The next day, I had the project sent in by lunch. I spent the rest of the day cleaning up my apartment. It had become a bit of a mess, dishes piling up in the sink and dirty clothes all over my bedroom floor. Rogue ducks were laying around, and they needed to return to their respective bins in the small living room closet. I was pretty sure it was supposed to be a coat closet, but I’d never once used it for the two coats I owned. They hung on a rack by my door instead.
“So, you’re done?” Noah asked over the phone when he’d gotten off work.
“I am, but I think I need tonight to unwind,” I told him. “Want to do something tomorrow?”
“Lunch? And then I need to get a few things for my place. Want to tag along?”
We made plans for the next day and disconnected the call. I just needed a lazy night, one where I wasn’t using any emotional energy. That included talking to Noah, because it took a lot ofemotional energy to keep myself from falling for every sweet thing he did. I also needed to catch up on my sleep. I made myself a quick dinner, took a long shower, and was tucked up in my bed by ten.
Probably not the most exciting Friday night, but it was exactly what I needed.
A few hours later, my childhood alarm went off. The piercing beeps caused me to jolt up in bed, and I started looking around. I didn’t understand how my childhood alarm was going off, because it was at my mother’s house. Ma hadn’t shipped it to me, and I’d never asked. I used a cell phone alarm on the rare days that I set one.
And why would I set an alarm for three in the morning?
It took another few moments for my sleepy mind to catch up. It wasn’t an alarm clock. It was the fire alarm.
My building was on fire.
My heart pounded in my chest. I’d had nightmares of dying in a fire when I was younger, after I watched some rescue show. My parents had taken me to the firehouse after that, taught me what to do if there was a house fire. I grabbed my phone from the table and jammed it into the pocket of my pajama pants. There was no smoke in my room, but I grabbed a shirt from my laundry hamper anyway. I tied it around my mouth and nose to protect myself from smoke and moved quickly to my bedroom door. I rested the back of my hand against the wooden door, and I didn’t feel any heat.
The fire, if there was a fire, hadn’t reached my living room. I opened my bedroom door and felt a sense of relief when I wasn’t greeted by a wall of smoke. I started toward the apartment door. My laptop was on the way, still resting on the table beside my couch where I’d left it. I yanked it up as I walked, leaving the charger behind, and hugged it to my chest. There was no heatbehind my unit door, so I went into the hallway. I could smell smoke.
My neighbors were peeking their heads out.
“Do you smell smoke?” the old lady across the hall asked.
“Yeah. Do you—do you need help getting downstairs?” I’d never noticed her having any mobility issues, but there was no way in hell I would be leaving an old lady in the hallway if there was a fire. It didn’t matter how scared I was.
She shook her head and ducked back into her apartment. I decided to give her thirty seconds. If she didn’t come out of her apartment, I’d make sure I told the firefighters. Oh my god, had anyone called the fire department? Panic started to rise in my chest, and I forced myself to take a deep breath. A deep breath that smelled and tasted like smoke. That did not help the panic.
I heard the creak of my neighbor’s door, and she emerged with a cat carrier in one hand. I could hear her cat protesting inside. She rested one hand on my arm, and it grounded me, pushed me forward. A few other neighbors joined us as we made our way downstairs. I recognized one of the people from the fourth floor halfway down. He had no idea what was going on. I just knew I was excited when I got fresh air into my lungs.
Most of my neighbors were gathered in front of the building already, and a few stragglers piled out after us. Sirens pierced the night air, and I looked up at the building.
I could see smoke in a window on the top floor and lighting that could only be fire.
Tears stung at my eyes as I watched. My hands shook as I grabbed my phone out of my pocket and called the only person I wanted in that moment.
10
Theshrillringingofmy phone jolted me awake. I fumbled blindly, desperate to shut it up. My fingers closed around the thin rectangle, and I found the button to make the noise stop. A moment later, it started ringing again. By the time it rang a third time, I was awake enough to realize that whoever was calling me clearly wanted to talk to me. Needed to talk to me. It was late.
I squinted at the phone screen, and I noticed Matt’s name. I couldn’t think of any reason that he’d be calling me this late. He’d gone to bed hours ago, allegedly. He knew that I was someone who needed his beauty sleep. I jabbed at the accept call button.
The call was loud. There were sirens and what sounded like a crowd in the background. My heart began to pound in my chest as panic raced through my veins. “Matt?”
“There’s a fire. Can you come?”
I was out of my bed before the words had fully left his mouth. A fire. There had been a fire, and he’d been involved.
I remembered a night in high school where we’d laid in my bed and talked about anything and everything. We talked about our fears. We talked about the big ones—failure and aging and never being good enough—but we’d also addressed the more mundane ones. He told me about his old fear of fire. It had been so bad when he was younger that his parents had taken him to some program at the local fire department. I needed to get to him, and I needed to get to him as quickly as I could.
I hated the idea of him standing outside of his apartment building alone, watching the flames.
For once, I didn’t care what I looked like when I left my house. I pulled on the first tee shirt I found in my drawer and put on my glasses. I didn’t remember the last time I’d worn them, but I didn’t want to waste precious minutes putting my contacts in. I slid on a pair of sandals, grabbed my keys, and I was off. The whole time, I kept Matt talking. I could hear the fear in his voice, and I needed him on the line so I knew he was okay.
I sped across town and parked down the road from his apartment complex. From my parking spot, I could see two firetrucks, their lights penetrating the darkness and blocking the entrance to the lot. I ran down the block, not caring that my flip flops were trying to trip and kill me. I didn’t care about anything other than reaching Matt and seeing with my own two eyes that he was okay.
