Chapter 39
The high school is set in a meadow on the outskirts of Grand Trees, clear of towering pines and other potential risks.
The flat and nondescript building is one of the newer structures in the region.
As I crawl onto campus, I notice a few folks with brooms, cleaning glass from broken windows.
But otherwise, there’s little visible damage.
The parking lot is packed; I’m finally in the right place.
Like a beacon of light, I see Caleb’s truck parked near the gym doors—tailgate down, bed loaded with supplies.
What’s left of my adrenaline releases into my bloodstream like rapids through a busted dam.
Houdini cries, hopping into my lap as I shift into park, and busts out of the door as soon as I push it open.
“Houdini, wait!” I call, but he’s on a mission.
He sprints toward Caleb’s truck and leaps into the bed before releasing a loud, urgent howl.
I see Abby first, running from the gym in a flurry.
She screams when she sees Houdini, who jumps out of the truck and tackles her to the concrete.
They are a blur of limbs, fur, hair, and cries as they receive each other, and I stand back a pace, letting them have their moment.
But then Caleb emerges from the gym and joins the fray, crouching to accept a flurry of kisses from the rogue mutt.
The relief washes over me, cleaning the thick soot of fear from my frame, and I feel lighter by half.
“Caleb,” I choke out and run toward him.
He rises to his full height but is otherwise rooted in place, blinking as if he thinks I’m a mirage.
I launch myself at him, wrapping my arms around his neck, and all the air leaves him with a low whoosh.
It takes him a moment, but then his hands come to my hips, and he pulls back, still holding on to me with a viselike grip.
“What in the actual hell are you doing here? Are you insane?”
I get a good look at him for the first time. He has a black eye and a cut along the bridge of his nose—it’s red and badly swollen.
“What happened to you?” I reach toward his face, but he winces and tilts his chin away.
“Eden,” he growls. “How the hell did you get here?” I’m getting the pit bull today, and I’m kinda here for it. I want to weep in relief. There’s no amount of hostility that can dampen my mood. He’s alive. Abby’s alive.
“Is everyone okay?” He has to give me this, at least, before launching an indignant inquisition.
“Everyone will be, yes. Now answer my damn question.”
“I drove,” I say, knowing it’ll irritate him further, but his fingers lengthen on my hips, grabbing more of me, and I clasp my hands tighter around his neck.
“There could have been fires, landslides, or aftershocks. You could’ve been killed. You drove through a disaster checkpoint, toward a place people are trying to evacuate from?”
“Yes.”
He drops his head with an exasperated sigh, but it means our foreheads are kissing. He’s acting outraged and rigid, but his body is receptive and pliant. He shifts closer until his legs are bracketing mine. “Please tell me you didn’t bring your mom.”
“Of course I didn’t.”
“How’d you get here so fast?” he whispers, pulling me closer still. I can feel the rise and fall of his exhale.
“The earthquake woke me up,” I admit.
He pulls back until I get a good look at those inquisitive eyes, marred by the midnight hues blooming beside his right eye socket.
“In San Francisco?” He cocks a brow and then winces in pain. That shiner is inhibiting his ability to be as Caleb as he wants to be.
“Yep.”
He shakes his head but finally, finally, pulls me into a hug that feels like salvation.
“I had to come. I was worried about you, and I know you don’t like earthquakes.”
“I fucking hate them,” he says, and for some wild reason, we laugh as we hold each other in the midst of a disaster zone. I tighten my grip, clambering to get closer than our clothing or skin will allow.
“So, on my way here, I was thinking—”
“Doubtful, since you didn’t turn around and go home to safety like you should’ve.”
“Shh.” I laugh, so grateful to be in his arms that no amount of attitude will deter me. “About how I promised to run to you if the world were ending.”
“But you should have stayed put. Your world was perfectly safe—”
I talk right over him. “Because it dawned on me that you are the person that I’d want to spend my last moments with, so why would I live the rest of them without you?”
He hugs me so tightly that my feet leave the ground before he whispers, “Hell if I know.”
Houdini burrows between us, pushing us apart to place his paws on Caleb’s chest. Abby eyes me dubiously but reaches in for a hug. “I was going to say hi earlier, but I didn’t want to interrupt this awkward parental PDA thing you two had going.”
I laugh and kiss her cheek as Caleb asks, “Where did this wild dingo come from?” His words are annoyed, but he’s crouched and giving the wild dingo belly rubs.
“He hitched a ride with me. I went looking for you both at your house and then Sonny’s. I tried to go to town but it was blocked off, so I went up to camp, and there he was.”
“Oh my poor puppy,” Abby squeals. “He ran all the way to camp?”
“He was probably searching for you like I was.”
Dogs. We don’t deserve them.
“Then he shouldn’t have run away from me in the first place,” Caleb grumbles.
I turn to Abby, who is miraculously uninjured—and older. She’s losing some of her sweet-cheeked baby face. “What happened to your dad? He won’t tell me.”
She giggles. “Because he’s embarrassed. He ran into a tree branch. It wasn’t even earthquake related.”
“Is this true?” I bite back a smile when I glance at Caleb.
He scoffs. “It was the damn dog’s fault.
” He’s still scratching said dog’s belly, betraying his outrage.
Houdini’s on his back, limbs askew, his tongue lolling to the side.
“In the middle of the night, he woke me up by busting out of the back door. I had to chase him in my slippers. But yes, technically, I was whacked in the face by a branch right before the earthquake hit. See the sympathy I get for trying to save her dog?” he says, as Abby laughs some more.
“Her dog?” I wave toward the lovefest before me. “Maybe he ran to camp since that’s where we hunkered down after the last quake.”
“Or he’s just a pain in my ass,” Caleb grumbles.
“Well, he’s the one who led me here, so he gets some hero credit today.
” When I poke my head up, Adelaide is charging toward me, on a mission.
I wave, but her expression is stern. And before I can go to her, Abby jumps in.
“Umm, are you here to ask my dad out? This is really weird timing, and it took you long enough.”
Caleb and I make eye contact. He bites his bottom lip. “Nah, I beat her to it. She was just swinging by to give me her answer finally.”
“So?” Abby asks. “I know he doesn’t look great now, but I’ve heard he’s not hideous.”
“In that case.” I grin and glance at Caleb, who stands, brushing Houdini’s fur from his jeans, and slides his hand around my waist. “Yes, I’d love to go out with you.” Marry you, have your children, never let you out of my sight. But we don’t need to get technical.
“No one’s going out with anyone anytime soon.” Adelaide strides up beside us like she’s not the least bit surprised I’m here. “We have work to do.”
I hitch my thumb over my shoulder. “I came with supplies.”
Adelaide grabs my hand and squeezes. “And finally came to your senses, I see.”
She’s right. Despite the sober circumstances, I feel a deep sense of calm wash over me as I plug into the rescue efforts over the next brutal hours.
I think of Abby’s love of hospitals and her certainty that when she’s there, she’s in the right place.
Over the last few months, I’ve felt pulled between the two halves of my heart.
But I only have to peer across the gym to where Caleb—safe, whole, beautiful—is directing volunteers to know I’m where I am supposed to be.
Adelaide’s also right that there’s nothing romantic about the work we undertake as afternoon turns to dusk, as folks come in sharing their losses.
Bob had a bad fall during the quake, but he’s expected to recover.
Dakota was pinned under a dresser and sustained minor injuries.
A few other folks were rushed to the hospital as well.
There were lacerations, broken bones, and a concussion, but everyone in town made it out alive.
When the (real) Red Cross arrives to set up the emergency shelter and the high school is filled with authorities from various governmental agencies, a group of us head into town to assess the situation.
Caleb and Ian lead two dozen volunteers as we triage the worst of the destruction.
Goldie’s doesn’t look salvageable—a section of the roof caved in over the kitchen, and an exterior wall crumbled to dust. The Paper Horse didn’t fare well either, with broken windows and toppled shelves, the books and toys pinned between layers of wood and plaster.
We break into groups to board up windows, clear the confetti of glass, and secure furniture vulnerable to aftershocks, amid vows to rebuild.
The destroyed buildings hold my childhood memories but also contain the futures and fortunes of people I’ve come to care about, so I push my own nostalgia aside, doing what I can to assist as they manage their shock.
By midnight, I insist on taking Caleb and Abby home when I find her asleep in the cab of his truck. Through slurred speech, Caleb asserts he’s not tired, that he’ll go home for a change of clothes and come back. But he falls asleep a few moments after I start his truck.