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As I laid there in my brightly lit room, I felt very alone and very scared. What in the world had I done? I wanted to go home.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Ricky
I almost didn’t see the step giving way underneath me until it was too late. My foot touched down on the boards and my weight continued to sink beneath it. I’m still not sure how I managed to reach out and grab the banister that quickly. That was the only thing that kept me from plunging straight down to the fiery blaze rising up from the basement beneath my feet.
I held on tightly to the bannister and held my weight in place. While it stabilized, I yelled to the hysterical woman walking in front of me. “Go! Keep going!”
Roger, one of our crew, was at the bottom of the steps racing up to take the woman out while I steadied myself. I stepped over the hole in the steps and continued to quickly make my way out of the burning house. That was the biggest close call I’d had in a long time, and it had jarred me to my very core. If I’d fallen, I would have landed on a basement filled with junk in storage, all of which was on fire. I would have been done for. If landing on broken wood and nails didn’t kill me, the fire would have.
I made it outside where I peeled off my gear and sat down on the curb. That was close. I was still shaking from the fear. It was only a miracle that the middle aged woman I was saving had run ahead of me a few steps. Otherwise she would have gone down for sure.
And I knew why this had happened to me. There had to be signs. Those signs I would have normally seen. But my mind was fried. I’d barely been sleeping. I’d been eating junk food. I was not exercising as much as I normally did. And I was doing nothing to deal with the stress in my life.
I missed Julie.
It all came down to how I felt about her. We’d left on ok terms when I drove her to the airport and dropped her off, but I knew that there was a rift between us. I wasn’t sure how big it was and I didn’t know if it could be fixed, but that day in the park we had torn into each other pretty good. She’d said some mean things to me and I’d let my stubborn side come out. We’d never really apologized about it either. We were both too stubborn for that.
And now Julie had been in school for a month. She seemed to be doing well, but I could tell that there was a hesitation in her voice. There was something that was missing about her. I was used to feeling a sweet glow there when I spoke with her. Maybe it was to do with me and that she was no longer sure I was the right guy for her, or maybe she thought I felt that way about her. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth, but I was still unhappy about the way she handled things.
Mostly, I was sorry about how this was affecting Zoe. I hadn’t gotten around to hiring another nanny. I wasn’t going to do that to Zoe. She’d been going every day to her friend Stephanie’s house. Her mother Diane agreed to watch Zoe for a small fee every day after school. I could tell that Diane had a bit of a thing for me, and though it made me feel a bit cheap to use that to get cheap, easy babysitting, I did it. I was cordial and grateful, nothing more, but if Diane wanted to let her imagination run wild, then I was fine with that.
To Zoe it was just a fun time hanging with her best friend. It was good for her. Stephanie was a nice little girl.
“Shit man,” Harold said coming over to me. “Are you ok? You almost bought the farm in there.”
I sighed. “Yeah, it was a rough day. But I’m fine. Thanks.”
“Look man, whatever it is you are dealing with, you need to get it fixed. We’ve all noticed that the lights are on but nobody’s home, if you know what I mean? It’s like you’ve just been checked out lately. You can’t keep going on this way. You are going to end up dead.”
I knew Harold was right. He was speaking from the heart. The guys cared about me. My head was jacked up lately. And I knew it all had to do with Julie. I needed to talk with her, for real. I had to speak with hear at length and if there was a problem between us, we had to get it fixed.
When I got back to the station, I showered and thought about a few things. I missed Julie like crazy and it was interfering with my life to not have her here. But she was doing what made her happy. I wanted to be supportive of that, but I would have been lying to myself if I pretended to believe that what she was doing was a good thing. She didn’t really need school to achieve her goals. Going to school was a goal in and of itself. But there were other options she could have pursued. For whatever reason she jumped on this one and became almost possessed with it. And maybe some of this was my fault. I didn’t know.
When I finished my shower and got dressed, I thought about why I didn’t propose to Julie when I had the chance. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I needed her to be my wife. I wondered if she ever would be. I should have proposed, but I knew it was the wrong time. The way she was talking, it wouldn’t have done any good. She still would have left and it would have made it that much harder and even more like I was trying to get in the way of her achieving her goals. That was the farthest thing from the truth. Every time I thought about that accusation, it made me so angry. I still couldn’t believe she’d said it. Surely, she did not think that.
As I drove home, I thought about what to do. I’d spoken with Julie a few times, but her phone calls had become less frequent. I sensed that things were not going as well at school as she’d hoped they would, and she was just not going to say anything about it. She probably thought I’d rub her face in it or something. I wouldn’t have. I would have thought that I had been right all along, but I was not going to make her feel bad about it. That would have been childish and petty. I wasn’t vindictive that way.
On the way to pick Zoe up from Stephanie’s, I decided to stop and talk to Becky. Ben was still at work. Becky was home early that day, so it worked out. I explained everything to her. She hadn’t kept in touch with Julie much since she went to school.
“Yeah, that is a messy situation,” Becky said. “All you can do is be there for her and mak
e sure she knows that you are there any time she really needs you. I think right now Julie is really scared. She is trying to do something with her life and she feels that she is behind the eight ball. She is really trying to make up for lost time.”
“Lost time? She is twenty-five.”
“But she is also in a serious relationship. You are possibly the only man she has ever loved. She sees a serious, long term future for the two of you. And she might be feeling the pressure to make all her dreams happen before she settles down with you and starts that job of wife and mother.”
“I guess I never really looked at it that way,” I said. “I wish she would open up to me a bit more.”
“It’s not always so easy. Sometimes when you tell someone your real feelings they are often hurt by them. She might have thought that if she explained all this to you then you would feel like you were standing in her way. She didn’t want to put that kind of burden on you.”
“She accused me of standing in her way. I’ve done nothing but try to help her. I’ve tried to give her all the support that I possibly can. My mind is so muddled lately. Hell, I made a stupid mistake today and it almost cost me dearly.”
Becky was alarmed. “Are you alright?”
I nodded. I explained to her briefly about the fire and what happened to me. “I’m glad you are ok. You’ve got to stop holding on so tight,” Becky said.
