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Jake’s lips pulled to one side as he thought. “Could you tell where we were?”
I shook my head. “Not really. Outside, I guess. We were in some sort of tent,” I said hesitantly. It didn’t sound right, but I didn’t know how else to explain it.
Jake thought about it for a moment more. Then his eyes lit up. “That was the Spring Sparks auction,” he said excitedly. “Backstage, just before you left.” His expression darkened. “Just before the accident,” he added.
Oh. That explained the mood shift. “How can you be sure?”
“I remember the two of us talking at the auction. Just before Bryce went on stage and Krystal bid on him. We were talking about how nice it would be when everyone knew about us. That has to be it!” He turned to stare out the windshield. “That’s a good sign, right? That you remembered?”
I shook my head. “I don’t know. Maybe. It seems like such a small thing though. One moment in the grand scheme of six missing months. It’s not enough. Just a glimpse of time.”
Jake wasn’t going to give up though. “But do you remember how you felt? Standing there with me?”
“I don’t know, Jake! I don’t even know if it was really a memory. Can you please just take me home?”
Jake huffed, his frustration evident. Still, his voice was calm when he responded. “Yeah, let’s go.”
ChapterEleven
JAKE
My shift the next day was a welcome distraction. I couldn’t think of anything except the fact that Monica had remembered something. She had remembered us. Which meant she might remember more. Could I be patient enough?
I’d nearly kissed her on our picnic. Holding her tight, I’d almost been able to slip back intobefore. She’d felt it, too, but it hadn’t been enough. She didn’t know me like she had before.
But she remembered something.
“She got her memory back?” Matteo asked from his spot across the room. None of us were paying attention to the sitcom rerun on the TV.
I shook my head. “It’s not that simple. She doesn’t suddenly remember the last six months. She got a few seconds back,” I caught Bryce’s glance across the room. “She’s not ready to admit it, but she did remember. I know the moment she was talking about. It’s definitely a memory.”
“Doesn’t that seem strange? Just one tiny moment came back?”
“I’m not a doctor,” I said. “All I know is that it’s something. Right now, it’s all I have.” I was going to cling to it until she gave me more.
Bryce leaned forward, placing his elbows on his knees. “I’m just afraid you’re grasping at straws, man. If she doesn’t get her memory back, you might just have to move on.”
I could tell he was trying to deliver that message gently, but I shook my head, unwilling to entertain the notion that my future was not intertwined with Monica’s. I could be patient. I’d get her to fall in love with me all over again.
She’s worried about distractions? That’s the last thing I would be. I wasn’t the carefree, irresponsible goofball that she thought I was.
I proved it to her once. I would prove it to her again.
Before I could figure out exactly how I was going to convince her, the alarm rang, and we had to jump into motion.
The summer brushfire on the edge of the highway wasn’t the most exciting fire call we’d ever received, but I wouldn’t complain. We had a job to do, and we were well-aware of the danger if a fire was left to its own devices and got out of control, especially during a dry time of year like this. We’d gotten some rain, but the fields were still parched. There were livestock, crops, and structures to protect.
Most people didn’t understand that fire departments were not actually started to protect people or rescue them from burning buildings. No, old fire departments had been created to prevent one fire from destroying a whole town. Despite never having much interest in my high school history classes, I’d actually enjoyed learning about the history of firefighting at the academy.
We still didn’t have the new brush truck we’d raised money for during the Spring Sparks auction, so I grabbed truck #305, and Bryce drove the main engine as we headed west of town. The fire had been called in by someone driving past it on Highway 40. Sometimes, calls like that ended up being the smallest bush or patch of grass burning in the ditch.
I kept my expectations low, in case it was a little ditch fire. When we pulled up, we could see that this one had managed to catch a shed and the surrounding pasture. Bryce called the radio for volunteers to grab another truck from Station #2. It was an auxiliary station that was unmanned most of the time. Volunteers could rendezvous there and pick up equipment to respond to a call.
“Jake, you’re on Bravo and Charlie.” I nodded at the directions to take the left and back edge of the fire relative to our current position. “Try to set a perimeter. Alpha and Delta sides, we’ll count on the road. Watch the wind,” he cautioned.
I took the brush truck and made my way around the right side of the fire on the gravel road. I cut my way through the barbed wire fence and turned into the field, about twenty yards past the burn line. I parked the truck, hopped out, engaged the turret, and began putting water on the active fire line, just at the edge of the blackened pasture extending back toward the road. Steam rose from where the water doused the hot earth. I could see Bryce and Matteo running the main engine, getting water on the burning shed.
For twenty minutes, I worked alone, hitting as much fire line as I could from my stationary spot before driving farther into the field and repeating the process.
