Something Worth Saving (26 page)

There was an anger burning in Jace, and I saw it. He didn’t. He’d never been the type to let on when he was in pain, whether that be emotionally or physically. He was the type to grin and bear it. And while that could be considered sexy to most, it doesn’t lend itself well to a relationship, because he’s constantly, like, “yeah, okay,” when what I’m really hoping for is a “fuck you.” If that makes sense. It wasn’t emotion. Maybe that doesn’t make sense.

Here. Imagine you’re arguing with your husband, boyfriend, fuck-buddy, or whatever, and you’re in a heated conversation. You say what you have to say, and you’re waiting for him to say something more. Agree or disagree.

And he says nothing and walks out the door.

How do you feel?

Even angrier, right?

It’s like you’ve left the door wide open in a storm.

Every day I’m left with a choice. And it tears me apart that I feel like I’ve been making the wrong one.

Sometimes I wondered why I bothered. If he wasn’t trying, why should I?

It didn’t matter what we said or did — everything was a battle of unspoken words, slammed drawers, and heated glances.

I don’t know how we got here, but we were here, and neither one of us wanted to face it. Or deal with it.

And then I would see a glimpse of who he used to be, who we used to be in a tender passing touch or a wished good day and “I love you” when he thought I wasn’t listening.

And then I would try a little harder, determined to do something about it. I felt it in my bones. We had to fix it.

Command to dispatch, the firefighter has been transported. The victims on the fourth floor are being taken out now.

Dispatch to command, the lieutenant with the police department is requesting to meet

you face to face. He has a woman and a man in custody.

10-4

Friday, December 14, 2012

Jace

I
T MADE
my blood boil that this fucker was moving in on my girl at a time like this.

I wasn’t not sure what was happening with Aubrey, but I was so sick of the same shit day in and day out. Sadly, our relationship was struggling, and it wasn’t any one thing. It was everything. I couldn’t get past that her fucking mom showed up and that Ridley had the goddamn nerve to kiss her. And he kept at it as if thinking that if he didn’t give up, I would.

If this was to happen in a fire, say the smoke had turned brown and the attic was fully involved, what would you do?

If the fire’s too bad, you bail. But . . . is that something you do in a relationship?

I couldn’t see bailing on her and everything we had.

I felt like no matter how hard I tried to change that shit, it didn’t do any good. How could I make her see?

Marry her.

But right now, given the events of today, I felt like that was the last thing we needed. You can’t marry someone if you don’t have trust, right?

Did I trust her?

I trusted this bottle held the answer. That’s about it. For what it’s worth, I honestly thought it had the answer.

I trusted that for now, the ring I bought this morning would remain in my pocket until we could actually talk about things. Aubrey and I have never been good at communicating.

We’re good at loving. We’re good at sex. We’re good at being Jace and Aubrey.

We’re not good once conflict arrives. We’re not good at talking.

I don’t talk. Never have. I’ll keep it to myself as long as possible, until one day I just explode. I thought I was going to tonight. Had the kids not been there, I might have.

But I held back. Every time I wanted to just scream and fight for what I knew was missing, I stopped — afraid, I guess.

Aubrey is emotional and insecure. She can’t make a decision to save her ass, and when she does, she’s never confident in it and questions herself.

She loved me. I knew that. God, did she love me, and I would walk through fire for her any day. But we have a huge fucking void between us that neither one knows how to cross.

Maybe we’re not meant for each other, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I can’t leave, and I don’t say that because of the kids. I can’t walk away from her, and I’ve honestly never thought of it that way.

I just wish she could see for once how much we really take for granted . . . and for me to see it, too. Every day I intended on changing shit, and I didn’t.

And it was fucking sad to sit in a room with her and feel that void – that ever-present gap we couldn’t close.

The closest I’ve gotten to telling her how I feel was saying,
“But you expect me to be perfect. Be that guy you’ve never had. Rescue you.”

If only she understood how true that was.

It’s hard for me to say it, but I’ve always felt like it was my job to save her. I save lives for a living. But right in front of me, right now, I’m not saving what needs to be saved.

Since Logan died, I know I haven’t been myself, and what should have gotten easier between us has gotten worse. Now it was something I wasn’t sure we could save.

I feel guilty about what happened to Logan, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that part of me died in that fire with Logan. I have never been as close with someone as I was with Logan.

Feeling guilty is never easy. It’s not meant to be. I’ll never get over his death. Ever. I wake up in cold sweats and remember him like he’s right there with me, but he’s not. He’s gone.

The dream I have of him is one where he’s lying there just like he was on the ship, talking calm to me, cool and collected as he always was, fearless. And I walk away from him.

I don’t know why and he’s screaming for me to stop, but I keep walking.

I wake up in tears, and a little more of my heart broken off by it. Sometimes I’m afraid to sleep. Afraid of what I will dream about.

Because there’s one dream about Aubrey I have usually right after that one that shakes me to my very being and tests my will to survive anything. This one, the one of Aubrey, is a darker dream and takes hours to get over, and I can’t go back to sleep after it.

In the dream she’s standing there, flames surrounding her, and she takes her hand with my heart in it and throws it in the flames. Only it’s not just my heart, it’s both of ours, as if to say they’re burning together. I call out to her, tell her I can save her, knowing I can’t.

And then I’m standing beside Logan’s grave. Only it’s not Brooke I was holding, it’s Aubrey, and I’m the one who’s died. In horror I watch as they hand Aubrey my helmet, same charred edges as Logan’s had. When I look closer, it’s Ridley holding her, his arms wrapped around her and my kids as I’m lowered in the ground.

I’d be goddamned if I was going to let that happen.

The thought of seeing Aubrey react that way to Brooke at the funeral terrified me. It was an image, a fear I will hold with me forever.

Every dream I have, I wake up to the sounds of the PPE on Logan’s gear going off, that sharp hollow whistle I will never forget.

Yesterday I had my first fire call since Logan died. And the entire time I thought he was right there with me, helping me. Maybe he was. I knew one thing, this had affected me in ways I never thought possible.

Logan used to tell me to never give up. Never. He was talking about firefighting, but it made me think, because after he would tell me to never give up, he would also say one thing that made a lot sense right now. He would say that in that last second, the point where you’re about to give up, push a little harder, because you just may find what you’ve been looking for.

I ordered another drink from the bartender and then stared at the shot glass again.

It didn’t have the answer I thought it would.

But got me thinking about Aubrey.

Look at me at this point in my life, confused, emotional, frustrated . . . and she was feeling the same. When you look at it, it’s two stories, intertwining into one, breathing as one.

Fire is a living, breathing thing. So is love. In order to fight fire, you have to understand it.

I didn’t understand shit right now.

“Another one?” the bartender asked when he saw the glass empty again.

I stared at the glass long enough to know I didn’t need another, because I couldn’t tell whether the glass was full or empty.

“Nah, I think I’m done.”

Just as I was getting up, there was a girl standing there.

Ava, one of our paramedics.

“So what’s with you and your girlfriend?” she asked when she stood there for a good few minutes, and I had yet to say anything to her.

Ava seemed like a nice girl, but she was trouble. She was the type of girl who preyed on guys like me. Confused.

I finally looked at her. “It’s none of your business.”

She had blue eyes that I’d never noticed until tonight. With the black in her hair, they shone in the lighting of the bar. Yeah, it would have been easy for me to act on impulse, driven by just hormones, but that wasn’t me. I loved Aubrey despite whatever this bullshit was between us.

“You’re always an asshole, aren’t you?”

“Yeah . . . I’m an asshole.” My eyes focused on hers and I laughed. It wasn’t an amused laugh.

“Whatever, Jace,” she replied, and motioned for the bartender to get her a beer and one for me.

“I’m not always a bad guy,” I said, looking at her again. “I’ve just got a lot going on.”

She smiled, her elbow jabbing at my side. “I know. I was just giving you a hard time.” Her hand came up and rested on my shoulder. “How ’bout a drink?”

Against my better judgment, I had a drink with her. And I felt fucking guilty for it. I wasn’t comfortable with how close she was or that she was touching me. So I got up to leave.

“Just one more?”

“Listen.” I stood from my stool and distanced myself from her. “I think you got the wrong impression here.”

Her eyes seemed to dance around the obvious before she finally said, “You’re seriously going to pass this up?”

I turned and looked at her over my shoulder. “Yeah, I am.”

Saturday, December 15, 2012

W
HEN
I got home from the bar, I slept on the couch, and nothing was said between Aubrey and me, as I was gone and heading to the station before she was up. It hurt that I couldn’t talk to her, but it hurt more that she couldn’t talk to me. And she wasn’t to blame for that. That was on me.

Today I had to clean out Logan’s locker.

I’d been putting it off, but it had to be done and nobody else would do it. There was no way I was making Brooke come down and do it, so I told Mike I would.

Following a line-of-duty death an investigation is started, as well as the one at the fire. I had a lot of paperwork to fill out, and reliving every moment of that day wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. No firefighter does. Sure, we want to know what went wrong and how we could do it differently, but it’s different when it’s someone close to you and not some nameless face you were trying to save. If that makes sense. There’s attachment there, a commitment you give to them to do right by them, as they’re trusting you.

The autopsy report came back amongst the paperwork. Logan died of third-degree burns. There was no way to tell if this was the cause of death, but he also had a piece of shrapnel impaled in his side that ruptured his spleen. That was there at the first explosion.

Who’s to say Logan wouldn’t have died hours after the fire, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I still felt responsible.

Inside the locker room, I sat there staring at his locker. Guys shuffled in and out, never bothering me. I think they knew I didn’t want to be disturbed. I had a permanent look of “fuck off” plastered on my face these days.

One by one I pulled away photographs that marked his happiness. Ones of him and Brooke. Ones of them happy and content with their lives.

Was that why I didn’t die in that fire?

Because his life was fulfilled, and mine isn’t?

Was I saved to do right by Aubrey and the kids?

Was Logan in my head right now?

I’m not shitting you, I honestly thought that right then.

I dropped the photo of him and me at Jayden’s birthday party in May, and sat down on the bench, my head in my hands.

The picture stayed on the ground, right side up just to taunt me, I suppose. It was the one of us dressed as minions from
Despicable Me
.

We looked ridiculous, but that was us. Whatever the kids wanted, we did. Gracie’s birthday would be in the fall, and what would I do then?

Where was my sidekick?

Moving on is never easy. And I was struggling with that. I didn’t want to move on, because to me it meant his memory was slipping away. I didn’t want that.

I could hear the boys coming again, so I quickly grabbed the rest of Logan’s belongings and jammed them all in the box.

Sean, the firefighter from Engine 10 whom I despised, came in. All five foot seven of him. I’m pretty sure he’s the shortest firefighter I’ve ever seen. The memory of Logan giving him heeled boots as a probie almost made me smile.