AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Through leaking eyes, I watch as the other firefighters spray water into the second floor of my little house—and I experience an emotion I can’t quite describe. It’s equal parts sadness, relief, and violation.
My house.
My things.
My safe haven. The keeper of my secrets. Are they going to be able to salvage it?
I know people will probably say, “At least you’re okay—all of those things can be replaced.” But when you’re experiencing it, the weight of the inconvenience of replacing those things? The discovering of what was actually lost? The pang of pictures and keepsakes and memories reduced to ash?
Yeah, glad to be alive, but helplessly and hopelessly angry at everything else.
The heaviness of what’s happening begins to settle in, and I wrack my brain trying to figure out how this happened. Did I leave my curling iron on? No. I haven’t curled my hair in weeks. Did I forget to blow out a candle?
“How did this happen?” I say out loud, but the paramedic isn’t standing next to me anymore. I pull myself upright on the stretcher and let my legs hang off over the side. And I watch black smoke as it billows out of a second-story window.
I start to think of everything inside. Things I can’t replace. Photos. Jewelry. The little box of mementos I keep for sentimental reasons.
My books.
Oh my gosh, my BOOKS.
My entire classic romance collection. Gone.
Why do the things that are most precious have to be the most flammable?
My shoulders shake, and I start to cry. It stuffs up my nose, and since I inhaled a house full of smoke, it just makes everything worse.
I’m so dazed, I don’t hear anyone come up beside me until the blanket is slipped around my shoulders. I glance over and see Owen, concern etched on his forehead.
I wipe at the tears streaming down my cheek and try to ignore the fact that in the eight years he’s been gone from Harvest Hollow, he’s grown up and gotten even more good-looking.
I didn’t even think that was possible.
I mentally scold myself for romanticizing when my emotions are so frayed. Especially when the person I’m romanticizing is Owen.
Didn’t I learn my lesson the first time?
“Hey. Look at me.”
I turn, gazing into a face I had memorized in my mind so many years ago.
“I know. It’s hard to watch. It feels invasive and overwhelming, and you feel helpless to stop it.”
Wow. That’s exactly how I feel. The tears don’t stop, and my jaw trembles.
“They’ve almost got it out,” he says. His voice is deep and husky. And a little brusque, reminding me again that we are no longer friends.
We’re no longer anything.
I feel embarrassed all of a sudden. Like I’m sixteen all over again.
I just want him to hold me.
I wonder if he still feels misunderstood. I wonder if he still writes in that tattered journal. I wonder if he remembers. . .
“Mack didn’t tell me you were back,” I say, staring straight ahead.
“She’s out of town,” he says. “She doesn’t even know yet.”
