Page 9 of Never Forget
"Jamie," she said. "Does Jamie know?"
"The hospital called her. She's flying in."
Loretta nodded slowly. Even in grief, she was planning and thinking ahead. Someone had to.
"She'll go to the hospital first," Loretta said. "She'll want to see him."
I knew what she was going to ask before she said it.
"I can't leave Rosie. Not right now. Not when—" Her voice broke. She steadied herself. "But Jamie shouldn't have to walk into that alone."
"I'll go."
So I went back to the hospital.
The waiting room was quieter now. Dim lights. Empty chairs. The hum of vending machines and the distant squeak of nurses' shoes on linoleum.
I found a seat near the entrance and waited.
I tried to think of what I would say to her. How to explain. How to offer something that wasn't hollow.
But every time I reached for the right words, the guilt dragged me under.
Jack was dead because ofme.
The thought kept circling back, no matter how many times I tried to push it away. He'd been on that call because I asked him to cover my shift. I didn’t have to ask. The crew could have managed with three. They'd done it before.
But I'd asked. And Jack had said yes without hesitating, the way he always did, because that's who he was.
And now he was gone.
What was I supposed to tell Jamie? That her brother died because I attended a party? How do you look someone in the eye and tell them that?
"Sam?"
I was pulled from my thoughts when I heard her voice. I turned and there she was.
Jamie.
Beautiful even in grief.
I watched the hope drain from her eyes as reality sank in. Whatever she'd been telling herself on the flight over, whatever desperate bargain she'd been making with the universe—it died right there in the hospital entrance.
Her face broke. Not all at once, but piece by piece, like she was trying to hold it together and couldn't.
It cracked something open in my chest. All I wanted was to hold her. My body was moving before I could think about it.
She met me halfway, her arms wrapping around me, her face pressing into my chest.
I held her. It was all I could do.
CHAPTER 2
Jamie
Jack was twenty years old when our parents died. I was fifteen.
For three years, he was my parent, my protector, my anchor. He made sure I ate breakfast before school. Helped me with homework. Sat through parent-teacher conferences and pretended he knew what he was doing when I could see in his eyes that he was terrified. He became a firefighter, worked brutal shifts, and still showed up for every school play, every bad day, every 2:00 a.m. conversation when I couldn't sleep.
