13. There’s still space on the other side
Chapter thirteen
There’s still space on the other side
Evan
The tones drop five minutes before handover.
We’re already half out of our gear, the kitchen half cleaned down, and Fletch is already bitching about whether night shift is going to eat all the “good snacks” we re-stocked the pantry with earlier today.
Beck doesn’t raise his voice, but it’s firm.
“Gear back on,” he says, already moving for his locker. “Let’s go.”
Dispatch crackles overhead. “Maplewood Fire, respond. Suspected overdose. Pediatric on scene. Police and ambulance responding.”
The room shifts, and we’re moving before dispatch finishes the address. None of us groans about clock-off time. We’re zoned in.
I tug my jacket back on and grab my helmet off the hook. My phone’s on the counter where I left it charging, and I scoop it up on the way past. Ghost and Colt look at each other quietly, then over at me, but I ignore them.
On the truck, Beck’s already acknowledging dispatch while Colt drives. Fletch and Ghost are in the back with me.
I type out a one-handed text to Penny while we roll out.
Me: Late call. Might be a while. Don’t wait up.
I stare at it for a second, wondering if I should add more, especially after the tension that’s been building between us for days now, since the Sunday barbecue at the station. But I don’t, I just hit send.
She doesn’t need details, and she doesn’t need to sit there picturing worst-case scenarios. All she needs to know is I’m not walking through the door at seven like I usually would.
Sirens cut through the evening traffic, and the only light left in the sky are the beams of headlights against the inky clouds. I watch the houses blur past and feel that familiar tightening settle in, the switch flipping from off duty to locked in.
The address is a small weatherboard place on a narrow street with a porch light flickering. There’s a patrol car angled across the driveway.
Beck steps off first. “Engine on scene,” he radios. “Single-story residence.”
Tucker meets us at the door. “Female, thirties. Ambulance inside.”
There’s no teasing tonight, no friendly competitive comments. His eyes stay on me for a beat longer than I’m comfortable with, but I ignore it, heading through the door instead.
The smell hits immediately. Something chemical and sour, layered over the scent of burnt food.
Beck does a quick sweep of the room. “Any hazards?”
“Clear,” Fletch calls from the kitchen doorway.
She’s on the living room floor, sweat plastering her hair to her forehead. The paramedics are working fast, and one of them glances up at us and nods.
“Unresponsive on arrival,” he says. “Resp’s coming back. She went down in the living room, and the kid found her.”
Kid.
I look up, and a small boy is sitting on the couch in cartoon pajamas. Five or six—Elle’s age. His bare feet are tucked under him, and he’s holding a plastic cup with both hands like he forgot he was drinking from it.
His eyes are fixed on the floor where his mother is, and he’s frozen still, watching everything.
“Hey, buddy,” I say, moving toward him and crouching so I’m level. “What’s your name?”
“Dylan.”
Behind me, she jerks upright with a sharp inhale, and Dylan’s eyes widen as he watches.
“I’m fine,” she snaps immediately, swatting at the paramedic’s hands. “I’m fine. I just got dizzy.”
“You were unconscious,” the paramedic replies evenly.
“I said I’m fine. I was just tired. Jesus. You people—”
Her voice sharply climbs, getting defensive and angry, and Dylan flinches at the sight. That’s the part that gets me. The way her voice fills the room, and the kid’s shoulders curl in on themselves like he’s bracing for impact.
Beck steps closer to the stretcher. “Ma’am, we need you to stay still. Let them do their job.”
“I don’t need to go anywhere,” she says, trying to wrench free. “I have a kid—”
“You’re going to the hospital,” Colt says.
Fletch reappears at my shoulder and, without a word, hands me one of the small stuffed bears we keep in the truck for scenes like this. They’re community donations, and we go through them faster than anyone would imagine.
I take it and hold it out to the boy.
“You’re officially a temporary firefighter,” I tell him. “Can you look after this guy until we’re done here?”
He looks at it and leans forward, but hesitates as his mom struggles behind me.
“Go on,” I say quietly, waggling the bear to regain his attention.
He takes it and wraps both arms around it immediately. Behind me, the noise continues.
“I’m not going fucking anyw—”
“You have overdosed,” Ghost says evenly. “You need medical assistance.”
“I didn’t overdose, it was just a mistake! You’re making this a bigger deal than it is.”
Her eyes dart to the couch, to Dylan holding the bear.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she snaps at him. “I’m fine.”
Something in my chest turns hard, and I speak before I can stop myself.
“He’s scared.”
The room stills, and her hazy eyes hone in on me. “Mind your fucking business.”
“My business,” I bite out, “is your kid sitting on this couch watching his mother fight the people trying to keep her alive.”
Her expression twists immediately. “Fuck you.”
“Prince.”
Beck’s voice cuts through the room before I can say another word, and I feel every set of eyes in the room shift briefly toward me. Beck steps between us smoothly, attention already turning back toward the paramedics and the woman on the ground, who’s still struggling.
“Ma’am, arguing isn’t helping your situation right now.”
It’s an out, a deliberate one. My jaw locks, but I take it anyway. Behind me, Dylan curls tighter around the stuffed bear, and I drag my attention back to him.
“You like superheroes, Dylan?”
He swallows, eyes slowly moving to mine again, and nods.
“Yeah? Which one?”
“Sp-spider-Man.”
I latch onto it and tell him that Spider-Man is mine, too. I ask him what his favorite episode of Spider-Man is. I ask him what powers would be his favorite, and build on every single thing he utters to keep him talking.
Behind me, the paramedics are finally loading her onto the stretcher. She’s still talking and arguing, still insisting this is nothing.
“Can you do the web—”
“Is she going to die?” Dylan asks suddenly, his fingers digging into the teddy’s fur.
I don’t look at her, and don’t even hesitate as I keep my eyes on his.
“No. She’s going to the hospital, and they’re gonna help her.”
The stretcher wheels rattle over the threshold, and then Tucker steps in and crouches down to talk to him about relatives and procedures and who’s coming to collect him.
Fletch shifts slightly beside me, and I feel him glance down.
“You good?” he mutters, low enough that the kid can’t hear.
I don’t answer. I don’t need to. He knows what the look on my face means.
We’ve stood in a different living room before with different chaos. With a different woman insisting she was fine while the world around her tilted.
They were there when Stacey started slipping, when the shouting turned into slammed doors and broken plates. They were there the night I packed a bag for Elle and walked out because staying would’ve been worse.
They remember just as clearly as I do, because she was family once. To all of them.
The ambulance doors close and the sirens fade, but Dylan is still clutching the bear.
We clear the scene, but no one says much as we climb back onto the truck. Ghost stares out the window, and Colt rubs a hand over the back of his neck. Fletch sits quieter than he ever does, the cab only filled with the low hum of the engine and the muted crackle of the radio.
I watch the road ahead and feel the echo of Dylan flinching to the sound of his mother arguing settle somewhere deep and stubborn inside me.
I’ve built my life around stability, around not letting that kind of unpredictability anywhere near Elle. Around making sure my daughter never has to sit on a couch and wonder if the person on the floor is going to get up.
But tonight, five minutes before I was meant to clock off and go home, it all walked back into view, and I’m not sure yet whether it makes me want to shut everything down or hold on tighter to what I’ve built.
Back at the station, the bay feels too bright after the house. We strip our gear off in near silence, and I keep my eyes down, even though I can feel the eyes of the boys silently communicating. It’s the same routine we always do after every call, except tonight it feels heavier than usual.
I slam my locker shut harder than I mean to, and the clang echoes through the bay.
Beck’s eyes lift briefly from the report in his hand. “Prince.”
“I’m fine.”
The words come too fast, and Fletch disappears tactfully into the kitchen. Ghost follows him a second later, giving me space without making it obvious. Colt lingers near the truck, pretending to reorganize equipment that’s already been reorganized twice.
And Beck waits me out, which somehow makes it worse.
I yank my gloves from the shelf, and one of the plastic equipment trays catches awkwardly on the edge, crashing to the concrete loud enough to ricochet through the bay.
“Fuck!”
I bend to grab it, but Beck gets there first, setting the tray upright before looking at me.
“You done?”
Something hot climbs up my throat, because no. I am not fucking done.
I’m tired. I’m angry. And I’m thinking about a little boy sitting frozen on a couch while his mother swore she was fine, and all I can see is Elle.
And Penny.
Penny standing in my kitchen making penguin sandwiches, and Penny folding herself into our routines so easily it scares the shit out of me.
“Prince,” Beck says again, quieter this time.
I drag a hand over my face with a sigh. “I’m fine, Cap.”
“Bullshit.” Beck folds the report closed. “You stayed locked in through the call. That’s good, that’s what we need. But you don’t get points for carrying it home after, you know that.”
My jaw tightens, and he studies me another second before jerking his head toward the parking lot. “Start two hours late tomorrow.”
“I don’t need—”
“That’s an order.”
***
The house is dark when I pull into the driveway, with the porch light off and curtains drawn. Good. They’re probably both asleep.
I cut the engine and sit there for a second, hands still on the wheel.
The quiet presses in after the radio static and the sirens, and the woman’s voice climbing angrily in that living room.
The kid’s face flashes behind my eyes, and the way he held that bear like it was something solid in a room that wasn’t.
I rub a hand down my face and exhale, then grab my bag and head inside. The door clicks shut softly behind me, and Gus makes his way over to me with a lazy wag of his tail.
“Hey, bud,” I whisper, giving him a gentle pat, which seems to satisfy him before he pads back to his bed.
The house is clean and warm and lived in, and the air smells faintly like whatever Penny cooked earlier, mixed with the scent of bubble bath.
My boots come off by the mat, and I toss my hoodie over the back of the chair in the dining room before moving down the hallway to check on Elle.
Her nightlight glows against the wall when I silently pad into her room, but her bed’s empty. My stomach drops for half a beat before I remember—when I’m late, she migrates. Always has. Used to crawl into my bed until I got home.
I turn toward my room and see the door’s cracked open, a sliver of hallway light cutting across the floor. I push it wider with my knuckles, careful not to let the door creak.
Elle’s sprawled across the middle of the bed, one leg thrown over Penny’s hip. Her penguin stuffie is tucked under her chin, and her mouth is open, breathing deep and even.
Penny’s curled toward her. One arm bent, hand resting near Elle’s back like she fell asleep mid-sentence. Her blonde hair falls half across her face, the other half fanning out around her like a halo. There’s still space on the other side, too.
Mine.
The thought lands way too fast, and I step back from it immediately, instead settling to just stand there, watching them. After a call like that, something usually lingers. A tightness in my chest and an urge to lock everything down before it gets messy.
Especially after tonight. After walking into another house where a kid was trying to make himself small while the adults around him fell apart.
That it’d remind me why lines exist. That, after tonight, after hearing another addict swear everything was fine while their kid sat terrified, this would feel reckless somehow.
But standing here now, looking at Elle tangled across the bed with Penny curled around her like she’s been part of this house for years instead of weeks, the noise in my head starts to dull around the edges.
All I hear is Elle’s steady breathing. All I see is Penny’s hand curved at her back, thumb resting just beneath her shoulder blade.
I step closer to the bed and tug the blanket up over Elle’s shoulder, where it’s slipped down. She stirs but doesn’t wake, and Penny shifts with her, fingers fanning out instinctively, protective even in sleep.
The image of Dylan curled into that couch still sits heavy, but my daughter is sprawled across my bed, and her world is safe.
And that’s the problem, because Penny’s become part of this house so quietly, I didn’t even notice it happening. She fits here.
The thought washes over me again, and my chest tightens, as though my heart wants to shove it back out before it settles too deep.
I back out of the room before I stand there any longer, thinking about things I shouldn’t. About how natural this looks and how comfortably Elle sleeps beside her. How easy it would be to get used to this.
How badly I already have.
The shower runs hot, and I stand under it longer than I need to, letting the heat pound against the back of my neck until my pulse slows. But it doesn’t do much about the thoughts still swirling.
Penny asleep in my bed, Elle curled into her side, and the feeling that hit me when I saw them together. The space on the other side for me.
I dry off harder than I need to, hoping that’ll somehow scrub the thoughts loose too, then I grab Elle’s blankets from her bed and move into the living room, dropping onto the couch.
My hair’s still damp as I lean back and get comfy. I place a forearm over my eyes and wait for the images of the call to replay the way they usually do.
They don’t.