Page 40 of Triple Play
My chest tightens.
“I woke up to smoke. Alarms screaming. Got out through my bedroom window.” He’s staring at his mug now. “Stood in the driveway in my boxers, watching firefighters try to get inside. They were too late.”
“Wyatt—”
“My parents were in the master bedroom. Second floor. Smoke got them before the fire did, they told me after. Like that was supposed to make it better.”
I don’t know what to say. I don’t know if there are words that could possibly be enough.
“I just stood there,” he continues, his voice flat now, empty. “Fourteen years old, watching everything burn. Couldn’t do anything. Couldn’t save them. Couldn’t even cry.”
“You were a kid.”
He finally looks at me, those dark eyes haunted. “I lived. They didn’t. And every night when I close my eyes, I’m back in that driveway, watching, waiting for someone to come out who never does.”
My throat is tight. “That’s why you need the lights.”
He takes a drink of tea. His hand is steady, but I can see the tension in his shoulders. “Stupid, I know.”
“It’s not stupid.”
“It’s been seven years. I should be over it by now.”
“Trauma doesn’t have an expiration date.”
He looks at me then, really looks, like he’s seeing something he didn’t expect.
“After,” he says quietly, “I went into foster care. Bounced around. Six homes in four years. Nobody wants the damaged kid with nightmares—the one who starts fights just to feel something, who skips school and stops caring…”
“Wyatt—”
“Hockey saved me. I got a scholarship and got out.” He sets his mug down. “Thought I was fine. Thought I’d moved past it.”
“But you haven’t.”
“No.” His voice drops even lower. “I haven’t.”
The weight of his words settles between us—heavy, real.
I don’t offer platitudes. I don’t tell him it’ll get better or that time heals all wounds. That’s bullshit, and we both know it.
Instead, I just say, “I’m sorry.”
“Not your fault.”
“Doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry it happened.”
Something shifts in his expression, softening just slightly.
“Most people don’t know what to do with it,” he says. “The fire story. They either treat me like I’m broken or they try to fix me.”
“I’m not going to try to fix you.”
“I know.” He holds my gaze. “That’s why I told you.”
More silence, but it’s comfortable, like we’ve reached some unspoken agreement to just exist in the same space without needing to fill it.
“The parking thing was bullshit,” he says suddenly, “for what it’s worth.”
