Page 43 of Nitro

“No one came to get you? What about any other family members? Like an aunt or an uncle? Maybe your grandparents?”

“Nobody came for me. There was a television in the room. I had my own room. The nurses had it set to a local news channel. My picture was on there every night. Every night. But no one came forward. No one claimed me. No one wanted me.”

“I want you.” I wrap my arms around him and hug him, wishing I could take his pain away.

“You’re an angel.” He buries his face in my hair and holds me. We stay like this for a long time, neither of us saying anything. Silent tremors of pain wrack his body, but he doesn’t cry. Not a single tear. He’s trying to be strong for me. I know it. I wish he understood that he doesn’t have to be tough all the time. Sometimes we need someone else to carry us. I can do that for him. If he’ll let me.

“The one thing Blackstone did for me was pay for all the skin grafts. The burns healed. You can’t really tell unless you’re looking for them. The only scarring left is on my lower back.” He rolls over so I can lift his shirt. The discoloration in his skin isn’t very noticeable unless you’re staring right at it. I smooth my hand over the scars and wish I had the magical ability to heal him completely.

“How long did it take to recover?” I ask.

“A few years. Countless skin grafts. I was young, so that’s probably why the scars aren’t as bad as they could be.”

“I still think you’re the most handsome man I’ve ever met,” I whisper.

When he turns back toward me, the smile on his face blows away some of the pain lingering in the air. “Handsome?”

“The day I met you messed me up,” I confess.

“Really? Why?”

“I’d never met anyone like you before. You’d just whitewater rafted the river during that huge storm. You came into the bar soaking wet, and you looked a little crazy.” I giggle.“But you also had the biggest smile I’ve ever seen on a guy’s face. You looked genuinely happy.”

“The only time I feel like that is when I’m one step ahead of death.”

“Is that why you take so many risks? I know about the other stuff. Bungee jumping. That time you went shark diving without a cage in the Caribbean.”

“You should have seen the teeth on those fuckers.”

“It sounds terrifying.”

“Nah. It’s exhilarating. You’re this close to death.” He holds his thumb and pointer finger an inch apart. “But you live to tell the tale. I fucking love it.”

“But it’s so dangerous.”

“Tornadosare dangerous. The only time I ever regretted a trip was that storm-chasing one in Missouri. No matter how fast you are, if a tornado wants to kill you, there’s no running from that shit.”

“What happened?” I’m fascinated by his stories. Each one gives me a deeper insight into who he is as a person. His risk-taking behavior is probably tied to his chaotic upbringing, but if it makes him happy, then I want to know more.

“It was ten years ago. May 22, 2011. I was in Missouri near the Kansas state line. We’d been chasing tornados for days, but nothing could have prepared me for this. It was an EF5, the strongest tornado on the Enhanced Fujita scale.”

“Is that what the ‘EF’ stands for?”

“Yeah. In 1971, a guy, Ted Fujita, a Japanese-American meteorologist, created it. He researched severe weather like thunderstorms, hurricanes—”

“Tornados?”

“Yep. He discovered downbursts and microbursts in clouds. The kind of shit that can bring an airplane down.”

“Wow.”

“Anyway, cool dude. So, the Joplin tornado was an EF5. Winds were over two hundred mph. Fucking crazy stuff. I’m pretty sure I even saw a cow fly by.”

“How close were you?”

“Too close. It took up the whole sky. This huge, monstrous, twisting beast of a storm. If you’d seen this thing, you’d have shit yourself. Not that I did that,” he quickly adds, grinning.

“How’d you get away from it?”