Page 72 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
“He has. And he’ll always blame himself so there’s no use trying to tell him different. I know from experience.”
“Then what do we do?” I all but plead.
“We have patience. And we find a way to show him every day that if he doesn’t start to live again, he’s wasting his second chance at life.”
The front door shutting startles me awake. My guitar falls off my lap and onto the floor with a musical thud as I scramble up and look toward the kitchen.
Grady stands there, shoulders sagging, eyes wary, and every part of him on edge. Our eyes meet for the briefest of seconds, his more like a glare of contempt before he throws his keys on the counter and walks back out without a word.
It’s the first time I’ve ever felt uncomfortable in his home, and frankly, I’m not sure what I should do or what is going on.
And then I hear it.
The pound of the hammer. The deep, resonating thud, thud, thud of his aggression being taken out on wood and metal in what appears to be the only way he knows how to cope. I stand at the window and watch him, the scanner’s steady, controlled chaos the background to my thoughts.
I’m not sure how long I stand there and watch Grady move here and there beneath the spotlight illuminating the small part of the backyard where he works, but the tension in his movements never seems to diminish.
My feet move without thought, the need to comfort more important than the awkwardness of intruding on his private moment. Outside I wait, not saying anything but knowing he is aware I’m there.
And still he doesn’t say a word.
“Is everything okay?” I finally bite the bullet and ask.
He grunts in response.
“Do you want me to go to a hotel for the night so that you can have the house to yourself?”
“No. It’s fine. I’m fine.”
Uh-huh. Like I believe that for a second.
So, I sit on the steps of the porch and watch him work. Time passes, measured by the number of mosquitos I swat away.
“There was a fire tonight,” he finally says, but he doesn’t stop marking a piece of wood and lining it up.
“Are all the guys okay?”
He grunts again, which I take as an affirmative.
“You want to talk about whatever is bugging you? Tonight’s fire? The guys?” I take a deep breath and go there. “Your fire?”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Again? Which one of them called you or stopped by and set you up to pretend you’re my goddamn shrink?”
I exhale an unsteady breath. “None of them. I figured something was bugging you. I’m a smart girl, Grady. Most of those around you who care about you are smart too. I assume they all want to help you with whatever it is you need help with.”
“I don’t need help with anything.” He spits the words out despite their untruth.
I don’t push further. The cadence of the hammer becomes a metronome to his anger until it slowly eases with each and every stroke.
And then there is silence. Nothing but the silhouette of a man in conflict against the blinding light. His head hangs down, his hands fall lax, his shoulders sag.
“Today is the anniversary. Of my fire.”
“Oh.”
“Yeah. It was convenient timing for my parents to have a barbecue at the lake.” He chuckles but shakes his head. “There was a fire tonight in the same set of warehouses where our fire happened. When I heard the call, my first thought was arson. The point of origin in our fire was never determined, and it’s always been easier for me to blame someone for everything that happened instead of faulty wires or some shit like that. So, I heard dispatch on the scanner, and all I could think about was if it was arson, the son of a bitch wanted to come back and take a trip down memory lane. Get a thrill from watching firefighters run in that building and get off if one of them didn’t make it back out.”
“Was it?”
