Chapter 5 #2
But the color isn’t what catches my eye.
It’s Brooks. He’s sitting on the truck bed, looking stunned, holding his arm to his chest. Luci is beside him, her hand on his shoulder, face tilted up to his.
The caption reads: CLOSE CALL FOR STORM POSSE. brOOKS AND LUCI WALK AWAY NEARLY UNSCATHED.
Every cell in my body is telling me to stop scrolling, but I don’t listen to the warning. I keep going.
The next is a video taken by someone on the camera crew. Brooks is still on the truck gate. Her hand is caressing his shoulder. He doesn’t push her away. He just stares ahead, seemingly at ease with being soothed by the young woman next to him.
I shouldn’t read the comments.
I read the comments.
Damn. The chemistry between these two is off the hook.
Is it bad to say I prefer him with Luci instead of Sam?
’We almost died together in a tornado’ is a great story for their grandchildren.
That last one feels like a knife plunged right into the ribs.
An arm comes over my shoulder and pulls the phone from my hand. Petra looks down at the screen.
“Petra.”
I reach for the phone and jerk it back out of her hand. The screen automatically scrolls downward.
Right to a post from Luci’s personal account.
There’s another photo of Brooks’s truck. This time, there’s no one in the shot. Just the truck. The caption is simple, but in my mind it’s damning.
Some days remind you exactly who you can count on when things go bad.
Maybe she meant God.
Maybe she meant first responders.
Maybe she meant the team.
But my heart knows: she meant Brooks.
I give the phone back to Petra. She doesn’t say I told you so. She doesn’t have to. I’m already saying it for her.
One of the clips without the bracelet.
The memory comes back in full force. Brooks sitting in a chair next to a hospital bed. His hand wrapped around mine. The bracelet was still there then, but his eyes were red.
I’m sorry, Mr. and Mrs. Carlisle…
“He blames me,” I say aloud before I realize I’m speaking.
“What?” Petra turns toward me. Some guy near the end of the bar is signaling for something, but she ignores him.
“He blames me for the baby.”
“Did he say that?”
“He didn’t have to.”
I look up at the TV. The radar is looping over counties whose shapes I know better than I know the back of my hand.
“Every time I tried to get back in that truck with him, the answer was no. And I can’t help but believe that he was saying no a thousand times for the one time he said yes. Because I told him I’d be okay. Four months pregnant and I just?—“
“Sam,” Petra says, reaching across the bar top and taking my hand. Her hands are calloused from years of working at The Funnel Cloud. “I’m not trying to be mean…”
I laugh, but it comes out almost like a sob. Down at the end of the bar, the man is getting irritated. He’s wearing a CAT trucker cap and looks like he’s already had a few too many. I don’t have to be a scientist to know the answer to one more is going to be no.
“You’re looking for reasons to excuse him. And all of those reasons seem to involve you beating yourself up. Stop it.”
Petra comes around the bar, yells at CAT cap that he’s cut off, which gets her a middle finger, and then takes a seat next to me.
“He was so happy when I told him I was pregnant. Told me our kid would come out knowing the difference between a wall cloud and a shelf cloud. Now, whenever he looks at me, he just sees the woman who made sure that baby never came home.”
“Sam, you don’t know that.”
My phone lights up again from where Petra left it on the table. I grab it before she can.
It’s a notification from Tony’s social media account. I click it before I can think better of it.
It’s a video, shaky and raw. I recognize the background as home base, the warehouse where we store the vehicles and equipment. The place where we all gathered before a new chase.
The team is regrouping. Hershel stands near the edge of the frame, arms folded, looking stern.
Then, in the background, is Brooks.
Luci is beside him.
The video is loud with people talking over one another. I catch her leaning over toward him, saying something that I can’t hear.
Brooks looks at her, and, for one brief second, he smiles.
Not the camera smile. Not the tight one he gives when he’s hurting. It’s only a second, but it’s the real one. The small, tired one that crooks just a little more on the left corner than the right.
The one I’ve been starving for.
But he’s giving it to her and not me.
The caption below the video reads, “We’re all still here.”
And just like that, I’m erased.
Petra takes the phone out of my hand again. This time, I don’t make any effort to take it back.
“That’s enough.”
The video keeps playing in my head alongside the way he looked at me over Luci’s shoulder when he held her against his chest instead of me.
“What do I do, Petra?”
“One foot in front of the other,” she says, as if that’s the easiest thing in the world. “And then, when you’re ready, we flatten his tires, burn his clothes, and put a hex on him.”
I nod, as if everything she’s just said makes perfect sense.
Because the only thing I can think is that he’s already moved on.