Page 67 of We Can Forever

I lead my team back in, with the crew on the outside feeding the hose with foam through a broken window in the chemistry lab. This time, I move with more purpose, determined to get in and out as swiftly as possible.

Lab fires are no joke. It’s not a matter of if there will be an explosion—it’s when.

My heart hammering at the speed of light, I make my way into the lab, followed by my team. Thank God, the source of the fire is apparent immediately. A glass cabinet has been broken, and in front of it, a beaker of chemicals sits on a lit Bunsen burner.

My lips draw thin. Great. So some teenager pissed at being given detention decided they would blow up the school?

“We need to read the labels first,” I tell my team. “To make sure we use the right kind of foam.”

I grab one of the containers on the counter and try to read the label, but the smoke makes it nearly impossible.

“Michael?” Red asks. “We need to make a call.”

I curse under my breath. “If we use the wrong foam?—”

“We don’t have time.”

He’s right. I need to take a shot in the dark, and pray it’s the right one.

“Get the AR-AFFF pumping!” I shout across the comms line.

“Copy that,” a voice from outside responds.

I put down the container, about to move for the hose, when there’s a deafening boom. The whole room shakes, and I’m knocked off my feet.

I hit the ground on my side, the impact sending a shock through my body. Images flash in front of my eyes. Katie playing in our yard with Rose… The fight with my dad—the last time I ever saw him… And Hannah.

Hannah in my house, waking up in my bed every morning. Wearing a wedding dress and saying “I do” as she looks into my eyes. Standing beside me clapping as we watch Katie graduate from high school.

It’s the life we could have had, and just as quickly as it’s there…it’s gone.

Chapter Twenty-Four

HANNAH

Icrochet another chain. Then another. Then another.

“Hannah? Would you like anything from Tall Order?”

“Huh?” I look up and blink the person standing in front of me into focus. It’s Cynthia. “Oh. I’m fine. Thank you.” I put down my crocheting, feeling like an insensitive jerk.

Here I am, sitting in the corner of Knit Happens, worried half to death about Michael. And how must his mother be feeling? I can’t even begin to imagine the stress of knowing your child is in a building that just exploded from a chemical fire.

She smiles gently at me. “This is just part of the job, you know?”

A lump forms in my throat. “Yeah,” I rasp.

And she’d know. Her husband was also a firefighter—a firefighter who died while fighting a fire.

So how can she so nonchalantly say it’s “part of the job”? How can she be so accepting?

I’d never ask her this, and she’s gone anyway—out the door to the coffee shop. It’s just me…and the other fifteen or so people who have gathered in Knit Happens to wait for news about Pine Island’s fire crew.

All that we know is the chem lab at the high school exploded. We don’t know if anyone was injured or…worse.

Waiting for this kind of news is the type of hell I wouldn’t wish on anyone. Worst-case scenarios keep running through my mind. Michael injured. Michael trapped under rubble. Michael dead.

Swiping at my tired eyes, I catch the news that the group—including several shop owners and Devin, Alexis, and Flick—are watching on a tablet. A shot of smoke drifting skyward fills the screen, with a grim-looking reporter in the foreground. My stomach clenching tight, I look away before I vomit and pick my crochet needles back up.

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