Page 29 of Stay With Me

Emily lifts herself to a sitting position, looks down at my shirt, then groans.

“Oh my God, Charlie. I got snot on your shirt. How humiliating.” She covers her pretty face with her hands and now I’m the one laughing.

“Hey, don’t sweat it.” I sit up and pull her hands away from her face. “It’s better than your twenty-first birthday when you puked on my shoes because you and Shayna indulged in a bit too much alcohol.” I grin, and she smiles back—it’s the sweetest thing I think I’ve ever seen.

“Yeah, that was pretty gross. Sorry again about that. Now let’s go get some food in that stomach of yours.”

I stand, scoop up the cash from the ground and extend a hand, giving her the money and helping her up. I start toward the house, but she stops me, wrapping her arms around my waist and squeezing tight.

“Thank you, Charlie. You’re a good friend,” she whispers.

CHAPTER13

CHARLIE

The scorching heat from the fire engulfing the senior living apartment building is nearly unbearable, but I can’t make myself step back any further. Jack is still in there—my captain, and my friend. In the six months since he transferred to Station Three, we’ve become close. It’s only been a few minutes since Finn, Garcia, and I burst through the door to the outside with the elderly woman while Jack stayed behind to get her grandson from where he was hiding under the bed.

He should be out by now.

I’m seconds from asking the Battalion Chief if I can go in after him when I glimpse Finn out of the corner of my eye. The rookie did a hell of a job today, especially given this is his first big fire, but he shouldn’t be this close to the flames. He should be back with the rest of the crew, hydrating.

“Finn, step back. It’s too hot this close up,” I tell him.

“No, sir.”

“Uh, excuse me?” I turn my head to face him and glare. I’m in no mood for him giving me shit.

“I said, no, respectfully. Captain Jack told me to stick to you like glue. That’s what I’m doing until he’s out of there and gives me other orders. Plus”—he pauses, his voice cracking—“he’s my captain, too.”

I stare at Finn for a few seconds, his jaw set, and it’s obvious he’ll fight me on this if I try to force the issue. My respect for him rises a couple of notches.

“Okay,” I mumble, then nod at him.

I turn my gaze back to the front doors just as Jack busts through them, carrying a small, listless child.

Jack’s not wearing his oxygen mask because he’s got it on the little boy. The two sets of medics who are waiting move in, and Jack hands the coughing child to one team of them.

Finn and I have already started toward Jack, his wheezing and relentless coughing is worrisome as he staggers in our direction. We reach him just as he crumples, and we barely catch him before he slams into the ground. Finn and I lift him onto the stretcher of the second medic team.

Jack’s looking at me when, suddenly, his eyes roll back in his head and he loses consciousness.

Battalion Chief Malone gives me permission to ride with the Station Two medics and assist as they get Jack to the hospital. No one says it, but we all know he will most likely need to go on life support to protect his airway because of the smoke inhalation and heat injuries to his throat.

The ride to the hospital is less than eight minutes, but it’s harrowing. Jack’s wheezing and fighting for air and it’s horrible to watch. His nostrils flare and his shoulders rise dramatically with each breath, his respiratory muscles clearly fatigued. Yet, he won’t allow me to give him morphine to ease the pain and troubled breathing. He wants to be alert as long as possible. He doesn’t have to say it. I know it’s because he’s hoping he can see Annie one last time… just in case.

A few minutes later, once we hand Jack’s care off to the ER team, the medics from Station Two offer me a ride back to Station Three. I decline, needing a few minutes to myself. I’ll call Finn to come get me in the station jeep when I’m ready.

A rising tide of panic claws at my chest, and I need to get out of here. The air in the ER is hot and suffocating. I’m overstimulated by the dinging and ringing of alarms and call bells and the cacophony of human noises—nurses shouting, patients yelling in pain, families crying out in grief—and people rushing in all directions around me. I try not to draw attention to myself and to hold it together while I walk briskly through the ER. I make it out the front doors, not stopping until I’m at least fifteen feet from the entrance.

The cool October air is a relief to my lungs, and I suck in as deep of a breath as I can manage. As I lean against the outside wall of the building, heightened emotions threaten to overwhelm me. My legs give out and the coarse brick of the wall scrapes against my back as I slide down it and slump to a seated position on the ground.

My vision blurs and dizziness consumes me, making me salivate from the nausea it causes. I’m breathing too fast. I know this is normal—it’s just the adrenaline crashing. But, damn, it feels like hell. I lean forward and put my head between my knees.

I try, and fail, to settle myself by slowing my breathing—to calm the fear—like the speech therapist taught me to do when I was a kid trying to learn to stop stuttering. My mom never told her the root of that fear was worrying about what my dad’s fists and words would do to us when he was angry or disappointed in us. But, to her credit, she at least told the therapist she thought my stutter was stemming from anxiety.

“He’s gonna be fine. He got here in time. This isn’t like Teddy,” I mutter to myself.

Flashbacks of trying, and failing, to pump life back into Teddy’s heart less than two months ago assault me and my heart rate kicks back up, bounding in my chest. I tried my best for him, and for Emily, that day. But I failed. I wouldn’t have called him my friend, but he was my fellow firefighter, Jack’s best friend and Emily’s husband, and I couldn’t save him.

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