AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Wow… was this attraction mutual? From that look, I would have said yes, but I still didn’t have enough to go on. I wasn’t sure if the look really happened the way I hoped it did, of if she just happened to glance in my general direction. I wanted so badly for it to be real. That would at least lend validation to my own lust. And that’s what it really was. It was lust. I knew almost nothing about Shelly, but I wanted her badly. I was lusting after her with an animal instinct that was persistent and fully engaged. It was hard to ignore. I wondered what was really going on in that beautiful mind of hers.
As I tried to go on about my day, my mind kept going back to Shelly. What did this mean? Was it some fleeting attraction that would end at some point in the near future? Or was this something that I was never going to be able to outrun and would literally have to live with for several years? As I sat down in my easy chair with a cold beer ready to kick back to catch a ball game, I found myself wondering what I was doing even having those kinds of thoughts. It was dangerous territory to tread in and the payoff just wasn’t worth it.
I would have to make sure that I didn’t allow these feelings to grow and turn into something. That, I knew, was going to be much harder than I thought.
Chapter Two
Shelly
I woke up screaming.
The world had come crashing down on top of me and I felt utterly broken. My body, mind, my entire being was completely shot. I was gone. Worse yet, he was gone. Edward. He was totally gone. And I would never get him back. I could have done something more. I kept telling that to myself. It was all I’d told myself since it happened almost a year ago.
I wiped my eyes. They were flooded with tears. My heart was pounding a mile per minute in my chest and I thought I was going to have a total nervous breakdown. I had to stay calm. It would be alright. I would be fine.
But I knew that I would never really be alright ever again. I was broken in so many ways. I’d done my best to run from it, but it would always be deeply inside of me and I would carry it with me always. I wanted the pain to stop, but I never wanted to let it go. It was too precious, too special to me to ever bare to not have it.
I was covered in sweat. The bed was wet. I felt sick to my stomach, but I knew all of this would pass. As I stood up, my head began to spin. This was the sickness, just the anxiety getting to me. It was not real. Those feelings were a smokescreen designed to give me the illusion that I had no power in my life. That wasn’t true. I had power. I had some control. I would never relinquish it. I was determined to beat it.
Pulling myself out of the bed, I dropped to the floor and started doing military style pushups. Exercise always helped when I was in the grip of a panic attack. Most of them tend to happen after I’d been having the nightmares. I thought I had them under control, but they’d come back lately. It was probably just moving to a new place and trying to get on with my life. My mind was rebelling against these changes. The trauma demanded that I give it the focus it was after. It wanted to ruin my life. But I was stronger than that, stronger than it. I would prevail.
I finished the pushups and jumped to my feet where I promptly started doing body squats. I was aiming to hit fifty. If the panic had not subsided by then, I would go back to the pushups. The activity was usually enough to get my mind and body on the same page, enough to distract me from the overwhelming feeling of impending doom. And this was the first step to healing.
At least, that was what the therapist I used to see had said. He was a good man, but in the end I realized I had to leave town. I’d lost the love of my life, and I’d lost my job, which was the other love of my life. I’d been fired because I ran to save Edward, and not the victims. In the end, all had perished. I’d saved no one. Except myself. But I was broken, seemingly beyond repair.
I’d been given a prescription to help with the anxiety, but I never had taken it. I hate drugs. I’ve never been a person who thinks that I need to introduce strange chemicals into my body to create a natural state.
I had developed some post-traumatic stress after the fire. But I was ok. I would get through everything even if I had to climb and claw tooth and nail to make it happen. I was a fighter. And now I was fighting constantly.
It was a quarter after five, a little earlier than I wanted to get up typically, but I grabbed my clothes and decided it was a good time to start my jog. I was already feeling better. The panic attack had subsided for the most part and now I was free to start my day.
After the jog, I felt totally rejuvenated. No matter how badly I woke up feeling, I always felt better after I had a few miles under my feet. I got into the shower, and then fixed myself a nice breakfast of scrambled eggs, toast, and some fruit. Then I headed out the door to work.
So far, everyone at work had been treating me very nicely. It seemed like a great crew to get to work with and so far the first training class had gone very well. Speaking of which, I found that the man I had worked with during demonstrations, Gary, his face kept popping up in my mind. He was so handsome. He was tall, muscular, and very fit. I enjoyed heaving his heavy form onto my back and carrying him a few feet for the demonstration the day before. He felt great against my skin, and I loved the way he smelled. There was something strong and musky about his scent. It was delicious and I found myself thinking a lot of naughty thoughts about him, such as running my tongue alongside his hard body.
&n
bsp; But that was not going to happen. The chief had made it very clear right from the start, that there would be no fraternization among crew members. It had been like that at the station I’d worked before in Detroit also. I fully intended to make sure nothing like that happened again. Not after Edward, and not after I’d been fired. I had lost everything.
In fact, I shouldn’t have been allowed to be here. But I’d faked my references on my resume. When Chief Walker called my former Chief, Dwayne Riley, he was actually talking to my previous neighbor Chuck. It was a silly ruse, but it had worked. This station, here in Chicago, did not need to know anything about my past. I was determined to make sure they never found out anything.
I walked into the breakroom and saw a few of the other ladies there. The department was predominantly men, but there were more women getting involved all the time. This unit had almost ten. And so far, most of them seemed very nice and accepting. Of course, there was the girl who thought she was top dog and would make sure to enforce that upon the newbies at first. I was used to it and I was used to ignoring it as it went into the toilet and I began to establish myself.
I didn’t play those silly games.
“How’s it going, Shelly?” Becky Wheeler said when I entered the room. I grabbed the pot of coffee and poured myself a cup. Then I sat down beside her to drink it.
I smiled after the first sip. I loved that morning cup of coffee. It was a nice reward after all of the hard work I’d already put in that day.
“It’s going,” I said. “You ready for another fun filled day?”
“Always. No news is good news for us, but I have to admit I’m pretty bored just sitting around here. The past month we’ve been slammed, and now we are dead as can be with nothing.”
“Yeah, these things tend to come in cycles. It was that way in Detroit, too.”
Becky nodded. “So, who do you have your eye on?”
I looked at her. What did she just say?
