Destroy Me (21 page)

“Can you talk?”
He smiled at her. “Yes.”

“Just.” Brenton added. “Save your strength Damien. He’s been shot in the chest, missing his heart by millimetres, thank God. He should have let them do it sooner but he refused, wanting to see you first.”
She realised the job must have been in D.C. He must have been close when it had happened.

“I’ll give you two some privacy, but they’re waiting to take you in Damien,” Brenton warned him, irritated with him for delaying things. The Doctors were outside, ready to take him into surgery.

“I know.”

Brenton shook his head as he left the room.

“I needed to see you Tara; just in case.”
“No, Damien. You’ll make it, you have to.”

She felt him squeeze her hand though she knew it must hurt him.

“I will. Don’t worry Tara. I want you. I always will. I need you to know that.”
“Damien. I love you.”  She bent to kiss his hand as he held onto hers. “I love you and you will be ok. I’m going to be here waiting for you.”

Brenton was hovering in the doorway, pacing impatiently.

“Damien, for God’s sake, come on.” He turned his head. “Doctors, please get this man out of here!”

She leaned down and kissed his face softly.

They entered the room, keen to proceed with the surgery, needing to see the damage the bullet had done internally and try to repair it as best as they could. The longer they delayed, the more internal bleeding could occur. At the very least he would need a transfusion.

Tara stood back to let them take him away.

“Damien, I’ll be here.”

As they wheeled him out into the corridor she watched them, panic stricken.

Brenton put an arm around her shoulder. “Let’s go get some coffee. It’s going to be a long night.”

He led her down the corridor to find the cafeteria. They had no idea how long Damien would be in surgery for, but neither of them would leave the hospital until they saw him again.

Finding the cafeteria Brenton fetched them coffee from a machine as she sat at a table.
It was around three am but there were other people in there, friends or relatives of others who were sick, their faces as gaunt as Tara’s.

“Brenton, what happened? How badly is he hurt, inside?”

“I wasn’t with him Tara. I don’t have the details and I couldn’t tell you if I did. Obviously it went wrong somehow. I don’t know what internal damage he has. It has probably punctured a lung at the least, given the location.”
“He’s not going to die is he?”

“No. He would have died there, if he hadn’t managed to get out of there. God knows how he did it with that injury, but fortunately the bullet went through him. If it had lodged inside him he’d probably be dead now. As long as he makes it through surgery he’ll be ok.”
“Why wouldn’t he make it through surgery?”
“Tara. I don’t know. I’m not a Doctor, but he’s lost a lot of blood.”
Brenton ran his hands through his hair. He was supposed to be calming her but he was worried as hell.

“How long will he be in there?”
“I don’t know. We just have to wait. He’ll be ok.”

Tara felt as though he was telling himself that, trying to convince himself as well as her. She said a silent prayer, please God don’t let him die. He was a good man, not a bad man; he didn’t deserve to die. He was a protector. She needed him. She loved him.

“Why do you do it Brenton? The danger...”
“It’s what we’re trained to do. It’s our job.”

“Can’t you stop? You could die. Damien could die.”

Brenton didn’t answer her.

They sat in silence for a few moments, staring at each other, then staring at the walls, neither knowing what to do with themselves.

Brenton stood up and found a newspaper that someone had left on another table, looking around and finding a magazine further down on another table and bringing them back.
“Let’s go grab another coffee and go back to the room.”

She walked with him as he fetched the coffees and they returned to wait for Damien.

The hospital was quiet at this time of night and it felt eerie as they walked back to his room, both of them aware that it could be several hours before they found out if he was ok.

Brenton found a chair from another room and brought it in to sit on as Tara took the one by the bed.

She felt tears start to come as they sat in the quiet. Brenton was absorbed in the sports section of his newspaper, or pretending to be at least. She was thankful for his presence, his calm stoicism keeping her in check, moderating her from going into a state of hysteria.

The night was unendurably long as they waited, panic gripping her from time to time and tears falling but she kept it mostly together in front of Brenton, knowing he was just as worried.  She thought at one stage he had fallen asleep but he moved his hands and she realised he was just resting his eyes. There was no way she could fall asleep until she saw Damien again. She realised she’d never really felt what love was until tonight.

She left the room every couple of hours to find a nurse, to ask if they had any news, but they assured her the Doctors would let her know as soon as they possibly could.

She heard footsteps all night, sounding like they were coming to the room and each time her heart would pound, yet they never did come until finally a Doctor appeared in the doorway.

Her heart began to hammer and her fingernails dug into the palms of her hands as she braced herself for his news.
“He’s out of danger.”

She raised her head to the ceiling in relief.
“He’ll be brought back soon. He’s in recovery at the moment but he’ll be ok. It will take him several weeks to recover fully though. We’ll keep him in here for the next two weeks.”
“Doctor, thank you so much, thank you.”

“Thanks Doc,” Brenton added, the relief on his face evident.

“He’s a survivor,” she heard Brenton mutter as he grinned.

Some time later Damien was brought back into the room asleep, the nurses telling Tara and Brenton that they were not to wake him, that if they were determined to stay, they would let him rest, that he needed to recuperate.

Neither of them were prepared to leave him until he had come round and spoken to them, but they did as the Nurses told them, letting him sleep without touching him, though Tara longed to.

Brenton fell asleep in the chair, finally able to relax, and Tara watched Damien as he slept, his face showing no trauma from the events.

She wanted to touch his face, kiss him, hold his hand but she knew she couldn’t yet.

At some point she must have drifted off, awakening to the sound of a gurney bashing against a wall in the corridor and as she opened her eyes she saw Damien looking at her. He smiled as he watched her.
“You’re awake darling.” She reached for his hand. “How are you feeling?”

“Sleepy.” He smiled again, the effects of the sedation not having fully worn off.
“You’re going to marry me Tara,” she heard him say as his eyes closed again.

She didn’t try and wake him up, letting him rest, hoping the more sleep he got, the quicker he would recover, but thrills ran through her; the dominance and assuredness of his character there still, even in a hospital bed. She grinned at him as she watched him sleep, a happiness she’d never felt before filling her, that he had pulled through, that he was back, self-confident and strong in his mind, despite the condition he was in. She loved him for that alone; his absolute strength.

She found herself falling back to sleep, her cheek lying on top of his hand on the bed.

The surgeon returned later that morning to check on Damien, and seeing them all fast asleep in the room, he coughed to wake them up. He needed to get her up off Damien’s hand so he could take a look at him.

Damien expressed his gratitude to the surgeon for the work he had done on him, shaking the doctor’s hand though the effort to do so was hard for him.

After the surgeon left, Damien asked Brenton to go and see on things at the office. He didn’t specify what things in front of Tara but she assumed Brenton knew what he meant.

“I don’t expect you to stay Tara. You should go home and go to bed.”
“Thank you but I’ve slept; I don’t want to leave you.”

“Good. I’m glad. Stay with me.”

His hand held onto hers and she sat beside him, stroking his head as he drifted in and out of sleep.

She stayed with him all that day, leaving him only to get drinks or use the bathroom, and as night came she pushed the two armchairs together to make it more comfortable to sleep, unwilling to leave him.

The next day, Damien was irritable when he awoke, swearing about being stuck in a hospital bed.

“You should go Tara.”
“It’s ok; I’m happy to stay.”

“I said; I want you to go.”

“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”

His face belied what he said. The expression in his eyes was one of absolute torment. He looked haunted.
“Can I get help? Are you in pain?”

“Listen to me; I asked you to go. Now leave. I can’t..” He didn’t finish. His voice was cold, impersonal.

She stood, confused by his sudden change.
“What time I come back?”

He didn’t answer. His eyes were searching as though he were thinking about something, anxiety clearly evident in him.

She left him, finding the tension in the room too unbearable, his coldness too chilling. He seemed to be able to turn on her, just like that. Of course, being in a hospital bed seriously injured must be hugely frustrating, especially for such an active man like him, but he could be so mean to her and she hated it. He’d done it before; walking out each time he’d finished seducing her. There was something so wrong with him, deep down. The night she had stayed at his mansion outside of D.C., when she’d found him in his gym; fury in his body and tears running down his face. Though he’d looked terrifying, she had never thought he would hurt her; she knew in her gut he wouldn’t. It wasn’t his violence she was afraid of; it was his pain, and she remembered the words he had said to her then, “Some people don’t deserve what others have.”

She didn’t understand him.

Her heart broke for him, but for herself too. She felt wretched again as she walked out of the hospital. She wanted to walk back in there, have it out with him, but she couldn’t do that to him in the physical state he was in, lying there injured. She wouldn’t win anyway. He had a will that surpassed her own.

She was going to call a cab but saw a bus waiting that she thought would take her just as quickly to the other side of town, back to her apartment.

Back in her hotel room that afternoon, lost and confused once again, in limbo and seemingly rejected once more, she came to a decision. She recalled the conversation she’d had whilst in London, with her friend at Oxford University. With the help of Damien’s money, the money he refused to take back, she would do the PhD she had always wanted to do, but never been able to afford. She wanted passion and purpose in her life, and that was what she had found when she had been at Oxford studying. Not passion of the physical kind, nothing like her and Damien, but that didn’t exist any more, and she didn’t want it with anyone else. She needed something in her life, a purpose, an achievement. She’d put it on hold to save up for it but never got close. Perhaps now she could finally turn all this trouble to her advantage. She had to. She had nothing else. She couldn’t go back to her job in London; it would remind her of him too much.

Though she didn’t want to think about leaving Damien; she knew it was the right thing to do. He would never love her.

Grabbing her laptop, she started researching current PhD projects being supervised at the University; already thinking of an idea of the thesis she wanted to do. She would have to write a proposal to be accepted. It would be a lot of work, but right now she needed a focus like she’d never needed one before. If she didn’t have something to do, she would go crazy at the loss of Damien.

It crossed her mind to just leave tonight, but when she checked the flights there were none left that were not exceptionally expensive and she could not justify spending thousands on first class. She booked one for the following night instead, her hand hovering over the confirmation button as she thought of Damien, wishing things had not turned out this way, but pressing it in the end, knowing she had no other choice. Her time here was finished.

The afternoon passed quickly as she worked on her research proposal, her mind occupied and refusing to think of Damien.

She slept well, when she eventually went to bed in the early hours, having called the hospital just before she went to sleep, unable to stop herself, needing to check Damien was ok.

She spent the next day working more on the proposal, needing to come up with a good one to be accepted to study there. It was hours until her flight that night. She went out briefly for food, bringing it back with her.

She hadn’t decided if she would tell him or just leave. He would recover and carry on without her. She would go to Oxford and try to build her own life.

The hardest part was waiting it out at the hotel, too early to go to the airport for hours yet, and eventually she found herself automatically making her way back to the hospital, to tell Damien, and then get the bus to the airport. She would have hours to wait in the departures lounge, but at least if she were there she couldn’t change her mind.

She had to tell him, it was the decent thing to do; she couldn’t just leave him lying in a hospital bed wondering.

As she walked into his room, she saw the look of confusion on his face as he saw her suitcase.

“What’s going on Tara?”

“I’m leaving. I’m flying this evening. I needed to tell you.”
“To London?”
“Oxford. Once I have a place there. I’m going to do a PhD.”

He tried to sit up but couldn’t manage it.

“You can do it at the University in Washington.”

“No.”
“Tara, please let me apologise to you.”

“It’s ok.”

“No. It’s not. There’s someone I need you to go and see, here at the hospital. Please go and talk to him.”
“Who?”

“He’s a doctor here. He’s just been in to see me. Hopefully he’s in his office. Please pass me my phone; I’ll call him and tell him you’re on your way.”