FORTY-THREE
Four hours.
Four hours of sitting in uncomfortable chairs under fluorescent lights that made everything look wrong. Four hours of watching the clock on the wall tick forward with agonizing slowness. Four hours of waiting.
Kieran had lost track of time somewhere around hour two.
Everything blurred together, the coffee he got from the vending machine that tasted like burnt rubber, the forms he tried to fill out but couldn’t because he wasn’t family, the phone call to Emory where he'd barely been able to get the words out before breaking down.
Samantha had arrived an hour after they took Rory into surgery. She burst through the emergency room doors, Aubrey-less, wild-eyed, demanding to know where her brother was.
Kieran had stood. Tried to explain. Tried to tell her what the doctor said before they rushed Rory away.
“Spinal injury. They’re operating now. They said…” His voice had cracked. “They said it’s serious.”
Samantha had gone pale. Sat down hard in the chair next to him. And they’d been sitting there ever since.
Waiting.
Now, four hours in, the waiting room was mostly empty. A janitor pushed a mop across the far end of the room. A nurse walked by with a clipboard, not even glancing their way. The coffee in Kieran’s cup had gone cold hours ago.
Samantha hadn’t spoken in minutes. She kept her hands clamped to the armchair, checking the phone in her lap every time it lit up with an update about Aubrey. Her ponytail was coming undone, stray strands falling around her face in a way that made her look entirely worn out.
Kieran was just as worn out.
“I gave him a necklace this morning,” Kieran said suddenly. The first words either of them had spoken in at least an hour.
Samantha looked over.
“My mom’s necklace. St. Christopher. For protection.” Kieran laughed, but it came out bitter. “Lot of good that did.”
“It’s not your fault,” Samantha said quietly.
“I know. I just—” He stopped. Swallowed. “I keep thinking about him out there. On that wave. He was doing so well. And then…”
“He was so proud this morning,” Samantha said. “Not about the competition. About you being there.” She paused. “He introduced you as his boyfriend. Not this is Kieran or this is my friend. His boyfriend. Do you know how big that is? For him?”
“I don’t.”
“After Britt died, he shut down. Didn’t date. Didn’t even talk about dating.” Samantha’s fingers twisted together in her lap. “I thought he might be done with relationships entirely. That he’d decided it wasn’t worth the risk of losing someone again.”
Kieran didn’t know what to say.
“And then, about five months ago, he called me.” Samantha smiled at the memory.
“Out of nowhere. Middle of the week. Just called to talk. Which isn’t like him…
Rory doesn’t call to chat. And he told me about you.
About how you’d moved in next door. About your dogs.
” She shook her head. “He was trying to play it casual, but I’ve known him his whole life.
I could hear it in his voice. This wasn’t just some neighbor. ”
Kieran’s mouth twitched.
“It was endearing.” Her voice went quiet. “He rambled about you for forty-five minutes. Telling me all these little things. And I realized he was falling for you. Maybe had already fallen.”
Kieran’s chest tightened.
“I’m glad he had that,” Samantha said. “These past few months with you. I’m glad he was happy. Even if…” She stopped. Shook her head. “He was happy.”
They fell into silence again, but the silence was different now. Less hollow.
After a few minutes, Kieran asked, “What was he like? After Britt died?”
Samantha considered the question. “Broken. But trying not to show it. You know how Rory is, he keeps everything inside. Doesn’t want anyone to worry about him.”
“Yeah.”
“But there was this one thing he did.” Samantha went somewhere else for a second. “About a week after the funeral. He showed up at my house at like, six in the morning. I was barely awake. And he had this huge box.”
Kieran raised an eyebrow.
“Toys. All still in their packaging. Stuffed animals, books, building blocks, puzzles—things for kids of all different ages. Must have been hundreds of dollars’ worth.
” Samantha’s voice got quieter. “And I realized these were the toys he and Britt had bought. For the kids they were planning to have.”
Kieran didn’t say anything.
“They’d been talking about it. About starting a family. They’d already started collecting things. A little at a time. Whenever they’d see something at a store.” Samantha paused. “And now Britt was gone and those kids were never going to exist. And Rory just—he brought them to me.”
“That’s heartbreaking…” Kieran couldn’t finish.
“He said ‘Maybe one day you’ll use them. When you have kids. I don’t know. I just can’t keep them.’” Samantha wiped at her eyes. “He was trying so hard not to cry. Standing there in my doorway at six in the morning with this box full of a future he’d lost.”
“What did you do?”
“I took the box. Told him to come inside. Made him coffee. We sat on my couch and didn’t say anything for an hour,” Samantha pursed her lips. “And when he left, he hugged me. Tight. And said ‘I’m glad you still get to have that. The family. Someone should.’”
Tears slid down his face.
“I still have it,” Samantha said. “In my closet. Waiting. Even when I got pregnant a couple years later with Aubrey, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.
It felt too—sacred, maybe. Like those toys belonged to the children Rory and Britt were supposed to have.
” She paused. “But I kept them because…because that’s who Rory is.
He takes his grief and finds a way to turn it into something for someone else.
Even when he barely has anything left to give. ”
“He’s the best person I’ve ever met,” Kieran said.
“The fucking best.” Samantha’s voice cracked. “Which is why he can’t—he has to be okay. He has to.”
“He will be.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I have to believe it.” Kieran stopped. Tried again. “I can’t think about the alternative.”
Samantha reached over and took his hand. Squeezed it.
They sat there for a while. Holding hands. Two people who barely knew each other, bound together by their love for the same man.
The clock on the wall ticked past the five-hour mark.
Kieran’s leg was bouncing. He couldn’t stop it. Couldn’t sit still anymore.
More time passed. The janitor finished mopping and disappeared through a doorway. A different nurse walked by, her glance lingering on them a second too long. Samantha checked her phone again. Sighed. Put it back down.
His phone buzzed. A text.
EMORY: Still no news?
KIERAN: Nothing yet.
EMORY: I’m here if you need me. Say the word and I’ll drive down.
KIERAN: Thanks. I’ll let you know.
He put his phone away. Stared at the opposite wall. At the generic landscape painting that was probably supposed to be soothing but only made him more anxious.
“Tell me something about him,” Kieran said suddenly. “Something I might not know.”
Samantha pinched the bridge of her nose, like she was sorting through a drawer of memories. “He’s terrified of birds.”
“What?”
“Birds. Hates them. Got attacked by a seagull when he was seven. It went after his bag of chips and he’s been convinced they’re all out to get him ever since.”
Kieran laughed. “You’re kidding.”
“Dead serious. He’ll never admit it but watch him at the beach. He always sits where the seagulls can’t sneak up on him.”
“He warned me about them,” Kieran said, shaking his head. “The first time we met. Told me to watch my eye contact around the gulls. I thought he was joking.”
“Oh, he wasn’t.” Samantha grinned. “He’s dead serious about the seagull threat.”
Kieran tried to picture stoic, composed Rory being afraid of seagulls. It was absurd. Perfect.
“What else?” he asked.
“He cries at animal movies. The sad ones, where the dog dies or whatever. Won’t watch them anymore because he knows he’ll lose it.
” She ticked off on her fingers. “The end of Marley & Me. The opening of Up—he had to leave the room. A Super Bowl commercial about a horse and a dog being friends. That one got him.”
“That’s—” Warmth moved through Kieran’s chest. “Adorable.”
“He made me promise never to tell anyone.”
“Your secret’s safe with me. Even though we just met today.”
Samantha smiled.
Kieran looked down at his hands. The words rose up before he could stop them.
“I love him.”
It was the first time he’d said it out loud. Samantha didn’t look surprised. “I know.”
“Is it obvious?”
“Little bit.” She tilted her head. “But it’s more the way he looks at you.
I’ve known my brother his whole life. I know what it looks like when he’s being polite, when he’s interested, when he’s guarded.
And I know what it looks like when he’s gone.
” She met Kieran’s eyes. “He looks at you the way he used to look at Britt.”
Kieran pursed his lips and exhaled.
“He loves hard, Kieran. Fair warning. When he lets someone in, which is rare, he loves completely. With everything he has. Britt got that. And I think you’re getting that too.”
Kieran’s throat closed. “I’m great at messing things up.”
“Then don’t,” she said simply. Just like Rory. Like it was that easy. Maybe it was. “You’re not going anywhere, and neither am I, and Rory’s stubborn as hell. He’ll fight through this.”
“Yeah,” Kieran said. “He will.”
The clock ticked past hour six.
And then—finally—a door opened.
A doctor emerged. Scrubs. Surgical cap. The exhausted look of someone who’d been standing for hours.
She scanned the waiting room. “Family of Rory Kline?”
Kieran and Samantha were on their feet instantly.
“I’m his sister,” Samantha said, voice shaking.
The doctor nodded. Walked over to them. Her expression was hard to read—professional, controlled, giving nothing away.
“I’m Dr. Reyes,” she said. “I was the lead surgeon on Mr. Kline’s case.”
“How is he?” Samantha asked. “Is he…”
“He’s alive,” Dr. Reyes said. “And stable.”
The relief was so intense Kieran thought his knees might give out.
“But,” Dr. Reyes continued, and that one word made Kieran’s stomach drop, “his injury was severe. He sustained a burst fracture at the C5-C6 level. That’s in the cervical spine—the neck region.”
Samantha made a small sound.
“A burst fracture means the vertebra essentially shattered under the force of impact,” Dr. Reyes explained.
“Fragments were compressing the spinal cord. We were able to remove the fragments, decompress the cord, and stabilize the spine with hardware. The surgery went as well as we could have hoped. But the road to recovery is going to be long. And difficult.”
“What does that mean?” Kieran asked. His voice didn’t sound like his own.
Dr. Reyes looked at him. Her expression was kind but honest. “At this level of injury, there was a significant risk of paralysis. Complete loss of function below the injury site. In Mr. Kline’s case, we got very lucky—the cord wasn’t severed. But it was severely compressed and bruised.”
“So he’s not paralyzed?” Samantha asked.
“Not permanently. But he’s going to have significant weakness and mobility issues, especially in his upper extremities. His hands, his arms. We won’t know the full extent until the swelling goes down and we can do more comprehensive testing.”
Kieran tried to process this. Tried to understand what it meant. Rory—strong, capable Rory who built things with his hands, who carried lumber like it weighed nothing, who surfed, might not have full use of his arms.
“Will he recover?” Samantha asked. “Fully?”
Dr. Reyes hesitated. “Some function, yes. With extensive physical therapy, most patients with this type of injury do regain a significant amount of mobility. But it’s unlikely he’ll return to a hundred percent of what he was before. And it’s going to take time. Months, minimum. Possibly years.”
Months. Years.
“Can we see him?” Kieran asked.
“He’s in recovery right now. Still sedated.
But once he’s moved to the ICU, you’ll be able to visit.
Briefly.” Dr. Reyes looked between them.
“I know this is a lot to take in. And I know it’s not the news you were hoping for.
But I want to emphasize, he’s lucky to be alive.
The fact that he’s not permanently paralyzed is close to miraculous.
A few millimeters different on impact, and we’d be having a different conversation. ”
“Thank you,” Samantha said. Her voice was barely above a whisper. “Thank you for saving him.”
Dr. Reyes nodded. “A nurse will come get you when he’s ready for visitors. It’ll probably be another hour or two.”
She left. Disappeared back through the doors.
Kieran and Samantha were left standing in the middle of the waiting room.
Stable. Not paralyzed.
But months of recovery. Years, maybe. And no guarantee he’d ever be the same.
Samantha grabbed his hand again. He felt her shaking, skin cold to the touch.
Or maybe he was shaking.
“He’s alive,” Samantha said, as if reminding herself. “He’s alive.”
“Yes,” Kieran managed. “He is.”