Chapter Fifteen Too Cold to Hold
chapter fifteen
Too Cold to Hold
There was nowhere else Trent could have gone. Not after he’d pulled himself together and watched Dev head off for his shift at the hotel, leaving the flat heavy and silent. The graveyard was the only place left when the walls closed in.
He told himself he was fine. He’d done the work. All the therapy. All the counselling. Sat through every mandated session to make sure he wouldn’t fall apart when it really mattered. To stop the past from swallowing him whole when things got bad.
But yesterday had proven it hadn’t been enough.
Becoming a paramedic hadn’t been some casual career choice.
It had been a compulsion. A need buried so deep in his bones it felt like a second heart.
Hero complex? Maybe. Or maybe it was that impossible, gnawing belief that if he’d been in that car instead of Jamie, he might have known what to do. He might have saved them.
Because Jamie, God, poor Jamie, had frozen. Locked down in the middle of a catastrophic sensory overload, trapped in a meltdown while their parents bled out. And Trent never blamed him. Not once. Jamie had done what anyone, what most people, would’ve done in the face of something that brutal.
But the thing that haunted Trent, the thing that never fucking left, was that when the paramedics arrived on scene, there’d still been a pulse.
His mum had still been there . Barely, but breathing.
And they’d had to choose. Jamie was in full crisis, inconsolable, his heart rate through the roof, fighting anyone who came near him, unable to comprehend the chaos around him.
They’d done the right thing. Stabilised the living first.
But by the time they turned back to his mum, that faint, fragile pulse had faded.
He’d spent years picking apart every second of that day in therapy.
Replaying it. Questioning it. He’d sat in counselling rooms and swore he’d worked through the guilt, the ‘what ifs,’ the crushing helplessness.
He’d trained harder than anyone, took every extra trauma course offered, ran every scenario dry.
He knew how to handle the worst of it. He should’ve been prepared.
And yet… here he was.
Back at square one.
Knees in the dirt, head bowed at their graves, wondering if he’d ever be anything but the boy who wasn’t there when it really counted .
Pulling himself together, he lay the flowers. Simple lilies, his mum’s favourite, and he adjusted the stems, brushing dead leaves from the base of the stone.
Jamie shifted from foot to foot behind him. “Why do we do this?” he asked, his voice flat, almost clinical. “They’re gone. They don’t know we’re here.”
Trent closed his eyes, breathing through the familiar sting in his chest. He should be used to this by now. Jamie’s logic cutting straight through emotions Trent didn’t even know how to explain.
“It’s not for them.” Trent stood. “It’s for us. To… remember.”
Jamie frowned. “But I already remember them.”
Trent shoved his hands into his pockets, wishing, not for the first time, that Jamie could feel it with him. That someone— anyone —would stand here and understand what it was to carry this weight.
But Jamie didn’t cry. He didn’t unravel. To him, loss was a fact. Undeniable. Irreversible. Not a wound to tend, but a simple equation: they were here… and now they’re not .
Trent knew that didn’t mean Jamie didn’t miss them.
Or that he hadn’t loved them with every ounce of his quiet, extraordinary heart.
Of course he did. He missed their mum. God , how he missed her.
The woman who fought like hell for every chance Jamie ever had.
Who stood in front of teachers and doctors and specialists who’d written him off before he could even form words.
Who refused to believe that because he hadn’t spoken before he was eight, he shouldn’t be discarded so easily.
He loved her because she’d known how to soothe him when no one else could.
When the world became too loud, too bright, and Jamie’s hands flew to his ears and his whole body shook, she was the one who could bring him back.
Not even Jamie knew how she did it. And none of the carers he had now, well-meaning though they were, could reach him the way she had.
Those were the moments Jamie still called for her.
When logic failed and the wish for his mum broke through all that cold, hard reasoning.
And he missed their dad, too.
The man who used to stand with him for hours at the station, waiting for the rarest trains to roll through.
Who’d learned every class and livery, who’d become a spotter himself, not because he cared about the trains but because he wanted to understand the son he never quite knew how to reach.
The son who wasn’t the boy he’d expected, but the boy he’d loved, anyway.
So yes, Trent knew Jamie grieved them in his own way. Quietly. Logically. Like everything else. But sometimes—God, sometimes—he wished they could fall apart together. That Jamie could reach for him in the mess of it, and Trent wouldn’t have to be the strong one holding everything up.
That, once, his brother would lean on him and let him lean back.
“You’re right.” Trent forced a tight smile. “It doesn’t change anything.”
Jamie rocked back on his heels, glancing towards the cemetery gates. “Can we go now? The 15:10 freight is due through Worthbridge Station soon. It’s running a Class 66 in DB Cargo livery today.”
That pulled a quiet, hollow laugh from Trent despite it all. “Yeah. Alright. Let’s go see your trains.”
The walk to the station took them along the old greenway path, a narrow stretch of cracked tarmac swallowed at the edges by creeping ivy and tall grasses swaying gently in the breeze.
The trees arched overhead, the wind stirring through them and every so often, the path dipped low enough to hear the distant rattle of trains drifting up from the tracks below, that familiar metallic hum bleeding through the undergrowth.
Trent had buried their parents near this place, close to where Jamie spent most of his days, waiting and watching, camera in hand, so he could imagine that Jamie didn’t only come here for the trains.
It was a selfish choice, maybe. Or a desperate one.
But Trent liked to imagine, no, needed to imagine, that in some quiet, unseen way, their parents still watched over him here.
That they stood with Jamie on the platform, eyes on the horizon, seeing the engines come and go with him.
And maybe, on his better days, Trent let himself believe that Jamie, without knowing how to say it, came here because they were nearby.
That somehow, standing on Platform Three, Jamie wasn’t alone.
They reached the station as the afternoon clouds thickened overhead, the light turning flat and silvery.
Worthbridge Station had seen better days.
Graffiti chipped away at old brick walls, and the metal benches were cold and unforgiving, but for Jamie, it was sacred ground, and he led them straight to Platform Three, his usual spot tucked beneath the old iron archway where the station roof sagged, the beams rusted and flaking.
There, he perched on the edge of the bench, camera in hand, lens cap off, starting his ritual.
Trent sat beside him, feeling every mile of distance despite there being barely a foot of space between them.
They sat in silence for a while, broken only by the faint hiss of the wind through the station windows and the distant, rhythmic pulse of an approaching train.
Then, as if the thought had arrived fully formed and far too loud to ignore, Jamie said, “Are you ever going to get married? ”
The question hit Trent sideways, sharp and unexpected. He let out a startled laugh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Bit out of nowhere, that, mate.”
Jamie shrugged, his eyes never leaving the horizon beyond the tracks. “I’m going to marry Josephine.”
“Are you?” Trent turned towards him, raising his eyebrows. “And who’s Josephine when she’s at home?”
“She’s the same person she is when she’s not at home.”
Fair point. “Okay, how do you know her?”
“She’s moved into the house. She’s very pretty. Brown hair. She would look better without the glasses, but since she needs them to see, I’ve decided to overlook it.”
Trent bit back a smile, his heart aching with how sincere Jamie was. “Very generous of you.”
“I know.” Jamie nodded solemnly. “She also has a mole. Here.” He pointed to his cheek. “It’s off-putting. But if I ask her to wear more makeup, I might not notice it as much.”
Trent shook his head, laughing under his breath. “Jamie… don’t you think maybe she should decide for herself? She might like the mole. And she shouldn’t have to cover up anything of herself because you or anyone else demands it.”
“She shouldn’t like the mole.”
“Not everyone’s perfect, mate. Sometimes you have to accept people’s flaws. That’s part of loving them. Which brings me to the important question… does she want to marry you ?”
Jamie was quiet for a moment, eyes tracking the horizon, the faint vibration of the rails humming beneath their feet.
“I don’t know,” he said. “I haven’t asked her.”
Trent fought down the sudden well of emotion building in his chest, smiling faintly. “Might want to check that before you plan the wedding, yeah? ”
Jamie hummed, raising his camera and adjusting the lens with calm precision. “Hmm… Oh! Look! Here it comes.”
Trent followed his brother’s gaze as the familiar low rumble built into a crescendo.
A Class 66 roared into view, the DB Cargo livery bright and clean despite the dull sky.
Red and grey paintwork gleaming, hauling a long line of loaded freight wagons, wheels screaming over the rails as it passed through the station without stopping.
Jamie snapped shot after shot, completely at ease and relaxed.