Then—live, in front of us—the second plane hit.
There was no sound in the room.
No one screamed.
No one moved.
We all knew.
“Oh my God,” someone whispered.
Jim.
Ethan.
They were in New York.
What my mind latched onto, stupidly, was this:
I was just there.
Last Thursday.
I was just there eating lobster and drinking champagne and laughing.
And now it was on fire.
My hands started shaking so badly I had to sit down. I tucked them under my thighs like that might stop it. It didn’t.
I thought of my ex—my boyfriend, technically. A firefighter. But he was here. In Boston. Not there. Relief crashed into guilt so hard it made me nauseous.
We all tried calling.
Ethan.
Jim.
Anyone.
Nothing but busy signals.
Then the news said the planes flew out of Logan.
Logan.
I had flown out of Logan.
The room started to spin.
Sage showed up out of nowhere.
I don’t even remember how she got into the building.
She was screaming Ethan’s name before she reached the conference room. Crying so hard her whole body shook. People turned and stared and no one said a word because what could you possibly say?
“It can’t be true,” she kept repeating. “It can’t be true. Ethan. Oh my God, Ethan.”
She clutched my arms like I was the only solid thing left in the world.
