29. Ivy
twenty-nine
Ivy
I've been running on four hours of sleep, two granola bars, and coffee strong enough to qualify as a controlled substance.
My hands ache from gripping tools most of the day. My clothes reek of smoke and sweat and something that might have once been sunscreen. I'm filthy in a way that goes beyond the ordinary trail-dirt of a normal summer. But I'm still moving, still working, still upright.
Timber Creek looks nothing like itself.
Main Street sits empty, storefronts dark, the coffee shop's chalkboard sign still propped on the sidewalk advertising a special nobody's going to order today.
No cars in front of Mercer's. No families walking dogs.
No kids on bikes. No one leaning against a truck talking to a neighbor.
Just fire vehicles moving through, radio traffic crackling from every direction, smoke hanging low enough over the valley that the light's gone strange, orange-gray, like the whole afternoon is filtered through something.
I've never seen the town like this. It's unsettling in a way I don't have time to fully process, but also, quietly, a relief.
Empty means people listened. Empty means Marlene and Mrs. Caldwell and everyone else I've known my whole life are somewhere safe right now, not standing in their driveways hoping the wind changes.
The last two days have been a blur of long shifts and short sleep.
After Russ told us we were shifting toward Timber Creek, everything moved fast. The fire behaved worse than anyone hoped.
The evacuation order came. More resources poured in from every direction.
Power went out in parts of the district.
Cell service, already thin out here, collapsed under the strain of everyone trying to reach everyone else at once.
I haven't had a moment to think about how tired I am until now, crouched beside a woodpile I'm clearing from the side of a garage, hands raw, back aching.
Blackpine's crew isn't handling the main fireline.
Specialized suppression crews have that.
Blackpine's doing what Blackpine's good at: structure protection, defensible space, clearing brush and debris from around vulnerable properties along the edge of town, keeping access roads usable for the resources that need them.
I've spent the day pulling dead pine needles off roofs, hauling firewood away from siding, clearing anything that could catch and carry flame closer to a house.
I know most of these houses. That's the part that gets me, working my way down a road I've driven a hundred times, recognizing a mailbox, a fence line, a barn I've admired every summer for its faded red paint.
These aren't structures on an incident map.
This is the Hendersons' place. Across the street is where the Whitfield kids grew up.
I'm clearing brush around actual lives, not abstractions.
Tessa's a few yards over working steadily, exhausted enough that even her usual commentary has gone quiet.
Dani's efficient as ever, methodical, checking off tasks like a list only she can see.
Cassidy keeps pace without complaint. Trevor's helping wherever an extra set of hands is needed.
Nolan, the newbie who once flooded the crew house kitchen when he left the water running, works like someone who belongs here now, following instructions without hesitation, pulling more than his share.
Russ moves between all of us, radio in hand, face gray with exhaustion I've never seen on him before, but still Russ. Steady. Focused. Watching conditions, relaying updates, making sure everyone knows what they're supposed to be doing and why.
If I have to be anywhere near a threatened town, I'm glad it's here, with Russ.
During a short break, I check my phone out of habit more than hope. No signal, same as it's been for most of three days. I've tried sending messages anyway, into whatever void exists between me and actual reception, hoping something might squeeze through.
We're evacuating the town. I'm staying with the crew. I'm okay.
Still okay. Cell service is basically gone.
Neither one has gone anywhere, as far as I can tell. Just sitting in my outbox, unsent, useless.
I think about my original text, the one I sent before everything collapsed.
We're okay. I'll keep you posted. I have no idea when Beck received it, or what he thinks now that I haven't followed up the way I promised.
If he's learned Timber Creek is under threat and can't reach me, I know what that's doing to him.
There's nothing I can do about it from here.
I put my phone away and go back to work.
At some point, straightening up from a crouch, I catch sight of my boots, caked in mud and soot, and think, absurdly, of the pedicure a few weeks ago, toes painted a color I can no longer see or remember, buried under four days of this.
Beck would be deeply disappointed in the current state of his favorite legs.
The thought makes me laugh, short and tired, and then I'm back to work.
The afternoon stretches on. Smoke stays visible over the ridgelines.
Aircraft passes overhead more than once.
Nobody's talking about residents coming home yet.
But sometime in the late afternoon, I notice something shift, subtle at first, more resources moving with less urgency, radio traffic changing tone, Russ's shoulders loosening by some small fraction I can barely define but do recognize.
An hour later, Russ gathers us. “Conditions are cooperating,” he says. “Line's holding on the sections that matter most. Structure protection's held everywhere we needed it to.” He pauses, careful. “Timber Creek looks like it's going to be okay.”
Nobody cheers. It's too early, too tenuous, and everyone here knows better than to celebrate before the incident's truly resolved. But something in the group eases, a breath collectively let out.
There have been losses. Russ tells us straight, no softening it more than necessary. Two homes outside town, a handful of barns and outbuildings, gone. Families who'll come back to find something missing that can't be replaced.
But no injuries. No fatalities.
And Timber Creek itself, the town, the streets, the businesses, the crew house we've all called home for a summer, is still standing.
I let that register, standing with soot on my hands, and feel something like grief and relief tangled together too tightly to separate.
The town survived. People will grieve what they've lost. But there's a Timber Creek for everyone to come home to.
That matters more than I have words for right now.
Not long after, Blackpine gets rotated back. Not because it's over, but because we've been working too many hours on too little sleep. We need food. Rest. A shower, if the universe is feeling generous.
We're directed to a staging and logistics area set up outside the worst-affected zone, tents and vehicles and portable equipment clustered together in an open field that's become, temporarily, the nerve center of the whole response.
“Cell service should work here,” someone mentions, gesturing toward a portable tower rigged up near the command tent. “They brought in a mobile unit.”
I have my phone out immediately. It takes a few seconds. Searching. Connecting. Then everything hits at once, a flood of notifications stacking up on the screen faster than I can read them, several days of silence breaking open all at once.
I sit down right where I'm standing.
Missed calls from Beck, several of them, texts stacked below.
Just got your message. Are you okay?
Call me when you can.
Missed calls from Reid too, and texts, timestamps crawling backward through the last two days.
They know. They’ve known for a while something's wrong here, and they’ve been sitting somewhere hundreds of miles away not knowing if I'm all right.
I don't hesitate over which number to call first.
Beck picks up on the first ring.
“Ivy?”
Something in his voice catches me off guard, the strain of it audible even in one word, two days compressed into the way he says my name.
“I'm okay.”
There's a pause, long enough I can hear him breathing on the other end. I let him have whatever this moment is for him after not knowing.
Then, from somewhere near him: “Put her on speaker.” Reid's voice, unmistakable. “Define okay,” Reid says.
“Tired. Filthy. Probably going to sleep for twelve hours the second someone lets me. But fine. Unhurt. Everybody's fine, Reid. Russ, Tessa, all of us.”
I hear him exhale, long and shaky, and I understand what that breath means.
“Timber Creek's still standing,” I say, before either of them can ask. “The immediate threat's passed, as far as anyone's telling me. We lost a couple of outlying homes, some barns. Nobody hurt. Nobody missing. It's not over yet, but the worst part looks like it's behind us.”
“Thank God,” Reid says, quiet.
“I tried to reach you both,” I say. “My messages weren't going through. I kept trying.”
“We tried to reach you too,” Beck says. “Same problem.”
Neither of us apologizes, because there's nothing to apologize for. We did what we could, all the way through days of a poor telecommunications refusing to cooperate with our intentions.
“That scared me, Ivy,” Beck says, quiet, no accusation in it at all. Just true.
“I know,” I say, and I do know, because I've spent years feeling this on Reid's side of things. Now Beck's felt it too.
We don't stay on long. Beck's still at his own assignment, still has people around him waiting, and I need to eat and rest before I’ll really be able to think straight. We agree to talk again when we can, no promises beyond the ones we've already made.
We'll try. We already know that part.
When the call ends, I sit here a moment longer, phone still warm in my hand, letting the relief settle in properly. Reid's okay. Beck's okay. They both know I'm okay now too.
But what stays with me, longer than any of the practical details, is the sound of Beck's voice when he first answered. Ivy? And then, quieter: That scared me, Ivy. I heard what was underneath both of those, more than he probably meant to show me.
My mind drifts back to the porch, the night before he left. To the moment I'd almost told him everything, three words sitting right there, ready, before I swallowed them and said three different words instead.
At the time, it felt like the right choice. I didn't want to hand him something that enormous the night before he left, not knowing when we’d see each other again.
But the last few days have taught me something I didn't fully understand before.
There's no perfect moment coming. Life doesn’t generally work that way.
Fires happen. Service disappears. People leave with no warning and no return date.
Waiting for the ideal time to tell someone you love them just means the words sit there unsaid, indefinitely, while life keeps moving.
I'm not going to say it over a phone call from a staging area, though, not with Reid listening and both of us exhausted and neither of us anywhere close to the other. Some things deserve to be said face to face.
But the next time I see Beck, I'm going to tell him.
The last time I had the chance, I let the words go unsaid.
I won't do that again.