Love so raw it’s still bleeding #2
Emotion lodges thick in my throat, and the room goes painfully quiet.
“He was a firefighter,” Evan continues more quietly, though grief keeps shredding the edges of every word. “Colt went up on that roof because that’s who he was. He would’ve done it for anybody in that tower.”
He looks down suddenly, scrubbing a hand hard across his face like he’s exhausted enough to collapse where he sits.
“And I should’ve got to you faster. I saw your car outside the tower.” His stare fixes somewhere past my shoulder now. “Dispatch said there was possibly a victim trapped inside, and then I saw your fucking car, and I knew.” His breathing roughens. “I knew it was you.”
My lip trembles, thinking of how panicked he must’ve been.
“I couldn’t find you.” His voice drops lower. “There was too much smoke, and then the roof started creaking, and Beck was yelling at me to pull back, and I just—” He stops abruptly, jaw flexing hard enough to tick.
“I thought I was too late.”
The words hollow something out inside me, because I know Evan. I know how controlled he usually is. How careful and logical under pressure he is.
But even through the haze and the smoke and barely hanging to consciousness, I saw him in that tower. Wild. Terrified.
My fingers tighten weakly around his.
“You found me,” I whisper.
His eyes close briefly. “I was nearly too late.”
I swallow hard against the ache climbing into my throat. “But you weren’t.”
“I was looking in the right spot at the right time,” he says. “That’s the only reason I saw you. The smoke shifted and I caught the shape of the you slumped in that chair, and your hands were still—” He pauses, throat working. “Still tied up.”
“I remember you carried me,” I murmur. “Could hear you talking to me.”
His eyes meet mine, and his expression finally fractures. Not fully—he’s still holding himself together with sheer force of will—but I see it happen anyway. The crack running underneath all that control.
“Yeah, baby,” he says hoarsely. “I got you.”
The tears finally spill over as the reality settles into my bones. And before I can stop myself, I lift our joined hands shakily toward my face and press my mouth against his bruised knuckles.
“I should’ve called you,” I say. “You shouldn’t have come in to get me.”
His eyes lift to mine, and there’s something fierce in them now.
“There isn’t a version of that scene where I wasn't coming to get you.” He leans in and presses his forehead briefly to our joined hands, eyes closed for half a second. “If you were in that tower, I’d go in every time.”
My gaze drifts to our hands, to his split knuckles and the bandages wrapping my wrists, as his warm and terrifying words settle over me.
Every time.
He would, too. He’d go back in every time, because that’s who he is.
Which means the common denominator is me.
I’m the one who believed Stacey. I was the reason Evan ignored protocol and the crew were distracted. It doesn’t matter he would’ve done it anyway. It doesn’t matter he'd risk himself for anyone.
Because this time, he tore himself apart trying to get to me.
Now Colt’s absence is everywhere, and I’m the biggest reminder of it.
***
Elle comes in the next afternoon. I hear her before I see her, accompanied by Gwen’s low murmur and the little squeaks of sneakers against the corridor linoleum.
The knock on the door is barely a knock at all, and Evan is already standing before the handle even turns. He crosses the room immediately, instinct dragging him there before thought can catch up, and when Elle steps inside, his hand settles gently against the back of her head.
“Hey, bug,” Evan says quietly beside her, crouching down to her level.
Her eyes move everywhere at once. To the monitor, the IV line. The bruising blooming along my arms and my bandages, then finally my face.
She goes very still, and Evan leans in closer to her. “Penny’s okay.”
Okay feels like a lie in a room that smells like antiseptic and smoke that still won’t leave my skin, but Elle nods anyway because she trusts him when he says things like that.
Her fingers are clutching a folded piece of paper so tightly, the corners are bent.
“Hi, Elle-bug,” I whisper, voice cracking.
Something crumples in Evan’s expression for a second before he smooths it away again, rubbing his hand gently over Elle’s back.
“You wanna come closer?” he asks her softly.
She hesitates, and that hesitation nearly breaks me.
Because Elle has never hesitated with me before.
She usually launches herself at me full-speed like a tiny missile, all limbs and excitement and chatter.
But now she looks at the wires attached to me, at the tape on my skin, and she moves carefully instead, as though she’s afraid I’ll get hurt.
Or disappear.
Evan helps her climb onto the bed beside me, guiding her with one hand until she settles carefully against my side. Then she leans in and wraps her arms around me so gently it hurts worse than the fire did.
I fold around her immediately, one hand cradling the back of her head as tears sting behind my eyes.
“Oh, my brave girl,” I whisper into her hair, relishing the smell of strawberry shampoo.
Her little body presses tighter against mine.
“You’re brave too, Penny.”
Brave.
My arms tighten a fraction around her, because I feel anything but.
“Daddy cried,” she adds quietly.