Page 70 of As Long As You'll Have Me
“Help me!” I hear him scream.
“Wes! Wes, I’m coming to get you out!”
“Please, someone!”
“Miles…”
“Stop, I have to save him.”I fight the arm that’s pulling me back. I’m so close, I know I’m about to find him.
“Miles…”
“No! I’m not leaving him! Not how she left me, I never leave anyone behind.”
“Miles, wake up.”
My eyes burst open when I feel the softness of her palms frame my face. Blinking a few times, I notice she’s flipped on a light. The soft illumination of it paints her in a warm glow and she almost looks like an angel sent to save me from my nightmare. Rolling over, I set my feet on the ground and bring my hands to cover my face not only to conceal my embarrassment but also my shame.
“Are you okay?” she asks, sitting on her knees in front of me.
“I—I’m sorry for waking you up. I was really hoping that wasn’t going to happen here. I hope I didn’t scare you.” I pull my hands back and look at her quickly. “I didn’t scare you, did I?”
Pushing up, she walks on her knees towards me and pushes her way in between my legs. Then, she brings her hands back to my face. They’re cool against my skin and I close my eyes, letting her touch settle me.
“You could never scare me. I am worried though. These nightmares, you mentioned they’ve happened before?”
I nod, keeping my eyes closed because looking her in the eye as I admit to them feels impossible. The onlyperson who knows about my nightmares is Carter and that’s only because he woke me up from one in the bunkroom.
“Who’s Wes?” she asks delicately.
I finally open my eyes and look at her. “He’s one of my men.Wasone of my men. We lost him this past summer in a really bad fire. And it’s all my fault.”
My voice breaks as I speak about it for the first time since the accident. Wesley was one of the greatest men I ever knew. He was funny, and kind. He always made sure to check in on the people around him and he loved his family something fierce. And now, because of me, they have to live without him.
It should have been me.
“I was going to go in and do the final sweep to make sure it was empty. The building was old and we knew it was coming down. The fire was an accident, old wiring. But Wesley, he ran in before me, without a spotter.” Tears prick my eyelids as my mind conjures up the images and sounds from that night. We’d never been to a fire so hot in my entire career. It was an old, abandoned factory just outside of downtown and dry as all hell outside since it was the dead of July and we hadn’t gotten any rain. A recipe for disaster from the very start. “I was about to run in after him when Carter pulled me back just in time. One of the structural beams at the entrance fell, blocking the only way in. And out.”
I crush my eyes closed, remembering the panic we all felt trying to find a different way in. Multiple engines had arrived by that point and were spraying the building down as quickly as they could. But as soon as they’d contain one spot, another part of the building would be engulfed. I remember getting in through a busted out window in theback and climbing in, trying to find him through the wreckage but it was no use.
“Miles.” The sound of her voice calls to me like a beacon in the night. A lighthouse to navigate towards through the storm raging inside my mind. When I feel her thumb wipe away a tear that’s fallen down my cheek, I open my eyes and look at her. “You tried to save him. You did what you could to rescue him.”
“He has a wife and three daughters,” I croak and clear my throat. The images of them crying at his funeral still haunt me to this day.
“And you have me,” she says, bringing my attention back to her. “If you had gone in, and gotten trapped, we wouldn’t be where we are now. I wouldn’t be here with you now. Nolan wouldn’t have an art lesson scheduled. I never would have gone to Fresh Start or sang to you at karaoke night.”
She leans in and presses a kiss to my cheek before pressing her forehead to mine. “Life opens and closes doors all the time. We don’t always get to pick which ones it opens and which ones it closes. The only thing we can do is learn how to survive with the path life sets us on.” She leans back and looks at me seriously. “And that includes allowing yourself to heal and move past the things that hurt. It does us no good to hang on to every hurt we have. The only thing that does is stop us from experiencing new things that could make us feel alive again.”
Staring at her, I know she’s right. And I know she’s my something that’s going to make me feel alive again if I let her. Even if it feels impossible and selfish to do so.
“Come to bed with me?” She pushes up from her knees and stands, hovering her hand in front of me, waiting.
“What if I have another nightmare?” I know she haswork in the morning and I don’t want to be the reason she doesn’t get enough sleep.
Not waiting any longer, she snatches my hand from my lap and pulls me up and into her. She wraps her arms around my middle, giving me a hug. “Then I’ll be there to pull you out of it. I’ll pull you back to me.”
Looking down at her, I kiss her forehead and follow her into her room. We both crawl in together and she quickly comes to my side of the bed, burrowing deep into my side. I wrap my arm under her shoulders and pull her as close as the laws of physics will allow. It isn’t long until I hear her breathing heavily next to me and not long after that I drift off on my own into the best night of sleep I’ve had in months.
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