end when breathing starts again.
It lingers in the muscles. It lingers in the head. It lingers in the way the heart hesitates between beats, unsure whether it should continue.
I don’t know how long I blacked out.
I try to sit up.
The world lurches violently.
I grab the edge of the cot and hang on. My ears ring in hollow waves. My vision blurs and narrows. I swallow hard, my throat raw, tasting chlorine and bile and fear all at once.
Then the cramping starts.
It is sharp enough to steal the breath I just fought to reclaim. I freeze, dread locking me in place.
No. Not now. Not here.
Another wave hits, tighter and more insistent. My stomach clenches hard, muscles pulling inward like they are trying to tear something loose from inside me.
I hit the floor with a dull thud, pain shooting up my legs as the concrete leeches heat from my skin. I curl over myself, arms locked around my middle, breathing through clenched teeth.
I crawl.
Each movement lags, like there is a delay between thought and action. Sweat breaks out across my back. My vision tunnels until the edges darken completely.
I reach the wall and drag myself upright. My legs shake violently beneath me.
Another cramp rips through me, twisting, relentless and cruel.
And then I feel it.
Warm, thick liquid moving between my thighs.
My breath catches painfully in my throat.
I don’t want to look. I already know. My body knows. Every instinct inside me is screaming the same truth.
My hand moves anyway.
I press it between my thighs, shaking, terrified of the confirmation I am about to give myself.
When I pull my hand back and see the blood, bright and unmistakable and smeared across my fingers, something inside me fractures completely.
“No,” I whisper.
Then louder, breaking. “No. No. No. No.”
My hands shake so badly I nearly collapse again. I press my thighs together instinctively, like pressure might stop it, like my body might listen if I beg hard enough.
Tears spill freely now.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. To Seth. To our baby who never had time to exist.
I try to walk.
Each step is slow and careful, hopeful in the most pathetic way. Like if I move gently, the universe might change its mind. Blood slides down my inner thighs as another cramp slams through me, stealing my vision entirely.
I make it two steps.
Then three.
The room tilts sharply. My ears fill with static. My legs give out beneath me.
I don’t feel the impact. There is only the sudden absence of ground, the sickening disconnect as my body lets go.
Darkness closes in fast.
“Brooke,” Miles’s voice cuts through the haze, sharp with panic. “Brooke, stay with me. Please.”
Then everything goes black.
I wake up on the cot again.
Breathing still hurts. Each inhale catches shallow in my chest, like my lungs never fully recovered from what they were forced through. My head feels heavy, stuffed with cotton and echoing sounds that arrive a beat too late. My body feels emptied out, hollowed down to something fragile and exposed.
The physician stands beside me. I don’t look at him. I keep my eyes fixed on the ceiling, tracing cracks in the concrete.
The question slips out anyway. “Did I lose it?”
He glances at the chart.
“Yes.”
The word lands, sinking deep into my chest and staying there. I stare upward, waiting for something else to follow. An explanation that changes the meaning. A silence that suggests uncertainty.
Nothing comes.
“The amount of bleeding you experienced,” he continues, “combined with oxygen deprivation and physical trauma, made the outcome unavoidable.”
I swallow hard.
“Oh,” I whisper.
It is the only sound my body seems capable of forming.
The physician turns away, already finished, already moving on to whatever comes next.
I lie there staring at the ceiling, lungs aching, chest caving inward, knowing something has been taken from me that I will never get back.