Chapter 8 Kieran
Kieran
“In beauty of face no maiden ever equaled her.” Edgar Allan Poe
The hospital halls are quieter than I expected this early in the morning, but there’s still that constant undertone of beeping monitors, rolling carts, and murmured voices behind closed doors. The sterile scent of antiseptic hangs in the air. The white hallways feel clean and cold.
My feet know exactly where to go. I’ve worn a path down these hallways. I don’t even glance at the nurses’ station as I pass. My strides lengthen the closer I get to her room, a tension coiled so tightly in my chest it’s a miracle I can still breathe.
When I round the corner and see the door cracked open, my heart leaps.
Inside, they have her sitting on the edge of the bed, her bare feet carefully planted on the floor, her hospital gown bunched around her thighs. A nurse stands beside her, hands hovering like she’s ready to catch her if she sways. A wheelchair sits locked just a few inches away.
Deirdre’s face is pale, her lips pressed into a tight line as she breathes through whatever discomfort she’s feeling. Her knuckles are white where she grips the bed.
And my body tries to react before my brain can catch up, every protective instinct surging like wildfire.
I want to go to her. I want to lift her into my arms and carry her myself, settle her gently into the wheelchair, and tell them all to go to hell for making her do this.
But I don’t.
Because she needs to do this on her own.
So I stand there, just inside the doorway, fists clenched at my sides, jaw locked as I watch her shift her weight forward, teeth grinding against the pain. She winces but just for a brief second, and I have to fight the unyielding urge to bolt across the room.
The nurse supports her under one arm, guiding her into position.
“Good. You’re doing great, Deirdre. Just a little more,” the nurse encourages gently. “Turn with me, like we’re dancing.”
And she does it.
She makes the pivot and sinks into the chair with a short, shaking breath. The effort costs her, I can see it in the way she sags for just a moment, but then she lifts her chin and offers the faintest, exhausted smile. Half proud. Half determined.
My chest swells with pride. God, I love her.
“You want to keep going?” the nurse asks her.
Deirdre nods. As they unlock the wheelchair, her gaze drifts to mine.
“You made it,” she whispers, breathless, as they wheel her toward me.
I step aside to let them through the doorway, “I wouldn’t be anywhere else.”
They wheel her slowly down the hallway to a small private therapy room near the end. I trail behind them, silent, pulse thrumming in my ears.
The physical therapist meets us there, introduces herself, Anna, I think, and then they help Deirdre stand again. She’s determined. Her fingers tremble as she grips the walker, knees wobbling slightly beneath her gown, but she moves forward.
One step.
Then another.
But then she stops.
I see it before she says anything. Her face goes pale, and sweat begins breaking out along her hairline, her shoulders tensing.
“I…I’m dizzy,” she murmurs.
The therapist quickly steadies her and checks the monitor clipped to her finger. Her heart rate is spiking.
“Alright, Deirdre, let’s get you seated again,” Anna says calmly, like this is routine. “You did really well. That’s enough for now.”
Deirdre swallows a noise I don’t recognize. A blend of frustration and shame.
“This is ridiculous,” she says, frustrated, mostly to herself. “A week ago, I was fine. I walked everywhere. I carried books and climbed stairs and now…n-now I can’t even stand without someone catching me.”
I take a step forward, trying to soothe her. “Hey. This is part of healing. You’re pushing yourself. That’s good…”
“No,” she snaps, voice cracking. “It’s not good. It’s pathetic. You shouldn’t see me like this.”
I step back, giving her room to breathe, swallowing the knot in my throat. I want to take her pain away. If she only knew that I would prefer this over not having her in my life any day.
The nurse and Anna exchange a look and gently begin guiding her back toward her room. I walk beside them, feeling useless. Helpless. Every fiber of me wants to ease this for her, to undo it, to absorb the pain she’s in.
But I can’t.
She doesn’t look at me on the ride back, and I pretend I don’t hear the quiet sobs escaping her, but I do.
The muffled sounds of her trying not to cry.
It shatters something in me.
I clench my fists in my pockets, force my jaw to stay shut as we walk behind the wheelchair. The ache in my chest isn’t just heartbreak. It’s rage. Rage that she has to go through this at all. That someone did this to her. That I haven’t found him yet.
I will.
I swear it on every breath I have left.
But right now, all I can do is follow her back into that hospital room, sit beside her, and hold her hand until she remembers how strong she really is.
Because she is.
Even when she forgets.
The wheels of her chair click rhythmically against the tile as we return to her hospital room. The nurse says something gentle, encouraging, about how well she did, but Deirdre doesn’t respond. She’s quiet. Withdrawn into herself.
I hold the door open, watching the nurse help her transfer from the chair to the bed. She winces but doesn’t cry out. That stubborn pride of hers, bruised and fraying around the edges, still burns bright.
The moment her head hits the pillow, she stares at the blanket and starts picking at a loose thread. I sit down slowly in the chair beside her, and as I lean forward, I feel something fall from my coat.
Shit.
The journal slips from my inner jacket pocket and falls to the floor with a thud. I move to pick it up immediately, but it’s too late.
She sees it.
Her fingers pause their fidgeting. Her brows draw together.
“Why do you have that?” she asks, voice low and brittle.
I hesitate, gripping the journal tighter than I mean to. Now’s not the time. Her body’s weak, and her emotions are stretched thin. She doesn’t need this right now.
“I just…keep it on me,” I lie, and immediately hate the way the words sound coming out of my mouth.
She stares at me, blinking suspiciously. And I see a subtle shift in her gaze. The flicker of doubt, then replaced by her memory. She’s putting the pieces together.
“No, you don’t.” Her voice is more certain now. “The last time I saw that journal was after the exam. I shoved it into my bag right before you were supposed to pick me up.”
She leans up slightly, studying me. “You went to my dorm.”
I exhale, jaw clenched. I don’t want to lie again. Not to her.
“I did.”
“Why?”
My throat is tight when I answer. “I needed to feel your presence, but I knew you had to rest, and I didn’t want to be selfish.” I pause. “I wrote in it.”
She is silent for a moment. Her eyes flick to the worn cover of the journal in my hands.
“Let me read it,” she says.
“Deirdre…”
“Let me read it.”
I run a hand down my face, my heart pounding too fast in my chest. I hesitate a second longer, then finally hand it over to her.
She takes it carefully, like it’s fragile, precious.
And to us, maybe it is. It holds our deepest secrets and our most intimate moments.
She opens it to where she left off, her last entry, scrawled in ink that’s slightly smudged.
Her fingers tremble as she turns the page.
She finds mine.
Her eyes begin to scan the words, slowly at first. Line by line, she reads the last six entries.
I watch her lips part, her breathing change.
A tear slips down her cheek, then another.
She doesn’t wipe them away. They fall silently, soaking into the paper I touched with all the things I couldn’t say aloud.
“See?” I say quietly, swallowing the knot in my throat. “It wasn’t the right time.”
But she closes the journal softly, presses it to her chest like a lifeline, and shakes her head.
“It was absolutely the right time,” she whispers. “You don’t know how much I needed to read this, Kieran. I’m terrified, and I need you with me.”
And I can’t stop myself anymore.
I lean in, cupping her face gently, pressing my lips to hers.
It’s not rushed, not frantic, just real.
Steady. Like all the emotions we’ve been carrying, finally find their release in the spaces between us.
Her hand lifts, resting over my heart, and I kiss her again, deeper this time, until the tension bleeds out of my bones.
When I pull back, her cheeks are damp with tears. I swipe them away with my thumb, brushing my forehead to hers.
“I love you,” I say, and the words vibrate straight from my ribs. “I love you, Deirdre. I am nothing without you. I don’t care about rules or consequences. I’m not hiding anymore. It’s you and me, forever. And we’re going to get through this. Together.”
Her breath catches, but she doesn’t cry this time. She smiles. It’s tired and raw, but it’s real.
And in that moment, I know no matter how dark the path ahead gets, it will always be me and her.
It’s strange how the passage of time feels both fast and slow when you never leave someone’s side.
Every day this week, I’ve watched Deirdre fight her way back.
The machines are gone now. No more constant beeping, no more wires tethering her to reminders of what happened.
Her new room is bigger, quieter. The sterile tension has lifted, replaced by her sarcasm, and the scent of Claire’s citrus lotion, which somehow lingers on the throw blanket draped across the chair even when she isn’t here keeping Deirdre company.
She’s still in pain, her ribs tender, and her steps are still stiff, but she’s gaining ground.
Each morning, she braces herself to move from the bed to the chair on her own.
Each afternoon, she walks a little farther down the hallway before the dizziness creeps in.
And each evening, she teases the nurses, flirts with me under her breath, and acts like she isn’t exhausted from every inch of progress.