3. The Primordial Spark #2
"What about her?" Jen sat down on the bench and pulled out her phone.
"She's engaged. To Wyatt Brooks."
Jen looked up. "Shut up. The firefighter from 110?"
"Yup."
"Cassandra Walsh?" Jen shook her head. "I still can't believe that's the same girl from high school. She was such a dyke back then. Always in those oversized jackets and torn jeans, never talked to anyone. And now she's marrying Wyatt Brooks?"
"You really never know about people."
"Have you seen her lately? She looks completely different. She was in here last week with a suspect from a domestic call. I almost didn't recognize her."
"She's a detective now. She's in here all the time."
"I know. It's just weird. Going from that to engaged to a guy who looks like Wyatt Brooks." Jen tilted her head. "I mean, good for her, I guess."
"Good for her? Have you seen him? That man could carry me out of a fire any day of the week."
"You said that last time he came in with a smoke inhalation patient."
"And I meant it then too." Liz capped her lipstick. "I give it a year. A guy like that has options. He'll figure that out."
"Who else is on that crew? Sullivan, right?"
"Sullivan." Jen said the name with a certain weight. "He's still single, as far as I know. Not that it matters. I haven't seen that crew in what, two months? At least not on my shift."
"Have you ever actually talked to him?" Liz said.
"Once. He brought in a burn patient. I tried to make conversation. He gave me two-word answers and then left."
"Do you think him and Dr. Sullivan are related?"
"With that attitude? Probably."
"There's no resemblance, though."
"He might look more like his mom."
"That sounds about right. There's also Travis? He's funny. Every time he comes through, the whole nurses' station is laughing."
"Is he seeing someone?"
"I don't know. He's the kind of guy who could be and you'd never find out until it was too late."
"So our options are a guy who won't talk to us and a guy who might already be taken."
"Welcome to Las Vegas." Liz turned to me. "What about you, Nora? Are you seeing anyone?"
"No."
"You never talk about going out. You never mention anyone."
"Because there's no one to mention."
"A girl who looks like you?" Liz tilted her head. "I don't buy it. Are you hiding him? Is he married?"
"Nobody's married, Liz. I work and I go home."
"That's depressing."
"It's my life."
"I'm just saying, you're twenty-six. You should be out there."
"I don't have time for that."
Liz held up her hands. "Okay. Whatever you say." She looked at Jen. "She's definitely hiding someone."
Jen smiled.
The door opened. Josie came in, and the temperature in the room changed.
"Liz. I need to talk to you about a medication order in bay three."
Liz straightened up. "What about it?"
"An order was entered IV push when the original was written for oral. Pharmacy caught it before it went out, but the timestamp has your credentials on it."
"That's not — I didn't change that."
"I'm not saying you did it on purpose. I'm saying your name is on it, and with administration watching numbers right now, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets flagged. I need you to be more careful."
Liz's face went hard. "Josie, I didn't enter it that way."
"Then we'll look into it. But right now, your name is on the order, and that's what the system sees."
The room was tight. Jen had stopped scrolling. Liz was staring at Josie with her jaw set.
I closed my locker, picked up my bag, and slipped out before it went any further.
I woke up at five the next morning. Even on my days off, my body didn't know the difference.
Two months of twelve-hour shifts had reset something in me, and now five o'clock was just when my eyes opened, whether I wanted them to or not.
It was fine. I'd get up, make breakfast and lunch for Ian, see him out, and go back to bed until three.
The kitchen was still dark when I got downstairs.
I turned on the oven, laid bacon across the sheet pan, and put the kettle on.
Outside, the sky was that gray-blue it gets before the sun makes up its mind.
I set out two plates, a bottle of hot sauce, and started on Ian's lunch.
Turkey sandwich, an apple, a bag of chips.
I wrote his name on the brown bag. He told me at least once a month that nobody's sister writes their name on their lunch bag. I did it anyway.
"Smells good." Ian came downstairs just as I pulled the bacon out of the oven.
"Morning! Toast's almost done. Do you want an egg?"
"Yeah, just one. Thanks, Nora."
He sat down and reached for the hot sauce before anything else. I cracked an egg into the pan and watched it sizzle.
"Jesse's picking me up today."
"What time?"
"Like seven fifteen. Him and a couple guys. His brother's driving."
"His brother?"
"Wayne. He's older. He drives Jesse everywhere." He doused the egg in hot sauce and ate it in three bites. He did the same to the bacon, then the toast, then washed it all down with a glass of water. "Oh, and I'm staying late at Jesse's tonight, so don't wait up."
"How late is late?"
"I don't know. I'll text you."
A horn honked outside at seven ten. Ian grabbed the lunch from the fridge, shoved it in his backpack, and was halfway to the door.
"Hey. Let me at least see who's out there."
"Nora, come on."
"I just want to say hi."
He held the door open for me.
A black Civic sat in the driveway. Clean, well-kept. Jesse was in the passenger seat. He waved when he saw me. "Morning, Miss Avery!"
"Morning, Jesse."
A kid I didn't recognize was in the back, leaning forward between the front seats laughing about something on his phone. Backpacks and school clothes and whatever song was playing too quietly to hear from the porch. They looked like kids.
The driver had his window down and his arm resting on the door, a cigarette between two fingers. He was older than the rest of them by enough that it registered. He was wearing a plain black T-shirt and a thin gold chain, and when he looked at me, he nodded once.
"Morning. You must be Ian's sister. I'm Wayne. Jesse's brother."
"Nice to meet you, Wayne."
He smiled. "We'll have him back after school."
"Thank you."
Ian was already in the back seat with his backpack between his knees. "Bye, Nora."
"Be safe."
"It's school."
"Be safe anyway."
The Civic pulled out and turned the corner. I stood on the porch and watched it go.
Jesse was a good kid. I'd met him a handful of times, and he was always polite, always easy.
The kid in the back looked the same. But Wayne.
I couldn't put my finger on it. He'd said all the right things and smiled at the right moments, and something about it still sat wrong.
Maybe it was his eyes. Or maybe it was just that he looked to be about twenty years old, driving a car that clean, with a cigarette at seven in the morning and nowhere to be on a Monday.
I went back inside, washed the dishes, wiped down the counter, and put the hot sauce back.
I threw a load of laundry in the washing machine and left the bathroom light on. I always did that when I ran a load before bed. It was the first thing I'd see when I woke up, and it reminded me to go downstairs and move everything to the dryer.
I went to my room and closed the curtains.
Before I climbed into bed, I sat on the edge of the mattress and looked at my crystal collection on the shelf.
Six pieces, all raw. Amethyst, rose quartz, black tourmaline, carnelian, a couple of others.
I hadn't added a new one in a while. I reached over and straightened the rose quartz and the carnelian, then pulled the blanket up to my chin and closed my eyes.
I woke up on the beach.
Ian was on our father's back, laughing, his arms wrapped around Dad's neck. Mom was a few steps behind with the picnic basket, her sundress catching the wind. I was running to catch up, my feet sinking into the sand, and no matter how fast I ran, they kept getting a little further ahead.
"Wait for me!"
Ian looked over Dad's shoulder and waved. Mom turned and smiled. The sun was bright and warm on my face, and the water was so blue it didn't look real.
Then the sun got brighter. And brighter. The warmth on my skin turned to heat. The light was so white I couldn't see their faces anymore.
The heat woke me before the alarm did.
I opened my eyes and the room was wrong. Gray where there should have been dark, a haze hanging below the ceiling. My throat was burning.
The house was on fire.