Until We Fly (The Beautifully Broken)

by Courtney Cole

  “Are you okay?” Brand asks me, looking down at me. His face is confident, his voice calm. “You’re going to be all right.”

  I nod because I believe him, because how could I not trust a voice that sure of itself?

  But then it doesn’t matter.

  Because out of nowhere, I hear a nauseatingly loud crack, and all of a sudden, the wall next to us comes down in a mass of metallic shrieks and groans and shards.

  It shears my arm, and I can smell the blood.

  I’m knocked free from Brand’s safe grasp, yanked from his arms, and I’m falling, falling, falling.

  Then it all goes black and stays that way.

  Chapter Two

  Brand

  Fucking son-of-a-bitch.

  White hot pain rips through me, from my hip to my ankle. I grimace, trying to pull myself out of the wreckage, to no avail. I’m the one who is stuck now, firmly and painfully in a mountain of broken wood and cinder.

  The smoke surrounding me brings back instant memories of Afghanistan, of bombs and blood. But I shake those images away. I’m not there. I’m here. And I’ve got to keep my wits.

  The girl.

  The girl I was carrying, the girl with the dark red hair and big blue eyes. She trusted me. I saw it on her face.

  I twist to find her, scanning everything around me. And then I see her thin arm, sticking out of a pile of rubble. I know it’s hers because of the turquoise bracelet on her small wrist.

  “Help!” I call out to the EMTs who are now on the scene. One hears me, and rushes my way, but I wave him toward the girl.

  “Get her first!” I tell him. “She’s under that shit. Get her first. It’s crushing her.”

  He does as I ask, and it takes two of them to dig her out. I watch them carry her out, I watch how her eyes are still closed, I watch them stretch her limp body onto a waiting gurney before they come back for me.

  Fuck.

  “Thank you,” I tell them sincerely. They gingerly move the wood and the drywall and the twisted metal that is holding me down, before they roll me onto a stretcher.

  “I’m fine,” I try and tell them, as I attempt to get up.

  But I can’t get up. My left leg is twisted beneath me, my foot turned an unnatural way. I stare at it, aghast and astonished, noticing the way my knee is turned out, while my ankle is turned in.

  Fuck.

  I don’t feel the pain, so I know I’m in shock. I drop back against the stretcher, as they wheel me toward a waiting ambulance.

  My leg was shattered in Afghanistan. I had multiple surgeries, months of physical therapy and I was only just starting to walk without a limp. And for what? To have it annihilated again? Here in fucking Angel Bay?

  Fucking hell.

  They load me up and close the door and I stare at the white metal for a second before I close my eyes. This can’t be happening. This isn’t real.

  But it’s real.

  The sirens, loud and wailing, tell me that.

  Numbly, I wait. Then something occurs to me. Why are they using the siren for a broken leg?

  I barely have the thought before my fingers grow cold, and my thoughts begin to get fuzzy, muddled.

  What the hell?

  But then it doesn’t matter, because I’m so fucking tired. Nothing matters, not the pain, or the lack of it, or even the girl.

  My arms and legs grow heavy and I close my eyes, a sigh rattling my ribcage.

  The girl. Her blue eyes are the last things I see before I close my eyes.

  It seems like only minutes before the ambulance shrieks to a stop and I’m being bustled out.

  I grab one of the EMTs arms as they race me into the hospital.

  “What’s wrong?”

  He stares down at me as he runs. “Don’t worry. They’ll fix you.”

  I fall back onto the gurney and all I can do is watch everything happening. Waves of utter exhaustion and sleepiness pass through me and all I want to do is close my eyes.

  So I do, but I can’t sleep because some damn faceless person keeps asking me questions, all the while other faceless people prod at my leg and cut off my pants.

  What’s your name?

  “Brand Killien,” I mutter.

  How old are you?

  “Twenty-seven.”

  Are you allergic to anything?

  No.

  Can we call anyone for you?

  “No.”

  I open my eyes when they jam an IV into my arm, and the lights are bright, and the medicine feeding into me blurs it all together.

  A nurse’s face blurs in front of me.

  “You’re going in to surgery, sweetheart,” she tells me. I can’t see her face even though my eyes are wide open. “Your artery was nicked. They have to fix it.”

  My fucking artery was nicked?

  You’ve got to be kidding me. I survived the bloody hills of Afghanistan. I’m not going to bleed to death here. No fucking way. Holy shit. Why didn’t I have them call Gabe or Jacey… just in case?

  I try to mutter that, to tell them to call Gabe, but they can’t understand me.

  Another face blurs over me, someone with black hair. “Everything will be all right, sir. Just count backward from one hundred.”

  The light swirls, the noise echoes.

  Ninety-Nine.

  Ninety-Eight.

  Ninety-Seven.

  Nothing.

  Nothing.

  I hear my father’s heavy footsteps stepping out of my little sister’s room, closing the door with a click, then leaning heavily on the bannister as he walks down the stairs.

  Seventeen-Creak.

  Sixteen-Creak.

  Each of the seventeen steps groans, and then there is silence once again. Staring up at the ceiling, I wait until I hear the muffler of his old truck fire up before I breathe again.

  He’s gone.

  Relief rushes through me and I feel stupid. I’m six years old. I shouldn’t be so afraid.

  But I am.

  I get up to go to the bathroom, something I’d never do when he was still at home. I wouldn’t risk it. I tip-toe into the kitchen and grab a handful of cookies, being careful not to tip over the cookie jar onto the floor, before I make my way back to my room, running through the shadows, leaping into bed.

  I turn onto my side and stare out my windows as I chew the chocolate chips. My mother had made them tonight, specially for dinner, only my father wouldn’t let me have one.

  “Boys who don’t watch their little sisters don’t get cookies,” he’d told me sternly, eyeing me with his cold blue eyes.

  I’d gulp and peered through my eyelashes at Alison. She was happily munching on a cookie, the crumbs gathering on the front of her shirt. Her grubby fingers grasped her sugary treasure and she was oblivious to the trouble I’m in because of her.

  “But I was watching her,” I told my father. “I tried to make her come in and wash up for dinner, she just wouldn’t listen.”

  My father was unsympathetic. “She’s only four. You have to look out for her. You’re bigger than she is. Are you telling me that you can’t take ahold of her arm and bring her in? Are you that weak, Branden?”

  I gulped, shaking my head. “No.”

  He shook his head, his steely eyes piercing me. “I’m not sure about that. If it happens again, I’ll have to teach you a lesson. I’ll show you exactly how you can make someone smaller and weaker do what you want.”

  Panic welled up in me then, and it wells up in me now, at the mere memory.

  I don’t want to get that lesson.

  I stare out the window at the lake, watching the water roll gently into the beach. At night, the sand looks silver. The gulls are asleep, so everything is silent but for the rippling water.

  A white ball appears, floating to and fro in the tide, and I watch it for a while, watching as it floats, then disappears.

  I wish I could be that ball and float far from here.

  With a start, I open my eyes and the
light is blinding. I squint my eyes toward it, trying to process where I am. Medicinal smells, sterile walls.

  The hospital.

  I groan, and my throat is raspy. I recognize that feeling. I must’ve had a breathing tube. Surgery. I also recognize the foggy aftereffects of anesthesia.

  What the hell?

  A nurse bustles through the door, her eyes widening when she sees me awake. Her cool fingers find my pulse, counting the beats.

  “Mr. Killien,” she smiles. “I’m so glad you’re awake. How are you feeling?”

  I swallow again, trying to swallow past the raw throat.

  “I don’t know,” I tell her honestly. “What happened?”

  Her eyes are full of sympathy.

  “You saved a bus full of kids,” she tells me. “There was an accident, a truck ran a stop-sign and slammed into an ammonia tank. There was an explosion. Do you remember?”

  I think on that, and I do remember. I remember the smoke and the blood and the kids.

  And then I remember the red-haired girl.

  “There was a girl,” I tell the nurse. “A woman, I mean. Red hair. I was carrying her when the building collapsed on us. Is she okay? Did she live?”

  God, she had to live. She trusted me. Her eyes, so big and blue, told me that. She counted on me to carry her out and I didn’t.

  My gut squeezes and I wince in pain.

  But the nurse is already nodding. “Everyone lived, Mr. Killien. And I think you mean Ms. Greene. She’s here and she’s been asking about you, too. Can I tell her that you’re awake? She’s been very worried about you.”

  Ms. Greene?

  I nod and the nurse smiles.

  “I’ll tell her. She’s been waiting here for the last several hours. She was lucky- She and her parents only sustained minor injuries. She didn’t want to leave until you woke up.”

  I sigh with relief. Even though I couldn’t carry her out, she’s okay.

  Thank God.

  I close my eyes, my mind fuzzy from anesthesia. The room spins outside of my eyelids, but inside of them, it’s black and still.

  And then someone clears her voice softly.

  I open my eyes.

  They instantly meet the blue-eyed gaze of the girl.

  Ms. Greene.

  For a second, there’s something familiar there, something that niggles at me. Do I know her?

  But I scan the rest of her… the long dark red hair that flows halfway down her back, her slender body, her lush chest and hips. Even through the fog of medicine, my groin registers her obvious beauty.

  I’d remember if I knew her.

  She smiles, a brilliant white smile. I notice she has dirt on her cheeks and forehead.

  “Are you okay?” she asks, her voice as soft as silk.

  I nod. “Yeah. I will be, I guess.”

  She looks at my leg sympathetically, her eyes clouded. “I’m so sorry. You wouldn’t even have been in the café if it weren’t for me. It’s my fault you’re here in this bed.”

  I’m already shaking my head. No way. I know what it’s like to take responsibility for something that wasn’t my fault. I won’t let this girl do it.

  “No,” I tell her firmly. “I wanted to help. If I hadn’t seen you, I’d have seen someone else, so I would’ve been in there anyway.”

  Probably.

  She shakes her head slightly, the edges of her mouth tilted up.

  “Such a gentleman,” she murmurs. She slides into the chair by my bed, graceful and elegant.

  “You don’t recognize me, do you, Brand?”

  My head snaps up when she uses my name.

  She does know me.

  I examine her again. Her face. Her nose. Her hair. Her eyes.

  Ms. Greene.

  The Greenes.

  Good lord.

  I fight a groan. I’ve been gone from here too long. I’ve forgotten too many things. In this case, the Greenes are an Angel Bay staple. They own a huge lakeside estate that they only reside at in the summers, and they’re members at the country club where I used to work.

  I do know her. Or, I remember the girl she used to be. She’s certainly grown up now.

  “I used to park your father’s car at the club,” I say slowly.

  Nora smiles. “And you picked me up out of the dirt once. Do you remember that?”

  I do.

  Nora was younger, a teenager then, and her horse had thrown her off. I’d been walking to the clubhouse to get a soda for my break and I’d seen the whole thing. She’d gone sprawling into the dirt, and the first thing she’d done was stare furtively around, to make sure no one had seen.

  It was a nasty spill though, so I had gone to check on her. Her hands were shaky and I didn’t want to leave her alone, even though it was strictly against the rules for valet staff to mingle with club members.

  “Did my father see?” she’d asked me quickly, her lip caught in her teeth. There was a spot of blood from her braces, and I’d reached out and wiped it off for her. She wasn’t concerned about her cut lip, though. She was terrified that her father had seen her mistake.

  “No,” I assured her. “I’m the only one around.”

  “Thank God,” she’d breathed.

  “Do you want me to go get him?” I asked her quickly, thinking that he might help her calm down.

  She’d grabbed my arm, hard, her fingernails sinking in. “Please don’t,” she’d begged, her eyes suddenly full of tears. “Please.”

  It had shocked me, her immediate and adamant refusal. It was like she was scared of him. I’d assured her that I wouldn’t get him, and I’d taken her inside to calm her down myself. I stayed with her for half an hour.

  “I got written up for that,” I remember slowly. Nora’s face clouds over.

  “You did?” she asks in confusion. “Why in the world?”

  From the astonished expression on her face, I almost believe that she doesn’t know.

  “Your dad complained,” I tell her simply. “Someone mentioned it to him, and he reported me. Valets weren’t supposed to socialize with members, you know.”

  “You weren’t socializing,” she points out. “You were helping me.”

  I shrug. “It was a long time ago.”

  But her eyes are still dismayed. A part of me finds satisfaction in that. Maybe she’s not the ice bitch I expected her to be. With a father like hers, though, I don’t know how that’s possible.

  “I just wanted to check on you,” Nora tells me now hesitantly. “I feel responsible and I wanted to help. So I told them they might want to call your mother. You didn’t have any contacts listed in your wallet, and your phone was password protected.”

  My mother? I stopped listening to her words as soon as she mentioned my mother.

  “Why would they call my mother?” I ask stupidly. Nora shakes her head in confusion.

  “Because you were here alone. I didn’t know who else to call. I thought you might want a family member…” her voice trails off as she stares at my face. “I see now that I was wrong. I’m so sorry. I was just trying to help.”

  She was. I’m sure of that.

  But calling my mother was the furthest possible thing from helping.

  “Did she even bother to come?” I ask tiredly. I’d driven twelve hours to get here because she summoned me, and I doubt my mother even bothered to come to the hospital.

  Nora shakes her head hesitantly. “She told the nurse that she’d come pick you up when you were released.”

  Yet I’d gone into surgery with a nicked artery. For all she knew, I could’ve died on the table and she still didn’t come.

  Why does that surprise me? She didn’t bother to call and check on me when I was on the battlefields in Afghanistan, either.

  Nausea rolls through my stomach and I swallow hard.

  “Well, that’s not a surprise. Thank you for trying to help, Ms. Greene. I appreciate it. I know you must be tired. You don’t need to stay with me.”

  She lift
s her blue eyes. “Call me Nora.”

  I nod. “Okay. Thanks for checking on me, Nora. I’m glad you’re all right.”

  Her eyes soften, glistening with something I can’t name. “Thank you for making me okay. You pulled me out, Brand. If it weren’t for you…”

  I interrupt. “If I hadn’t pulled you out, someone else would’ve.”

  She shrugs. “Maybe. But either way, thank you. I’m going to check on you again tomorrow.”

  Something soft lives in her eyes, but then she hides it. I should tell her not to come, I should tell her to not even bother. But the soft look in her eyes, that fleeting expression, kills the words on my tongue. She seems like a person who doesn’t let that softness shine through often.

  Instead, I nod. “I’m sure I’ll still be here.”

  I glance down at my leg and sigh heavily. Nora almost flinches.

  “I hope you get some rest,” she says as she walks out. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  She walks toward the open door, and I watch her hips gently sway until she abruptly stops in the doorway. She turns and looks at me, her gaze meeting mine. Electricity jolts between us, between her soft gaze and my own.

  Hers holds a promise. I’ll be back.

  For some reason, I like that. Maybe because I’m from a world where there were never any promises, where tomorrow was never expected or hoped for, where parents don’t even show up at the hospital.

  Whatever.

  I shouldn’t encourage her. I’m not going to be here for long.

  So I look away, breaking our gaze.

  I know she walks away because I can feel the absence of her stare. I glance back, and sure enough, she’s gone.

  Oddly, I feel alone now.

  I don’t really even know her, but now that she’s gone, I feel alone.

  I’m not alone for long.

  A doctor enters my room after a few minutes.

  “Mr. Killien,” he says, flipping through my chart. “You were really lucky today. Your artery was nicked, but we repaired it. Your leg, however… “ he trails off, then refocuses. “Your leg was obviously previously injured, probably severely. You had several plates and screws from your foot to your hip. You hyper-extended your knee today, but you also re-damaged the soft-tissue around your ankle. I know you’re probably tired of physical therapy, but it’s going to take some diligent PT to strengthen that area again. I’m sorry.”