Page 30 of Worth the Fight

I can’t leave him.

And then the siren starts. The PASS alarm that tells me he’s no longer moving.

“Drew! Drew! Get up. Fight! Fucking⁠—”

Crack.

I hear it before I feel it.

It’s deafening.

The loudest sound I’ve ever heard.

There’s a split second of pain. Of pressure. Of sparks.

There is sweat on my lips.

Or is it tears?

The Nomex of my jacket gives under the flames.

Two-in. Zero-out.

“No!” I wake up, bolting upright in my bed. My sheets are soaked with sweat. My room smells like fear. My back feels like it’s still on fucking fire.

It takes me a moment to realize it was only a dream.

But it’ll never be a dream.

It was a nightmare.

A fucking night terror that never ends.

Especially when I have to look into Brody’s eyes and try to hide the guilt of not saving his dad that is rotting me from the inside.

That I didn’t do the job I’m tasked to do daily.

Save lives.

What kind of firefighter am I when I can’t save anyone, not even myself?

I throw on some shorts and head toward the kitchen. To the bottle of whiskey that is becoming way too comfortable in my hands, but fuck if I don’t need it to get through some of these nights.

Bracing my hands on the kitchen counter, I look out the window to the half-built playroom. How stupid was I to think building a place for Brody to come and hang out someday would be enough to teach him what it’s like to be a man? After everything my parents have done for me, taught me, how did I ever think that would be enough?

And yet, when I pick up that hammer, I feel like I’m doing something instead of doing nothing. Like I’m trying, when every fucking time I look at Brody, my goddamn heart breaks in my chest from the guilt weighing it down.

Because I couldn’t save his dad.

It’s after my second refill—the burn chasing away the cobwebs of memory—that I hear Dylan’s voice through her closed door.

It’s soft. It’s haunting. It sounds just like how I feel. When she adds her guitar to the words, I sink down into the couch to listen.

To lyrics about loss. Hers are about losing love but they’re so fitting to where my thoughts are after my dream. They make me feel less alone. Almost as if she understands.

And I fall back asleep to the sound of her voice and the comfort she oddly brings.

CHAPTER TWELVE