"I hope so, sweetheart," I said, giving her one last hug. "You take care of Mr. Bear for me, okay?"
"I will. And Izzy? Thank you for telling me stories about the dragon and the princess."
The ride back to Station 2 with Jack was quiet. We'd both seen enough tragedy to know that some calls stayed with you, that some faces you never forgot.
"You did good with her," Jack said as we pulled into the station.
"She did all the hard work," I replied. "I just tried to keep up."
But as I climbed out of the ambulance and headed back into the station, I couldn't shake the feeling that something fundamental had shifted inside me. Holding Amelia, comforting her, being the steady presence she needed — it had felt natural in a way that surprised me. More than natural. It had felt right.
For the first time in my adult life, I found myself thinking about children not as abstract concepts for "someday," but as real possibilities. As futures I might actually want. Amelia's trust, her need for comfort and protection, had awakened something in me that I hadn't even known was sleeping.
I thought about Jimmy, about the conversation we'd never had about what we wanted our future to look like. I thought about the quiet domesticity of our morning together, the way he'd taken care of me when I was falling apart. I thought aboutwhat it might be like to build something lasting with him, something that included the possibility of small voices calling our names and bedtime stories about dragon princesses.
The realization hit me like a physical force: I wanted that. I wanted all of it.
I wanted mornings that began with little feet on the floor. I wanted bedtime stories. I wanted someone to call me Mama. I wanted the messy, complicated, beautiful reality of being responsible for someone else's happiness and safety.
I wanted it with Jimmy.
But then I stopped. I remembered our last phone call, the one after my confrontation with Santoro. I’d been so wrapped up in my own anger and frustration that I hadn't even asked him how he was. He’d sounded distant, tired. And I had been so preoccupied with my own battles that I hadn't been there for him. My mind, now raw and vulnerable, twisted the memory.He needed me, and I was closed off. I failed him.
The thought was a fresh wave of guilt, compounding the grief from the call. I couldn’t just pack this away. I couldn’t just show up and expect him to fix me when I hadn't been willing to do the same for him. If this thing between us was going to be real, if it was going to survive the unique horrors of our jobs, I had to be the one to prove it. I had to show him that he could trust me with his pain, by trusting him with mine.
I pulled out my phone, thinking about calling him, about sharing what had just happened and what it had shown me about what I wanted. But my shift wasn't over, and he was probably trying to sleep before his own shift started. The moment passed, and the phone went back into my pocket.
Later, I told myself. We'd talk about all of it later.
But as I filled out the incident report for Amelia's accident, writing down the clinical details of what had been anything but clinical, I couldn't shake the feeling that "later" was becoming a dangerous word in our relationship. That thespace between what we felt and what we said was growing wider, even as we tried so hard to take care of each other that we forgot to let ourselves be taken care of.
Amelia Rose Patterson. Seven years old. No injuries. Parents deceased. Transported to University Hospital for evaluation.
The facts looked so simple on paper. They didn't capture the weight of her in my arms, or the way she'd trusted me to keep her safe, or the way the whole experience had cracked something open in me that I hadn't even known existed.
They didn't capture the way it felt to realize you wanted something you'd never let yourself imagine, just as the person you wanted it with was starting to feel unreachable.
My hands were shaking as I typed the text. It was a cry for help. But it was also a promise.
Bad call. Really bad. Can I see you later?
I hit send, terrified but resolute. I had let someone see the cracks in my armor. Now I had to let him see what was inside.
chapter
twenty-six
The pre-dawnquiet of my apartment felt different this morning. Not empty, but expectant, like the space itself was holding its breath. I'd gotten home from my shift an hour ago, and instead of the usual post-work exhaustion, I found myself restless, unable to settle.
I was sitting on my couch with a cup of coffee, looking at a text Izzy had sent me earlier in her shift:
Izzy
The crew wants to know when the next dinner night is, and they’re fighting over each other on what to ask you to make.
The message had made me smile when I'd first read it, a warm reminder of how easily I'd been accepted into her work family. But now, in the quiet of my apartment, it felt like evidence of something precious I was in danger of losing.
The Lisa Harris meeting had left me feeling hollow, disconnected from everything that usually brought me joy. I'd been going through the motions for days now — responding to Izzy's texts, asking about her shift, saying the right things. But I hadn't really been present. Not the way she deserved.
