Total pages in book: 77
Estimated words: 72990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 72990 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 365(@200wpm)___ 292(@250wpm)___ 243(@300wpm)
“I’ll take you through,” she says.
I’m given a mask to wear and then I follow the nurse into the ICU ward. It’s noisier than I expect, with machines whirring and beeping constantly. I spot Gabriella first, her head bent over Kain’s body, her hand clutching his. My brother is barely recognizable, with so many tubes and wires surrounding his body. He’s a big, muscular man, but in the hospital bed he seems so diminished.
I’m not a man who cries very often. Even when things are bad, there’s always an internal wall that holds back any strong emotion from breaking the surface. But seeing my baby brother hooked up to machines that are monitoring his heart, knowing that his heart stopped today, is too much. My cheeks are wet and my throat burns, and I swallow reflexively, swiping at my face before anyone sees them.
“Gab,” I manage to rasp. Her head whips around and as soon as she sees me, she’s flying into my arms, weeping with racking sobs that are so strong, I have to hold her upright. “It’s okay,” I tell her. “Kain’s going to be fine.”
“We lost him,” she gasps. “He died, Dalton. I watched him die, and they brought him back.”
“Shit.” I smooth her hair back from her face and take her hand in mine. She doesn’t usually wear rings, but as I try to squeeze her hand reassuringly, my palm scratches on what feels like a big diamond. I raise her hand and find an engagement ring on her finger.
“It’s Ellie’s,” she says softly. “She gave it to me to make the fiancée story more realistic.”
A strange twisting feeling curls from my stomach into my chest and around my heart, but I push it aside because I need to focus on Kain. I release Gabriella and stumble towards Kain, staring down at his diminished form.
“He can hear you,” Gabriella says. “I know he can. Talk to him. Let him know you’re here.”
I take her seat, finding it warm beneath me. I rest my hand on Kain’s shoulder, words tumbling inside my skull like an eight ball, with nothing that makes any sense rising to the surface. What do you say to your unconscious brother in this situation? It’s not something I’m prepared for in any way.
“Kain. Bro. It’s Dalton. We’re all here now. We’re all here waiting for you to wake up. You’re fine, bro. They’re making you better, okay? They know what they’re doing. The whole team is here, and Coach. And Gabriella is here too. You’ve just got to focus on healing, Kain. Leave everything else to us.”
Gabriella rests her hand on my shoulder, squeezing gently. I cover her fingers with my own and she bends to kiss the top of my head, sending a flood of reassurance through me. I miss those small moments of affection that Mom would give me when I was a kid. She always knew when I needed a little pat on the shoulder, a kiss on the cheek, or a warm, enveloping hug. Gab is the same. She senses pain in others and knows just what to do to make it even a tiny amount better.
“I’m going to go now,” I tell Kain, searching his face for a small flicker of his eyelids or movement of his lips. I see nothing. “Dad and Blake are outside, and they want to come in. I’ll see you soon, okay? We’re not going to leave you. We’ll be here night and day until you wake up.”
I rise quickly, feeling the burn of tears like there’s a prickly sea urchin wedged in the back of my throat. Gabriella takes my hand, and we walk out of the ICU, shock rendering us both silent.
In the hallway, Dad waits, his arms folded around his chest as though his heart is threatening to spill over the linoleum. A doctor in his mid-fifties approaches us with a file held loosely in his hand. “Mr. Nowak,” he says, and me, Dad, and Blake all answer yes. His mouth tugs at the corners, but his eyes seem apologetic, as though he’s bracing himself to tell us some bad news and already feels guilty about it.
“Can I talk to you about Kain’s condition?”
“Yes, of course,” Dad says.
The doctor clears his throat, looking down at the floor before he meets Dad’s eyes. “What’s happened to him is very rare. He suffered a cardiac arrest. We believe it was due to the high-impact blunt blow he received to his chest on the field. It’s incredibly rare but there’s a very small window within the heart’s beating cycle where, if it receives a shock, it stops beating, sending the heart into fibrillation. This is what we believe happened. His heart was restarted on the field. So far, since he’s been in the hospital, he hasn’t suffered another incident. That’s a good sign, but he’s not out of the water. When the heart is in fibrillation, it’s quivering and not pumping, so blood doesn’t reach the body’s organs, including the brain.”