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It was one week before Christmas and their homes were lit up with bright lights that twinkled. A cat watched us from the window of a house across the street, backlit with red and green and white flickering Christmas tree baubles.
The Fire Service arrived and broke through the front door. We navigated the house to the garage. Car exhaust fumes filled the space and Simon rushed in before the Firies could stop him, unlocking the garage door and throwing it up and out of the way.
I heard glass shatter through the smoke. The sound of the engine cut off.
“Kylee!” Simon shouted.
I didn’t want to go in the smoke filled garage, but it was clearing, and the car was now open, and Simon sounded relieved and worried in equal measure.
I pushed past a fireman and brought the med kit to Simon.
“Get the stretcher,” Simon ordered. “He’s breathing, but he’s pink.”
Carbon monoxide poisoning.
I tore off out of the garage as the firemen helped Simon pull the unconscious male from his car and carried him outside. By the time I was back, Simon had the O2going and was putting in an IV.
Saline flushes and ECG electrodes. Pink skin under the razor’s blade. Red and white lights flashing. Green and red beating a rhythm that seemed crazy. Shouts and arms flailing.
He woke up in the back of the ambulance.
I felt immeasurable relief.
Simon let out a breath of air and turned for the driver’s seat, leaving me with the R13.
His name was Toby. He was twenty-three. His girlfriend had left him last week.
Two weeks before Christmas.
“Why did you do it?” he said to me.
“Do what, Toby?”
“Save me. I didn’t want saving. Why did you have to do it?”
“It’s what we do.”
“You had no right to interfere.”
“We couldn’t leave you there.”
“You ruined everything.”
* * *
Icried again that night but this time I didn’t cry for the dead, I cried for the living.
