Page 89 of Ablaze

Maybe she really meant it when she asked me to forget what happened between us because that’s what she’d done. Forgotten.

Maybe it was better for me to pull away, even if it hurt like hell doing it.

So, aside from the minimal texts here and there–more so in our group chat than privately–I’ve done just that, pulled away and thrown myself into work. I’ve taken on more extra shifts over the course of the past few months than I ever have since I became a firefighter. It’s the only thing that’s kept me sane.

I run my hand through my shorter hair, staring at the concrete floor when my phone vibrates with a text and my pulse increases as I read it.

Sprinkles: I miss you.

I swallow, rereading those three simple words. I need to tell her . . .

My eyes blur and I don’t read the name on my phone when it buzzes in my hand. “Come back. Fucking come back to me.”

Fuck, the sob that’s been building all day releases and I hear the same sound echo back to me through the line.

“Dean?”

I blink rapidly, pulling the phone off my ear to check the name and make sure I heard right. “Mom?”

Her voice is strangled and throaty, like she’s been crying. “Honey, it’s Grams . . .”

My grandma’s face, lit with her ever-present smile and kind, knowing eyes, flashes across my eyes. The pang inside my chest worsens as if announcing what it’s been trying to tell me all damn morning–that something is wrong.

Because something is very wrong.

Blood rushes past my ears but I suck in a shaky breath. “What is it? What about Grams?”

“W-we’re in the hospital with her,” Mom sputters, barely understandable. “We found her unconscious on her bathroom floor this morning after Douglas and I came back from our walk.”

I zone out, disregarding her sobs or the sirens ringing inside my head. I’m not a newbie to this kind of thing, and aside from being a firefighter, I’m also a paramedic. My tone is more business than I feel inside. “Was she breathing when you found her? What are the doctors saying now?”

Douglas, my stepdad, takes over the phone. I’m assuming Mom’s in no state to talk anymore. “Hey, son. She had a shallow pulse when we found her. The doctors said she was in some sort of respiratory distress where her lungs weren’t removing enough CO2 from her body. Hyper-something.”

“Hypercapnia.” She was having another one of her coughing fits when I spoke to her a few days ago. It was at the tip of my tongue to ask her if she’d gotten another checkup, but based on the tongue-lashing I got from her the previous time I asked, I kept my mouth sealed.

Douglas curses under his breath. “There’s one more thing . . .”

I run a hand through my shorter hair, clutching it at the roots before letting it go. “They need to intubate her.”

Douglas is quiet on the other end for a moment. “Yeah . . . but–”

“Fuck. Don’t tell me she has a DNI.”

Knowing Grams, I’m not surprised that she wouldn’t want to be intubated, even if it meant saving her life. I can hear her now. “I will not be picked and prodded like a lab rat. If my body says it’s time to go, well then, it’s time to go.”

Douglas puffs out a heavy breath. “We had no idea she’d signed the Do Not Intubate order, but they found it in her files.”

Of course they didn’t know. Neither did I. Grams isn’t the type to ask for permission or look for approval being the stubborn mule she is, and she knew we wouldn’t have given it, either.

I’m already rushing back out of the bunk when Douglas speaks. “Son, I know it doesn’t need to be said, but I think you need to get here as soon as possible.”

With my heart crawling up my throat, I respond, “I’m on my way.”

* * *

My eyes stay affixed to the doorknob to her hospital room. I haven’t moved from this spot since the doctor came out to tell us the news. The somber, apologetic look on his face telegraphing his impending words before he spoke them. That she was gone.

Gone.

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