Loving London

Chapter One

Loïc

“The utter horror of it all comes back in agonizing clarity. Cooper’s gone.”

—Loïc Berkeley

Heaviness weighs on me, pressing my lungs flat. I can’t breathe. Panic rises within as a war with fear begins. 

It’s so dark. 

Where am I? 

It smells but not of earth and sweat. It reeks of chemicals and sanitation—rubbing alcohol maybe.

My chest expands as I pull in air, and it brings torture, a shooting sharp pain to my ribs. I stop inhaling deeply and focus on taking short and shallow breaths. 

What’s happening to me?

Where am I?

I try to open my eyes, but it becomes way more difficult than it should be. Why won’t they open? I mentally instruct my brain to make my eyes open, and I wait.

Open.

Open.

Open.

Nothing happens. 

Fuck.

A stabbing agony shoots through my body, starting at my head and spreading downward. The ache in my leg burns so fiercely that I know I’m dying. A pain this great can’t be sustained. I scream a hollow, tortured cry, but no sound explodes from me. In fact, I can’t hear anything at all.

And the pain…it’s just too much.

It’s more than I can stand.

I’m dying.

I clench my teeth together and bear down, trying to hold on, to sustain through the anguish.

But I can’t.

I’m not strong enough.

I know it’s over—life is leaving me—but as darkness pulls me under, I’m grateful for the release.

***

“Lieutenant Berkeley, can you hear me?” a male voice asks.

It takes me a moment to register the words. I sluggishly open my eyes but force them closed again. The intrusive light hurts. 

“Sir?” he questions again.

Breathing deep, I open my eyes again, even more cautiously, allowing them to acclimate to the brightness that surrounds me.

I blink and then blink again.

Scanning the room, I realize I’m in a hospital. What happened?

When the man is in my line of vision, I stop my assessment of the room. He looks to be in his forties with kind brown eyes, but if I’m not mistaken, I see pity in them. 

Do I? That thought causes bile to rise in my throat. Why is he looking at me that way? 

Opening my mouth, I try to question him; nothing but a raspy croak comes out.

The man raises a hand. “Your throat’s going to be dry. Let me get you some water.”

He exits the room, leaving me to myself, as I wade hopelessly through a sea of questions. Closing my eyes, I try to remember what happened. The crazy thing is, I can’t remember much of anything. My mind is so clouded, so saturated, with a heavy mud of nothingness. 

The man returns, holding a white Styrofoam cup with a straw. He pushes a button on the side of my bed, and the section behind my back starts to slowly move up.

“Is that okay? It doesn’t hurt?” he asks.

I shake my head, answering his second question.

He continues moving the back of the bed up until I’m in a seated position. He then holds the cup of water in front of my face, and the bent straw presses against my lips. Opening my lips, I take a sip. The water feels like shards of glass sliding down my throat. I take another sip and then indicate with a nod that I’m finished.

The man places the cup on my side table. “I’m Sergeant Hannigan, your current nurse. Though Private Taylor will be replacing me”—his eyes dart to the clock on the wall—“in about an hour, and she’s much sweeter than I am. Everyone loves her. She’s a hell of a lot easier on the eyes, too.” He smiles, amused with himself.

“What…” I try to ask.

“Your throat’s going to be sore for a bit. Try to keep it hydrated as best as you can. You were intubated for a while. Then, you were in a medically induced coma until the swelling in your brain went down and your major injuries healed some. Do you remember what happened?”

I shake my head.

“Well, you’re at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany,” he says. 

Immediately, I recognize that as the military hospital where soldiers injured overseas are sent for medical attention. 

He continues, “You were in Afghanistan. On a mission to Sarowbi, you were hit by shrapnel caused by a grenade, and the explosion propelled you into a wall, which you hit pretty hard. You were evacuated and flown here. From what I hear, you’re lucky to be alive.”

“Injuries?” I manage to say.

“You had some head trauma and many lacerations that needed stitches. You took some shrapnel in the side of your abdomen, but luckily, it missed all your major organs.” 

I catch him swiftly looking down before his gaze returns to mine. 

“A large piece of shrapnel struck your left leg, causing a significant amount of damage. The surgeon had to amputate part of your leg, starting right above the knee.” 

My eyes bulge as I take in his words. Amputate?

Warily, I peer down toward the bedding that covers me. Sure enough, the thin white sheet drops down to the mattress where my lower left leg should be. 

I lift my arm to move the covers from me but gasp as an acute pain hits, radiating from my rib area. I press my arm below my chest until the ache recedes.

“I’m sorry. I forgot to tell you about your broken ribs. Your body’s still pretty bruised up. It will be a while before you’re healed.”

I nod toward my leg. “Can I see it?” My voice cracks.

“Sure.” Sergeant Hannigan pulls back the sheet. 

From beneath the hospital gown I’m wearing, my right leg lays in shades of bruises against the mattress. It’s like a messed up tie-dye of purples, yellows, and browns with some cuts thrown in the mix for variety. It’s almost nauseating in appearance. 

Then, I steel the nerve to take in my left leg, and…it’s gone. 

Just gone.

My gaze returns to the bruised up appendage and then to the spot beside it where its counterpart should be, and nothing is there. Nothing. No matching mangled up leg is protruding from beneath the thin gown. 

As I stare at the spot where my leg should be, Sergeant Hannigan pulls up the gown a few inches to reveal the bandaged up stump of my left leg. There’s really nothing to see, except a gauzed up nub, the pathetic remnant of a leg. 

Letting out a sigh, I lean my head back against the pillow. The sergeant fixes my bedding back around me. 

I close my eyes and think about my legs, and the crazy thing is, I can still feel the left one. I can actually feel it. I move my foot around in a circle, taking in the way my ankle cracks with the motion. Yet, when I open my eyes and peer down, there’s no left foot to move. I simply stare at the spot where it should be.

“Are you okay, Lieutenant?” Hannigan asks.

“I’m fine,” I lie. How can I be okay? I’m banged up as hell, in a hospital in Germany, without a fucking leg. No, I’m not fine.

“I know this is a lot to take in. We have doctors you can talk to. It helps.”

“No, I’m okay, really.” I turn my head to the side and notice the window for the first time. Unfortunately, my view is of brown bricks, more than likely the exterior from another part of the hospital. 

“All right, well, I’m going to finish up your chart. Private Taylor will be here soon, and she’ll order some soft foods for you, so your body can get used to eating solids again. Nothing says dinner like Jell-O, right?” Hannigan’s question is rhetorical, so I ignore it. “The doctor will be here sometime within the next hour to go over everything with you as well. I paged him when you started to wake up. Can I get you anything before I go?”

“No,” I answer quietly.

“Okay, if you need anything, just press this call light right here.” He shows me the red button on the railing. “I just pushed some pain meds through your IV right before you woke up, but if the pain becomes too much, we can give you some more.” 

“Oh, Sergeant Hannigan?” I say before he leaves.

He turns to look at me. “Yeah?”

“How long have I been here?”

“About two weeks.”

“How long do you think I’ll stay here?” I ask. 

“You can talk to the doctor when he gets in, but I’m guessing you’ll be here for another two weeks before you’re well enough to fly to Walter Reed, the big military hospital in Washington DC. There, you’ll probably have intense PT for about a month before they clear you to go home and get the rest of your treatment at the nearest VA hospital to you. So, that will put you home sometime in May. Things can vary, of course, but given an injury like yours, that’s my guess,” he says cheerfully.

“Thanks.” I nod. 

He smiles warmly and exits the room. 

Feeling tired, I close my eyes. I can figure this all out later—reconstruct the pieces of my life, regain my memories, discover how to do all the things I love with one leg. Right now though, I just need to sleep. 

Whether from the pain meds or the sheer exhaustion of my battered body, sleep takes me almost instantly. I’m on the precipice of blissful deep slumber—in that moment right before the entire world fades away but where I’m still subconsciously aware of where my physical body lies—when it happens. 

I see him.

I watch in a panic as he jumps, throwing his body over the grenade.

I try to stop him, but I can’t. I can’t reach him in time.

I stare in horror as his body explodes. Pieces of his body hit me as they fly through the air, and I scream out in pain—an unrelenting, intense agony so deep that it burns clear through to my soul.

The utter horror of it all comes back in agonizing clarity.

Cooper’s gone. 

He’s gone.

I bolt up in bed, immune to the screeching protests of my body, and I yell, a wild cry from the worst pain I’ve ever known. 

I can’t stop screaming. The heartache is killing me. It’s so tangible that it manifests as physical pain, ripping through me, breaking my mind, body, and soul into thousands of empty pieces. 

I vaguely register the presence of others. Somewhere in the distance, I hear my name being called, but I can’t get back there. 

I’m drowning in a sea of suffering. Visions of Cooper’s tattered body hit me with the force of massive rocks, carved out from a mountain of torment. I can feel the weight of it crushing me to the ground. The earth beneath me shakes with anger. It’s taking me with it. I’m going to be buried alive in my own misery, and I deserve it. 

It shouldn’t have been him. 

Not him. 

Never him.

Suddenly, the yelling stops, and I’m enveloped in blackness. My mind is foggy, and I can’t focus on the images of Cooper. I’m losing him. 

I can’t…

I’ve already…

Lost.

Him.