The rest of the room is filled with random boxes and holiday decorations. I kick off my shoes, drop my phone on the nightstand and crawl under the covers. Keanna shifts, blinking awake. She stares at me for a long moment, her beautiful face barely visible in the dark room. What do you say in a moment like this? I lean over and kiss her.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t here,” I whisper.
”You’re here now,” she says, wrapping around me and resting her head on my chest. I hold her tightly. There is so much to say, so much to figure out and stress over, but for now, we are finally together and we can sleep.
The smell of coffee and bacon wakes all three of us up several hours later. It’s Sunday morning—I think, time has no meaning right now in my mental state—so my in-laws don’t have to go to work today. Smells like they’re cooking us a breakfast feast. We’re all still in the same clothes we slept in, but none of that matters right now.
We gather around the kitchen table and eat just like normal. It’s not uncommon for one of the parents to cook a huge breakfast on the weekends. Harper talks nonstop about how Grandma is teaching her how to paint in the studio upstairs. We’re all totally enamored by her, even Becca’s little brother Elijah who is ten and acts like he’s too cool to hang out with any of us on a normal day. Uncle Elijah would do anything for Harper.
Once we’re full of pancakes, eggs, bacon, and about a gallon of coffee, there’s nothing else we can distract ourselves with. I clear my throat and reach over, grabbing Keanna’s hand on top of the table.
”Should we go see the damage?”
”No!” Harper says, shaking her head and folding her arms across her chest. “I want to stay here with Grandma.”
”I’ll stay with her,” Becca says. “You two go check it out.”
So that’s what we do. I drive Keanna’s car and her dad follows behind us, driving across town to our neighborhood. Everything looks so normal at first—the same neighborhood park, the same row of mailboxes, the same houses we drive by every single day. Then we turn onto our street and a hollow space resides where our roof used to be. Below that, blackened rubble.
I park in the driveway. Our garage is still standing, but not much else remains. Keanna gasps. Tears flood her eyes. “It looks so much worse in the daylight.”
”I’m so glad you weren’t in the house when it happened.”
”I’m not,” she says, shaking her head as tears come faster now. “If I had stayed home, I’d know what started the fire. I could have stopped it.”
”Or it could have harmed you or Harper,” I say.
She shakes her head. “No, I would have stopped it. We have that fire extinguisher in the kitchen. I could have stopped whatever happened and then we’d still have a house right now.”
”Baby you cannot blame yourself.” I touch her cheek, then lean across the car to kiss her forehead, letting my lips linger there for a moment. “Don’t for one second think that any of this is your fault.”
She peers up at me with tears in her eyes. “What if it was my fault? What if I left a candle on or something? I’ve been thinking so hard but I can’t remember much of that night.”
I shake my head. “So what? People make mistakes at any time…I could have done the same thing. But we don’t know anything yet so don’t stress. Things will work out.” I smile at her. “I promise.”
She smiles too, just a tiny bit. “Jett, this is bad. Like BAD, bad. Our house is gone. How can you be so chill about this?”
I glance at the pile of rubble. “I don’t know,” I say honestly, after thinking it over for a bit. “Maybe it hasn’t hit me yet. I’m sure the insurance paperwork is going to be a nightmare. I’m not sure where we’re going to live, or how to replace all our stuff. But… I’m just so grateful you and Harper are okay, and that’s all I can feel right now. Relief. And joy.”
She leans over the center console and gives me a long, slow kiss. The kind of kiss it’s definitely not the right time for, but I’m not complaining.
“You are the best,” she whispers against my lips.
”You make it easy,” I whisper back.
Movement from the side of the road catches my eye. Soon, people get out of parked vans and approach us. With cameras. A well-dressed woman smiles as she taps her knuckles on the car window.
“Jett Adams? Do you have a moment to discuss this awful tragedy?"
I look at Keanna and curse under my breath.
The press is here.
Chapter 5
Keanna
Some garage tools, kitchen dishes and utensils, and the important paperwork kept in our fireproof safe. That’s all that was salvageable from our house. Some of Harper’s toys and clothes look okay but they smell terrible and the outreach person from the fire department told us it was best to get rid of it all because trying to clean and wash items from a fire hardly ever works out. I don’t even care to keep the kitchen stuff that survived. All of Jett’s dirt bike stuff and his bikes are kept safe at work, and it brings a little relief to know I’ve got an office of personal items at work as well. There are some workout clothes in my locker at the gym and a fresh bag of my favorite coffee in the break room.
