Chapter 27
YOU’RE SAFE.
Tucker
After we wrapped up at the house for the day, I made my way to the bar for my evening shift the way I always do. But the weight of the day sat on my chest like a brick, and I couldn’t shake it. Griffin took one look at me when I walked in and told me to go home.
I tried to argue, but he fought back harder.
While he insisted over and over that he had it covered, I stood there staring at him, the same way I’m sitting here in my living room now, staring at a blank wall in silence.
This house is quiet in a way that presses into me instead of comforts me. There’s no music filtering through the house from the kitchen and my TV is off. The only noise is the low hum of the fridge in the other room and my own racing thoughts.
I look down at my hands clasped together in my lap.
I can’t stop replaying the day my world changed since watching Scottie dig up her own memories. I don’t have the luxury of digging up my memories. Every single one burned to the ground the same night my life did.
I squeeze my eyes shut, finally releasing my hands from one another to press my palms into my eyes. My throat tightens and I feel everything as if it only happened yesterday.
And that’s the thing about memories, they don’t care if you’re ready for them or not.
They show up without warning.
My eyes fly open, and smoke crawls across the ceiling faster than it should. It’s thick enough to make it hard to breathe, swallowing the light from the hallway.
“Mom?” I barely manage to get out before I start choking.
It’s a fire.
The house is on fire.
The air burns my lungs and every inhale scrapes my throat like glass. Then something crashes down the hall, like wood splitting or something giving way, and the sound punches through me.
“Dad!” I shout, my throat raw.
I scramble off my bed, circling in one spot to try and find an opening or a way out.
“Tucker!” I hear my dad shout in the distance. “You need to get out. Now.”
“I don’t know where to go,” I cry out as loud as my lungs let me, tears spilling from my eyes.
“Find a way out!” My mom shouts from what sounds like another part of the house.
Fear freezes me in place and my hands fly out to the side as if bracing for impact, when I hear another crash followed by what sounds like my mom screaming.
“Mom! MOM!” I shout, rushing for the door. But when my hands land on it, it burns my palms, forcing me to jump back. “No. No. No,” I mutter. The heat in the room presses in from all sides now.
Stop, drop, and roll? No, I’m not on fire.
I snap my head around to my window, and I see an opening. I rush toward it, needing to get out of this room so I can fix this. If I move fast enough, if I choose right, if I hold everything together with my bare hands, the house will listen.
It doesn’t.
The smoke thickens around me.
There’s another crash, followed by the sounds of my dad and baby brother screaming.
“No!” I scream, straddling the window. “Dad! Brady!”
There’s no response.
I fumble with the latch, a cough ripping through my chest.
If I can just get out of my room, I can save them.
My eyes sting and my vision is blurred as I wrench the window open. The rush of air is immediate and for half a second everything goes still as the room inhales a deep, violent gulp of oxygen.
Heat punches the air behind me with a force so strong that it knocks the breath from my lungs. The walls groan before something else gives way. I know suddenly, with sick certainty, that this is bigger than me.
It’s no longer safe here.
I fight back the bile rising from my throat.
Instinct takes over and I swing a leg over the ledge and throw myself out without thinking, barely registering the drop before I hit the ground and roll.
The smell is everywhere, sinking into my clothes—my bones.
I leap up, stumbling across the lawn before turning around to take in the house.
My eyes scan every inch of the yard, looking for my mom, my dad, my baby brother. Anyone.
They had to have gotten out, right?
But I see no one.
No one is here.
The blast follows as a thunderous crack splits the air as flames burst outward.
The house doesn’t just burn.
It collapses.
Everything crumbles to the ground with my family nowhere in sight.
“NOOOO!” I scream loud enough for the whole town to hear.
But I can barely hear my own voice as I shout because all I can hear is the ringing in my ears.
I didn’t just fail to save my family.
I’m the reason it all went up in flames.
I stand up from my chair fast with the same sound from years ago ringing in my ears as if it’s happening right now.
Pacing my living room and wiping the tears from my eyes with rage.
The fucking memory of that night haunts me when I’m alone with my thoughts like this. I hate that it haunts me this way.
It’s been so long since I’ve allowed it to come to the surface like that.
So long since I’ve allowed those feelings to consume me.
I tell myself I’m safe here.
I tell myself I’m older and stronger now.
I tell myself I was just a kid. I didn’t fucking know what opening that window would do.
But my body doesn’t listen. It never does.
I was only a teenage boy when I last heard my mom and dad’s voices shouting at me to get out. The last memory I have of them is hearing their screams as the house fell on top of them with my baby brother inside.
“FUCK!” I scream in my empty room, rage flowing through my body, ready to punch a hole in the wall. “It’s not fucking fair,” I grit out, falling to my knees in the middle of my living room.
As if anyone can hear me.
As if I’d let anyone hear this.
This right here, is the part of me that no one will ever see. Not Griffin, Lily, Poppy, or any other members of my extended family.
I remember so vividly sitting on the edge of the hospital bed, staring at the flooring below me and my clothes covered in black—staining me with darkness.
I didn’t register them telling me I was okay.
Them telling me I didn’t have any major injuries.
And most of all, them telling me everyone in the house… but me…died.
The only thing I kept thinking was…why am I still breathing?
My chest aches now in the present, like there’s still smoke trapped in my lungs. I look down at my hands and they shake. They don’t look like the hands of someone who has carried a house fire behind corny jokes and a light mood for years.
But I have.
I carry it in a way the bell above Seven Stools tells me how many people are in the place and how many people I’d need to make sure are out in the event of a fire.
I carry it in a way that I check every home I work on for safety.
I carry it in a way that I’ve spent so long trying to be someone worth sparing.
Because it’s nights like tonight, when the memories creep in so vividly, and when the world finally stops demanding things from me, the thought comes in soft as a lullaby: you should’ve been with them.
It’s not that I want to die.
It’s that I’m so tired of being the one left behind and dealing with the aftermath alone. I’m tired of carrying names in my mouth like broken glass, tasting them every time I try to laugh to cover up the pain.
How long is a person is supposed to pay for surviving something they never asked for?
I press my palm to my chest to calm my racing heart. I stand up, letting my body fall back on the chair. I stare down at my shaking leg as I try to calm myself, but it doesn’t work. It never works when the memory hits this hard.
A car door slamming outside cuts through the anger.
My body stills completely as I look at the wall between me and the outside world.
Scottie’s home.
Please don’t come here. Don’t see me like this.
I sit there for a moment longer to allow the present to bleed back in.
My head falls to the back of the chair, and I close my eyes.
For a moment, I pretend rest is possible.
I pretend that if I stay still long enough, the thoughts won’t find me again tonight.
But I know they will. Grief is tattooed into my bones like something I never agreed to hold onto but can’t seem to put down.
It’s not fucking fair.
Finally, as if I’ve snapped out of the temporary bubble, I push myself out of the chair and out my front door. The night air hits my face as soon as I step outside, and I inhale in an effort to clear some of the smoke from my head.
Looking up, I see the light over the apartment door is on.
I cross the driveway and take the stairs two at a time before I can talk myself out of it. I raise my fist, knocking once because if I don’t see her now, I’m not sure I’ll make it through the night without breaking something I can’t put back together.
Not because she can fix it.
Not because she can erase the past.
Because if I’m alone right now, I’m going to drown in it.
I fucking need her.
More than I ever thought was possible.
The door opens, and Scottie stands on the other side with confusion on her face at why I’m knocking on her door.
She’s probably wondering why I’m not at the bar tonight.
My eyes scan her up and down, and she’s wearing sleep shorts and a thin tank top, her hair loose around her shoulders.
The sight of her hits me harder than any memory ever could.
“Tucker?” she says softly. “Is everything okay?”
No.
Yes.
I don’t know.
“I just—” I swallow. She moves back to let me in, and I step inside. Looking around the space, it’s smaller than I remember, and it smells like her shampoo and clean sheets. I face her again, my chest rising and falling. “I need you.”
Her expression softens instantly and she doesn’t even hesitate.
Scottie moves toward me and I fall into her arms. My forehead hits her shoulder, and I don’t even try to hold it together anymore.
My breath shudders at the same time my legs weaken.
We both fall to the floor on our knees. Her arms under mine, holding me up as if she can carry my weight effortlessly.