Page 102 of Dandelions and Smoke

“You need to get to the bridge right now.”

The urgency in Levi’s voice has me pressing down harder on the gas and racing to the only bridge in town. My heart pounds faster, and beside me, Rory clutches tighter to Rocky, fear and confusion etched into the crease between her brows.

“What’s going on?” I ask, trying to keep my voice steady.

Levi hesitates, and another call comes through on the other line, with Tom’s name flashing across the screen.

“Why is Tom calling me, Levi?” Again, he doesn’t answer fast enough, and I snap. “Why is Sergeant Hadley calling me, Captain?”

“We got a call that someone is standing on the bridge, and it looks like they’re going to jump.”

“And?” I brace.

“The license plate of the vehicle came back to your ex-wife.”

“Where’s Scout?” I rasp, fear making it hard to speak as it chokes me at the neck.

“He’s in the car, but…” He pauses. “She’s not.”

Everything inside me is screaming. My stomach twists tight, and panic surges through me.

I don’t think.

I turn on my truck’s emergency lights and blow through the reds and stop signs until we reach the bridge. It’s blocked off, and I barely have the truck in park before I’m jumping out, running, searching, hoping that I’ll still find Jasenia standing at the top of it.

I catch my breath once I see her, but I don’t stop running, even when I’ve passed Levi and Tom as they shout orders to stay back. I blow through every protocol for how to safely approach and talk down someone who’s having suicidal ideation because I know that none of that matters. The first thing she needs isn’t a script.

She needs someone who sees her.

Jasenia knows every protocol. She knows exactly how this goes. She knows the words they’ll use because she was there the day I learned them in training. She was there when I came home afterward, when I told her about my day, and she listened to every detail. That’s how I know nothing they say will reach her. Now, all I can do is hope that something I say will.

“Jasenia,” I call out to her as she stands at the edge, staring down at the sharp, jagged rocks jutting from the lake below. “Jasenia, don’t do this.”

She’s balanced carefully on the rail, but even from this distance I can see her body trembling.

Turning her head all around, she looks for me with wide, darting eyes.

“St-Stay back.” Her voice shakes as she finds me and takes in the emergency vehicles surrounding us.

Nervously, she steps as if to get away from them and almost slips, sending a fresh bolt of panic through me. Tears stream down her face as she looks between the water and where Levi stands beside her car with Scout inside it.

“Look at me, Jasenia, please,” I beg. “Talk to me.”

“What’s left to say, Garrett?” she sobs. “I always knew. I knew,” she repeats herself, pulling at her hair. “I knew if you saw how badly I was drowning, you’d take him from me. I’d lose him too, and it’d be all my fault. Again.”

Again.

“Jay,” I say her name laced with the years of grief and heartbreak shared between us. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“I couldn’t let anyone see me fail again. I pushed you away. It was so easy for you. Why was it so easy for you and not me?”

Her words hang between us like a noose around my own neck.

“I thought mothers were supposed to know how to do this. I look at him,” she says, her voice quiet as her eyes move past me toward the car I know is there but am too afraid to look at if it means taking my eyes off her. “And my brain tells me I’m not enough. That he’d be happier with literally anyone else.”

My heart sinks.

“Scout needs you.”