Unspoken Fears (The Unspoken Love Series Book 4)

by H. P. Davenport

  Dread tightens my chest, restricting my breath. The blood pounds in my ears. My heart thuds in my chest and my hands begin to shake. Trying to get the words out, I stutter, “D…Don’t you dare.”

  My hands shake uncontrollably at my sides. Squeezing my eyes shut, a loud sob escapes as my words choke me. “Brandon. Don’t.”

  The air leaves my lungs as the words tumble off my lips. My heart pounds in my chest. My hand covers my mouth as nausea grips my throat. Dread tightens my chest, restricting my breathing.

  Turning, I run for the stairs, taking two at a time. When I reach the landing, I dash into my bedroom, snatching my cell phone off the nightstand.

  “Rory,” Brandon calls my name, rushing into the bedroom behind me.

  I know the moment he says the words they will be free to inflict the damage only words like that could cause…he also won’t be able to take them back. Those words will change everything.

  Pushing my finger on the home button, my phone comes to life. Tapping my finger on the green phone icon, then favorites, I find Keith at the top of the screen and press his name.

  His phone begins to ring. “Answer the phone.”

  Three more rings, then his voicemail picks up. “Damn it, pick up the fucking phone!” I scream at the phone in my hand.

  Pressing the red circle end button, I redial his number again.

  I listen as it rings, another ring, another ring, and another ring, before his voicemail picks up again, ‘Sorry I missed your call. You know what to do’.

  I bite my lip until it throbs with my pulse. Ice spreads through my stomach.

  As realization sets in, my knees begin to shake, my legs can no longer hold the weight of my body and give out from under me.

  Brandon gathers me in his arms as I weep aloud, rocking back and forth. My hands clutch the front of his vest. Breathing at this moment is hard, really hard as if I’d just run a marathon.

  “This is a mistake. Keith is fine.” Another loud sob escapes me. “Tell me he’s fine.”

  Brandon doesn’t acknowledge me. The pain in his dark eyes reveals everything. His eyes are full of tears. My heart shatters into a million pieces when Brandon closes his eyes, and when he reopens them, tears stream down his cheeks.

  Fear and pain are written all over his face. He takes my face in his hands, making me focus. “We need to go. You need to get dressed.”

  I cry harder, my chest growing tight as bile rises in my throat. Brandon picks me up, carrying me to my bed. I sit paralyzed, unable to move on my bed. He opens my closet doors, searching for clothes, coming back out with a pair of grey sweatpants and a blue hoodie.

  I sit here numb as Brandon dresses me. He pulls the blue sweatshirt over my head, then pushes my arms through the arm sleeves.

  I can faintly hear Brandon speaking to me. His words are muffled. “Stand up, Rory,” he says, pulling my body off the bed, leaning me against his chest. He lifts one leg into the sweatpants, then the next.

  “I gotcha,” he says as he lifts me into his arms again, carrying me down the stairs.

  Something inside tells me this night will forever change me.

  The ride to the hospital is a blur. My mind focuses on the few things Brandon was able to explain about the raid. Keith sustained a gunshot wound to the head while their team raided a warehouse they’d been investigating for a few months.

  The closing of a car door jars my attention to the front of the vehicle. Brandon walks around, opening my door.

  He holds out his hand, helping me stand. “How bad is it, Brandon?” I ask, my voice breaking.

  The slight shake of his head confirms what I already knew. It wasn’t good.

  “Is he alive?”

  He nods. “Keith was shot tonight.” He pauses. “He’s in surgery, I’m not sure if he’s going to make it,” his voice trails off.

  Brandon takes my hand in his as we walk across the parking lot to the entrance of the hospital. There are several police cars parked along the entrance. As we approach the officers standing by their vehicles, Brandon nods at them, not one making eye contact with me.

  Large, automatic doors open as we approach. The lobby of the hospital is filled with police officers. Brandon speaks with the front desk, I walk past it, ignoring the eyes of many and head to the set of elevators. I know where Keith is. I went to medical school here, spent countless hours walking these halls. Brandon quickly appears at the elevator with a nurse next to him.

  “Your husband was taken in for surgery,” she advises me. “Someone will keep you updated as soon as we’re advised.”

  “I’m a doctor. I know the procedures. Thank you.”

  We exit the elevators on the ICU floor. The nurse opens a door, “Stay here. I’ll keep you posted on his condition as soon as I hear something, okay?” I nod my head to acknowledge that I heard what she said. I can’t speak past the massive knot in my throat.

  Brandon and I are placed in a private waiting room. I begin to pace the waiting room and fight the urge to vomit as bile keeps working its way up my throat. I clench my fists as I continue to wait for some news.

  “Here, take this.” Holding my cell phone out to Brandon. “I need you to call his parents. Don’t tell them he was shot. Just tell them he was injured on duty and I’m already here. Then I need you to call my parents.”

  He nods, taking the phone from my hand. “I’ll step outside to call. Will you be alright?”

  I don’t answer, simply nod.

  Hours pass while we wait for any news. People continue to fill the room. There are more people here than I would prefer, but I don’t have the strength to ask them to leave. Most of Keith’s team is here offering support. My parents, as well as Keith’s, sit huddled in the corner. Brandon hasn’t left my side since he appeared at my front door, leaving only to call Keith’s parents and mine.

  Turning to look at Brandon’s face, all I see is fear, regret, and grief. I take his hand in mine. “Keith is a fighter. This is not your fault. Do not blame yourself. This isn’t any of your faults,” I say, looking around the room at Keith’s team. “We need to be strong. He’s going to pull through, I know he will. He wouldn’t leave me like this.”

  “How are you comforting me? This whole night is fucked up, Rory. It shouldn’t have happened. We’re trained for this, it shouldn’t have fucking happened! He has a baby on the way, for Christ’s sake!” Brandon roars, standing up, kicking an empty chair near us.

  Unsure of what to say, I nod. We’re expecting our first child. I’m only a few months along and most people don’t know, only our immediate family and close friends.

  A few of the guys usher Brandon to the other side of the room.

  My father sits in the chair Brandon vacated, putting his arm around my shoulder, pulling me against his side.

  “How are you holding up?”

  “It seems like I’ve been waiting here forever.” Checking the clock on the wall, it’s only been five hours. I pinch the bridge of my nose trying to relieve some of the pressure. My head is pounding.

  “He should be out of surgery by now. I’m scared, Dad.” My heart races, this is what it feels like to be on the other side. I’ve never been in this situation. I’m usually the doctor delivering the news to the patient’s family. Not the other way around. The waiting is brutal.

  “You need to stay calm, you’re pregnant. It’s not good for you or the baby.”

  “I know, but what I am supposed to do.” My hand rubs small circles over my belly. “My husband is on the operating table with a gunshot wound to the head. I can’t stay calm, Dad. I can’t,” my voice breaks.

  A hand is placed on my shoulder. Looking up, it’s Keith’s father, John. I can see in his eyes that he’s on the verge of breaking.

  With an emotionally choked voice, he says, “Keith will pull through this. He has to for you and his child.” Looking over at Brandon, he’s holding Keith’s mom while she cries against his chest. I can’t see her face, all I can see is her body s
haking with sobs. He rubs his hand up and down her back, trying his best to console her as he repeats, “It’s gonna be alright. He’ll get through this, you know he will.” He must have repeated that same sentence ten times before she pulls back to look in his eyes.

  “I can’t lose my only son. I can’t. He’s going to be a father. He has that little one to fight for.”

  “Don’t think that. We all have to stay positive. Keith will pull through this.”

  John walks over and takes his wife into his arms.

  “I’m going to go check on your mom,” my dad says.

  Brandon returns, sitting in the chair next to me after my dad walks over to my mom. Brandon leans his elbows on his knees. “I wanted to kill the motherfucker who did this to him. I almost did, but they stopped me.”

  I turn to him, “He’s alive. I assumed he would have been killed?” Shock fills me. I didn’t think the man who did this would have made it out of the warehouse alive.

  Brandon turns to me, “Honestly.” He raises a brow. “There were too many people there to put a bullet in his head. He was taken into custody.”

  My hands move to Brandon’s knee, squeezing it lightly. “I wish you would’ve.”

  Standing, I walk over to the window and stare out at the city skyline. I rub my hands over my face in frustration. How can this be happening? Someone should have come to advise us by now. I know that surgeries can go longer than expected. But no one has told me anything other than he was shot in the head.

  The silence in the room is unbearable. A short while later, the door to our waiting room opens and a tall man walks in wearing scrubs and a surgical cap on his head. He shuts the door behind him, approaching us slowly. I rush over and stand in front of him. “How is he? Is he out of surgery?” I ask.

  Kathy quickly asks, “How is our son? Can you tell us what’s happening?”

  The doctor guides me over to the chairs. “Please have a seat. My name is Dr. Anthony DiGorio, I’m the attending neurosurgeon who operated on Officer Gormley.”

  Brandon and I sit next to Keith’s parents. My parents stand behind me, their hands on my shoulders. The doctor pulls a chair up and sits in front of us.

  I wipe my face with a tissue as tears roll down my cheeks. John pulls his wife against his side, placing his arm around her shoulder.

  He looks down at the floor, then back to us. I can see the sympathy and worry on his face. “As you know, ninety percent of gunshot wounds to the head are fatal. Keith is in critical condition. He’s not able to breathe on his own.”

  “Oh my God.” My hand flies to my mouth. Bile works its way up my throat and I run for the nearest trashcan. After vomiting a few times, a hand runs up and down my back. “Rory, honey,” my mom says behind me.

  When there is nothing left in my stomach, I begin to dry heave. “Breathe in through your nose, baby. Take a few deep breaths,” my mom says.

  Leaning over, I place my hands on my knees, lowering my head, taking deep breaths in and blowing them back out slowly. When I look back up at the doctor, he has a worried look etched on his face. I can sense the information he is about to deliver to us is going to gut me to the core. Walking back over to the chair, I sit next to Brandon.

  “He’s been moved to ICU and will be monitored closely. The bullet passed downward from the left frontal lobe tip toward the temporal lobe. It passed through the eloquent brain tissue and injured the important vascular structure inside his head.”

  Brandon is the first to ask questions. “Will he make it? He’s going to pull through this, right?” Dr. DiGorio doesn’t respond verbally, merely shakes his head negatively.

  The doctor clears his throat and addresses me. “I was advised you are a doctor, Mrs. Gormley, so you are aware of the severity of a gunshot wound to the head.”

  I nod my head.

  “Your husband is deeply comatose with minimal evidence of brainstem function and no evidence of an intracranial hematoma. The outcome of this type of injury is nearly certain to be fatal. There was a lot of damage sustained to the brain. The bullet went through, resulting in both bleeding and damage to the pressure wave resulting in severe brain swelling. The caliber of the bullet and the type of weapon used was of high velocity. There’s no pupillary response to light and patency of basal brain cerebrospinal spaces.”

  Dread tightens my chest, restricting my breathing. “No. No…” I plead in between sobs. Tears run down my face as I continue to sob, the screams diminishing as my energy and realization of this moment wane.

  “When he arrived, he was taken into surgery immediately. We tried to stabilize his blood pressure and oxygenation, but we weren’t able to maintain it. There are going to be decisions that you need to make.”

  A gasp escapes my mouth. My hand covers my mouth to try and subdue my sob. My body trembles as I stare wordlessly between Brandon and the doctor.

  John stands pulling his wife into his arms. Kathy is hysterically crying, “No, John, No!,” she screams. Holding her close, he whispers in her ear, “Let’s go find the chapel.” Clutching his wife close to him, he escorts her out of the waiting room.

  Dr. DiGorio looks over all of us. “You can go back and see him. But only one at a time. Usually, we only permit immediate family, but due to the circumstances, we’ll make an exception.”

  “Oh, Dad,” I cry out as my dad embraces me in his arms as I continue to cry. He rubs his hand up and down my back, trying to console me.

  Dr. DiGorio stands from his seat and exits the room. Brandon sits with some of the officers on their team. Looking across the room, most of them are sitting with their elbows on their knees, their faces in their hands. Brandon’s body shakes, I know he’s crying. My father rocks me back and forth in his arms as we both cry for Keith.

  A few minutes pass and a nurse enters the room. She leads me to Keith’s room. The sight before me stops me in my tracks. No amount of training would have prepared me for what I saw. Seeing your husband like this is frightening. He lays unconscious, a large bandage conceals his head. A tube is down his throat attached to a ventilator machine, which is breathing for him. Several bags hang from the IV pole running to his left hand. Loud beeps echo in the room and the sound of the ventilator fills the quiet space. Keith looks so pale.

  Walking over, I grab the chair in the corner, sliding it next to his bed. Taking his hand in mine, I sob. “Fight, Keith, you can do this. You can’t leave me. You can’t leave our baby without a father,” I choke, holding his hand tightly in mine.

  Shaking my head back and forth, tears stream like rivers of pain. “Stay alive. You fight through this. You have so much to live for. We’re having a baby, don’t you dare give up.”

  I struggle to maintain control of myself. “You need to hear our baby say their first word, to see them take their first step. I just need you to fight.”

  I say these words as if it will bring Keith back to me, but I know there’s not one thing about this situation that I have any control over.

  Seven days have passed, and Keith continues to lay lifeless in the hospital bed, surrounded by machines that are keeping him alive.

  I sit in the same uncomfortable chair I’ve been in since I arrived. I refuse to leave his side. My parents try to convince me to go home to shower, but I decline each time. I don’t need to, I could shower here if I wanted to. But I can’t bring myself to leave him.

  The door to Keith’s room opens slowly and Dr. DiGorio walks in. The somber look on his face is all I need to know. Keith isn’t going to pull through this. The doctor in me knows this, but the wife in me doesn’t want to believe it. I need a miracle.

  Dr. DiGorio walks over and stands next to the bed. “You know the first week or two after trauma is the acute and critical-care stage. There was too much tissue damage to the brain. There is no evidence of brainstem function. Rory, you’re a doctor. You know what this means.”

  “No, I can’t give up on him. He’s going to wake up,” my voice wavers and I squeeze Keith’s li
feless hand in mine.

  He walks over, placing a hand on my shoulder. “He’s not got going to wake up. I’m sorry. His parents advised us he’s an organ donor. Have you given that any thought?”

  Anger races through my body like a raging bull.

  “No, not yet!” Standing quickly from my chair, it screeches across the white-tiled linoleum floor. “It’s only been a week. Seven days!”

  Brandon walks in the room, his eyes bouncing between me and the doctor.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Nothing,” I quickly respond.

  Dr. DiGorio looks at me with sadness in his eyes, then turns to Brandon. “I was discussing with Rory her options. Keith’s vitals aren’t going to change. There is no brain activity. I was asking if she possibly considered organ donation.”

  Brandon walks over, pulling me into his arms. My fists grip the front of his shirt. “I can’t, not yet.”

  “Can we have a few minutes?” Brandon asks.

  “Sure,” he replies, exiting the room. The sound of the door closing releases the tears I’ve been holding back.

  “I know I need to, but how can I make that decision? His life is in my hands,” I whisper breathlessly against his chest.

  Brandon holds me tight, his left hand running up and down my arm, providing some comfort. “Rory, you know Keith wouldn’t want this. God had a different plan for Keith. You’re not taking his life from him. He’ll always be with you.”

  “He promised me forever, Brandon.” In my heart, I had always been afraid of Keith being on the force. We discussed the possibility of him being injured, him being killed. I just never thought it would happen to us. How naïve of me.

  “I know he did,” his voice was thick and unsteady.

  “This can’t be real. Please tell me I am going to wake up and this has all been a horrible nightmare.” My pulse beats erratically when I hear the pain in Brandon’s voice.

  “I wish I could, but I can’t,” he speaks in a weak, tremulous whisper.

  He gives me a knowing look. I nod. “I just need a little more time.”