“I told you I’d be fine,” he says.
“I believed you,” I say, my voice a little shaky.
“I’ve still got your rock,” he says.“I had to fight the paramedics for it when they cut my pants off, though.”
“You could have replaced it with another one and I’d never have figured it out,” I say.
“Yeah, but I’d have known,” he says.
I look at myself in the mirror.I’m a mess, but I’m grinning like an idiot.
“Are you really okay?”I ask.
“I will be,” he says, and then the radio goes quiet for a moment.“Listen, Clem, they gotta do some hospital stuff because I guess I inhaled a lot of smoke.And I’m not really supposed to be using the radio for personal shit, anyway, but they said I could.”
“Hunter, I think you could ask for a pony right now and get it,” I say.
“That’s not a bad idea,” he says.
“When can I come see you?”
More silence.Then a sigh.Then a deep, wracking cough, and I cringe.
“They said tomorrow,” he says, his voice raspy.
“Tomorrow?”I ask, my heart sinking.
“I guess they don’t want visitors for the first couple of hours because of, uh, stuff, and then visiting hours are gonna be over...”
Visiting hours?Fuckvisiting hours.
“I gotta go,” he says.“But Clem, I, uh...”
He trails off, my heart suddenly in my throat.
“I’ll see you soon?”he finishes.
“I’ll see you soon,” I say.
The radio clicks off, and I put it down on a sink.I grab the ugly, hard water-stained porcelain in both hands and lean my forehead against the scratched mirror.
He’s okay,I tell myself.He’s okay, he’s okay.
It still takes me a little while to pull myself together.I feel like an asshole that he called me after nearly dying and what I said wasyou could ask for a pony.A good girlfriend would have saidoh my God, I’m so glad you’re okay, I was so scared, I don’t know what I’d do without you.
And I am, I was, and I don’t.But somehow it came out of my mouth asare you really okay?
I quit thinking about it.I stand up straight, wipe the smudge off the mirror with another paper towel, compose myself, and leave the bathroom.
Right away, someone needs something: blankets, cots, food, phone numbers.Someone else is finding Delilah for her mother, but I get yanked in a hundred directions instantly.
The second I can sneak off again, I call my mother.
“Minty!”she says.“I was just about to call you, because you heard that two of the hotshots had to deploy their fire shelters?I mean, my God, I can’t imagine.”
“I did hear,” I say.“And?—”
“You’renevergoing to guess who one of them was,” she goes on.
