It took one singular nightcrawler wiggling around on my line for six hours for me to come to the conclusion that it was time.
Time to go home.
Time to figure out what the fuck I’m going to do with my life.
Time to be a man, bury these feelings, and get the fuck over it.
“Shit,” I mutter to myself, almost veering off toward the side of the road for the third time tonight. The roads in these woods are windy and dark as fuck.
I haven’t seen a single car since I left my cabin an hour ago, and I still have a good 20 miles before I’m back in civilization and another three hours until I’m back in Milwaukee.
My cell service is back, but it’s the middle of the night—way too late to call Chief Sanders and tell him I’ll take the job as a fire investigator but only until Simmons is back from leave.
The all-too-familiar mix of feelings starts to bubble to the surface, making my skin feel hot and cold at the same time.
Anger, sadness, frustration, and emotions I can’t even name begin to blend in my gut—the combination strong like the arms that wrapped around me, refusing to let me follow my best friend into that burning house. The same arms that ultimately held me up when I watched the structure collapse on top of him.
“Fuck,” I mutter, resisting the urge to bang my head against the steering wheel.
My mind tries to latch on toanythingbut the last moment I saw my best friend alive—the song playing from my truck’s speakers, the howl of wind coming in through my cracked windows, the shine of my headlights, the shadows of the trees.
I’m coming up on a curve in the road, seconds away from slamming on my brakes—just to force myself back into the present before this weight in my chest destroys me from the inside or before I crash trying—when I notice light coming from around the bend.
I release the gas, slowing down on the narrow road, hoping the car coming around from the other way is staying on their side of yellow lines, when I see the faint glow of headlights unmoving and illuminating the dark night.
“What the hell?” I whisper to myself, feeling slightly grateful for a distraction, but quickly feeling the layer of sweat that wasforming on my skin turn to ice, and a familiar sense of urgency takes hold when the twisted metal of a car wedged against a tree comes into view; its front crumpled in a mangled mess.
A part of my brain that has been dormant for months comes to life, and I don’t hesitate to spring into action. I pull my truck over to the side of the road, parking it as far off the concrete as I can and cutting my engine.
One second, I’m opening my driver’s side door, and the next, instinct is taking over, and I’m ensuring the scene is safe and assessing potential hazards—like how if a car comes around this bend a little too fast, we’re dead.
The stillness and silence of the night makes the soft hiss of the car’s engine seem out of place, along with the crunching sound of gravel under my work boots as I approach the car.
“Hello?” I hear, but it’s muffled and distant, the sound struggling to carry.
“Hello?” I echo, a slight crack in my voice.
”Miss, are you still there?” the voice says again, like someone talking through a thick wall.
I’m a few steps away when I freeze.
Shattered glass.
Deployed airbags.
“Miss?” The voice sounds clearer, like a phone on speaker, now that I’m just outside the car, and I can hear the slight panic. It’s what brings me back to the moment.
I’m trained for this.
This is my job.
Through the shattered driver’s side window, I can see a figure slumped over, a head of dark brown hair at the center of the spiderweb crack in the glass. I go to open the driver’s side door, finding it’s already opened, as if the driver pulled the handle but didn’t push.
I’ve been in similar situations to this, but the difference between arriving at a scene with my team versus coming across a car crash whileseverelyout of practice does not escape me.
I slowly open the door, careful not to disrupt her position—without properly assessing, I don’t want to risk further injury by moving her, and I’m not about to take her out of this car when any vehicle could come around the corner.
We’re no more than two feet away from the damn road.
