CHAPTER 9
TWO WEEKS LATER
The silence in her apartment was louder than anything she had faced in the hospital.
Randi stood in the middle of her kitchen, staring at the mug in her hand as if it had personally betrayed her.
It slipped.
Not dramatically. Not even far.
Just enough.
Porcelain struck the counter, tipped, and shattered against the tile floor in a sharp, unforgiving crack.
She closed her eyes.
Not again.
The sound echoed longer than it should have, or maybe it only felt that way because there was no one else there to break it.
No nurse. No quiet reassurance. No steady voice telling her what to do next.
Just her.
And the pieces.
Randi exhaled slowly and crouched down, awkward and unsteady, gathering the broken shards with her left hand. It took longer than it should have. Everything did now.
Cooking took longer.
Dressing took longer.
Buttoning a shirt felt like solving a puzzle she no longer understood.
Even brushing her hair had become something she had to think through instead of simply doing.
Her hand ached constantly, a dull, persistent reminder that nothing was the same.
That nothing would ever be the same.
She dropped the last piece into the trash and rested her hand against the counter, her shoulders tightening.
“I’ve got this,” she whispered.
But the words felt thin.
Unconvincing.
The thought had crossed her mind more than once over the past week.
Home health care.
Someone to come in. Help with the basics. The things that now felt impossible.
She pushed it away immediately.
No.
She wasn’t doing that.
She had managed her life alone before.
She would manage it again.
“Again.”
Trinity’s voice cut clean through the quiet of the therapy room.
Randi sat at the table, her hand positioned exactly where it had been for the last twenty minutes, a set of small foam blocks lined in front of her.
“I am trying,” she said, the frustration already rising.
“I know you are,” Trinity replied, calm but firm. “Try again.”
There was no softness in the instruction this time.
No room to back away.
Randi inhaled sharply and focused, forcing her fingers to respond, to close, to move with something resembling control.
The block shifted.
Slipped.
Fell.
Her jaw tightened.
“I can’t—”
“Yes, you can,” Trinity said evenly. “You just don’t like how it feels.”
Randi looked up at her, something close to anger flashing in her eyes.
“It hurts.”
“I know.”
“Then why—”
“Because stopping guarantees you won’t get it back.”
The words landed hard.
Truth had a way of doing that.
Randi looked down again, breathing unevenly as she forced her hand to try again.
This time, her fingers closed slightly more.
Not enough.
But more.
Trinity nodded once.
“That’s it. Just what your brain asked
for. Now do it again so your nerves recognize the signal.”
The session continued like that—push, fail, try again—until exhaustion replaced frustration.
When it finally ended, Randi leaned back in her chair, drained.
“You need help at home,” Trinity said, more gently now.
Randi shook her head immediately.
“No.”
“Randi—”
“I said no.”
Trinity studied her for a moment. “Then call a friend. Someone you trust. Someone who can come by, help you adjust.”
Randi didn’t respond.
“Even just for a few days,” Trinity added. “You don’t have to do this completely alone.”
Silence stretched between them.
Then—
“I don’t have anyone.”
The words came out flat.
Simple.
Final.
Trinity’s expression softened, but she didn’t pity her. That wasn’t her way.
“Everyone has someone,” she said quietly.
Randi shook her head, a faint, humorless smile touching her lips.
“Not me.”
She had learned that early.
Learned it the hard way.
AND THEN A FLASBACK HAPPENED.
Sometimes it appeared like broken pieces. Sometimes like a movie reel replaying the beginning when the lightning struck. The worst of all was after the fireman found her … the most painful one of all.
Flames roared where walls used to stand.
The night air is thick with smoke and heat, sirens are cutting through the chaos as figures move in and out of the burning structure.
Randi screams as her small body is cradled tightly in a firefighter’s arms as he carries her away from the house, his voice trying to reach her over the noise.
“You’re okay! I’ve got you. You’re safe now, honey.”
“I want my mom!” she cries, her voice raw, breaking. “Where’s my mom? Where’s my dad?”
Her eyes search frantically, darting through the blur of flashing lights and moving shadows, trying to find them.
Trying to understand.
Trying to wake up from something that didn’t feel real.
“Please!” she sobs. “I want them!”
The firefighter didn’t answer.
Couldn’t.
He moves quickly toward the ambulance, his grip tightening slightly as her panic escalates.
“They’re coming,” he says instead, the only thing he could offer. “You just stay with me, okay?”
But Randi is already shaking her head, her cries rising higher, more frantic.
“No—no, I need them! I need my mom!”
The ambulance doors are open.
He steps forward—
And then stops.
Just for a second.
Long enough for her to see.
A form is lying on the gurney inside, covered with a sheet that didn’t quite hide everything. The edges are darkened and stained.
Still.
Too still.
As the firefighter shifts his hold, the sheet moves.
An arm slips free.
Burned.
Unrecognizable—
Except for the ring.
Gold.
Familiar.
Her mother’s.
Randi’s breath catches in her throat.
“No…”
Her voice breaks into something unrecognizable.
An EMT’s voice cut through the moment, clinical, detached as he spoke into a radio.
“Caucasian female, mid-thirties… airway is unmanageable… full-thickness burns to face and throat… no pulse… no spontaneous movement…”
The words blur together, but Randi doesn’t need to understand all of them.
She understands enough.
“No!” she screams, the sound tearing through the night. “No, no, no—Mom!”
Her body convulses with the force of it, her small hands reach out toward the ambulance, toward something already gone.
The world tilts.
Spins.
Darkens.
And then—
Nothing.
Randi blinked.
The therapy room came back slowly, the present pressing in around her as her breath came unevenly.
Trinity was watching her.
Not pushing this time.
Just there.
“You disappeared for a second,” she said quietly.
Randi swallowed, forcing the memory back where it belonged.
Buried and locked away.
“I’m fine.”
It was automatic.
It always was.
Trinity didn’t challenge it.
Not this time.
“Same time tomorrow,” she said instead.
Randi nodded, pushing herself to her feet.
Alone. As always. But the past had a way of reminding her why she had chosen it.
And why, no matter how much it hurt now… she had never let anyone close enough to lose again.