Page 35

RUMI

“Do you have a second?” The low, gruff voice sounds in my ear, sending goosebumps all across my skin. The warm breath from his lips is such a contrast to the cool early evening air.

“I do,” I say before turning around from where I’m loading Evee’s presents into the trunk of the car I share with Ava.

Every time I look at Jack, it’s like the first time. The butterflies in my stomach are out of control when his jade eyes are on me, or when I imagine running my fingers through his hair, or when I picture those strong arms wrapped around me.

I could go on and on.

“Did you need any more help with packing up?” Jack asks, his arm reaching up to close my trunk for me.

I lean against my car, interlacing my hands together, resisting the urge to grab him and pull him closer, something I haven’t been able to stop thinking about since he hugged me and Evee goodbye last week or when he leaned in to kiss me on the cheek earlier today.

The quick moments of touch won’t be enough for much longer.

With every one, I crave more in a way I don’t think I ever have.

The touch of a man has always been something associated with hurt and fear—part of my story that might be time to rewrite.

“I don’t think so,” I tell him, tearing myself away from my thoughts. “But thanks for helping us clean up.”

Jack stuck around to help me, Ava, and Emerson take all the decorations down and pack up all the presents and leftover food.

“Don’t mention it,” he says, his hands going to his pockets.

Is he thinking about pulling me closer too?

I don’t let myself sit with the thought for too long, letting it go as quickly as it came.

We’re friends .

“And thank you for coming. Evee loved her gift.” I turn to look over my shoulder where my daughter is.

Jack got her a plush fire truck with matching stuffed Dalmatian puppies.

Looking through the window of Hey Honey’s, I can see Evee still clutching the stuffed puppies now, one in each arm, as toddles between Ava and Emerson.

Jack follows my gaze. “Glad she likes them,” he says softly before turning to look at me. “Before I head home, there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.”

I nod. A knot forms in my stomach as thoughts begin to spiral in my head—possibilities of what I did to upset him, what I did wrong. “What is it?”

He lets out an exhale before he continues. “I have PTSD.” It sounds like an admission, one that he’s been holding close to him for a while now.

A moment passes before I say anything, not sure how he wants me to respond but not wanting him to feel like he made a mistake in telling me something so personal. “Okay,” is all that comes out, and I make sure to school my features, keeping them neutral in hopes he says more.

He takes his hands out of his pockets, opening and closing his fists at his sides.

“It’s from the fire that killed Bennett.

” His shoulders relax once the words are out, like the sentence was literally weighing on him, and, now that he’s spoken it out loud, he no longer has to carry something so heavy.

His eyes slowly blink as he lets out another breath. “I was there the night he died, and I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” More tension releases from his body, and the slight crack in his voice leads me to believe these words haven’t been spoken out loud before.

I reach out to grab his hand, both of mine holding one of his as I hold it between us, the urge to touch him, especially seeing the strength it takes him to say these words, is too strong.

He looks down at our hands. “I couldn’t do anything to stop it.” He repeats the words once, then again. The third time, he says them more as a whisper, as if trying to convince himself the truth of them.

“You couldn’t do anything to stop it,” I echo, feeling the need to convince him too.

I know how easy it is to let your mind tell you that you’re the one to blame for something that’s happened to you; that you could’ve prevented it; that it was your fault.

Grief and trauma have ways of contorting our reality, making us believe the irrational.

Jack looks up at me, his eyes glistening.

A dry laugh escapes him. “I didn’t plan on saying all that.

” He squeezes the two of my hands with his before he lets go, taking his baseball hat off with one hand and running his other through his hair before putting it back on.

“I planned on telling you about my PTSD and letting you know I was in therapy for it because I wanted to explain what you might have seen when everyone was singing to Evee.” His eyes drift past me, looking into Hey Honey’s.

I turn, looking over my shoulder, finding Ava and Emerson talking but they’re closer to the window than they were before.

I let Jack’s words settle, remembering the look on his face, his body stiff and rigid, his fist clenched, as I lit Evee’s candle with Emerson’s lighter. “I noticed you looked uncomfortable .”

It’s partly true—he did look uncomfortable.

Like he was bracing for something, like he was trying to stop his body from fleeing or springing into action—I couldn’t tell. But his rigid body, the way it looked like he couldn’t keep up with the thoughts circling in his brain, made it look like he was in pain, and that the pain was unbearable.

“My PTSD,” he starts, grabbing one of my hands with his as he turns to lean back on my car next to me, interlacing our fingers together between us.

He does it so naturally, as if he’s been doing it for years.

“It’s made it hard to be around fire, of any size.

When I was staying at my grandfather’s cabin the last year and a half, I couldn’t even strike a match without my heart rate speeding up.

Seeing you with the Zippo and then the flame of the candle so close to Evee?—”

He shakes his head, and I squeeze his hand in reassurance.

It takes a second, but he squeezes back then continues.

“I thought that time away would help me, I don’t know, heal?

” He says it as a question, his head shaking.

“Then, I came back, and even the gas stove burning at the station still threatened to send me into a full-blown panic. I thought I would just get over it. That I could bury what happened that night until it went away, but then—” He stops again.

His hand tightens around mine, his body leaning more into mine as our arms rest against each other.

“Then it all became too much?” I ask, my other hand coming to hold onto his arm. I look up at him, his face hardened as he stares at the concrete just beyond our feet. The sun is getting lower, casting a warm glow over us, turning his green eyes into flecks of gold-laced emerald.

Finally, Jack nods, and I wait for him to continue.

“I had a panic attack in the field. I hadn’t had one in almost a year.”

The thought hurts my heart, thinking about how scared he must have been.

I’ve learned through my own trauma that our responses all differ. While some fight, others flee. While some flee, other’s freeze. Our body’s natural reactions take over, and we are left grappling for any sense of protection, any ounce of safety.

“It was a contained fire in a barn, no danger to us or to the owners, but seeing it sent me back to the night Bennett died, something that hadn’t happened in months,” Jack explains. “I completely froze.”

I lean my head against his shoulder, knowing the feeling of freezing all too well.

The first time I remember my dad hitting me, I was so stunned, too scared to move. He slapped me against the cheek, cutting me in the lip with his wedding ring, and I don’t even remember what I did to make him so mad.

I ended up standing in that same spot in our kitchen long enough for the afternoon sun to set—all while my dad drank himself to sleep in front of the TV, my mom having already left him without taking me with her.

I was six years old.

“The station chief, Chief Sanders, made therapy sessions mandatory for me when he gave me my job back. I put them off until it was almost too late.” Jack lets out a sigh. “Freezing like that was scarier than any nightmare I could imagine, even scarier than the night Bennett died.”

“How come?” I ask.

“The night Bennett died, my whole team had to hold me back from running in after him. I can see now how that wouldn't have helped, how that’s not why he died—it was Bennett’s decision to go back in against orders—but I didn’t freeze.

” He pauses for a moment, thinking about his words.

“What if something like that happens again?” A look passes over his features, one I can’t quite read—it’s a knowing look.

Like he already knows from experience what the answer is.

“What if I froze when someone else I love—” he stops, shaking his head.

“I wouldn’t be able to live with myself if I froze when someone could be saved. ”

“And today, with the lighter?” I ask, trying to give him space to talk about what happened, how he handled it, how he’s feeling about it.

Jack lets go of my hand and reaches his arm behind me, his big hand coming to my hip and pulling me closer to him as we both lean back on the trunk of my car.

“I don’t know what today was. There was a moment I felt that panic turning into an attack, but I kept trying to tell myself that you and Evee weren’t in any danger.

But it was different than when I’m out in the field because it was you two. ”

“What do you mean?” The awareness of how close, how warm, his body is against mine clouds my brain, and it’s hard to keep my thoughts straight. I try to focus on our conversation, needing to know what he’s about to say.