Chapter 24
Grant
I never thought he would leave.
Mr. Walden will talk to anyone and everyone. He’s the only person I know who can ask a hundred questions about a yardstick and somehow make it feel important.
I watch as he backs his truck out of the parking lot and disappears down the road. I shake my head, letting out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding. He really is a nice old man, even if he just kept me trapped for nearly an hour.
I should check on Clay and see what kind of mess he’s made in the back while organizing. I turn back towards the store.
The sound rips through the air.
BOOM.
CRACK.
BOOM.
The world drops out from under me, and I hit the ground hard. My chest slams so violently it hurts. For one horrifying second, my brain insists I’m being shot at.
Then I see it.
Paint cans have exploded, rolling and spilling across the floor. Shelves tipped—tools scattered like candy.
“Clay!” I scream.
Nothing.
What the fuck is happening?
With my ears ringing, I scramble up, panic already clawing at my chest. I can’t see him. I can’t hear him. My eyes fly to the back of the store, and my stomach drops as the roof in the stockroom has collapsed, beams crushed inward like they were made of sticks.
No. No, no, no.
“Clay!”
I run toward the back, my feet slipping, my breath coming in sharp, useless gasps. Smoke fills the air, thick and blinding. I can’t see more than a few inches ahead of me, the closer I get.
Why did this happen?
Why now?
The smell hits me next. Fire.
Fear accelerates through my veins. I turn and run, my hands shaking as I grab a fire extinguisher. Someone must have called 911. Someone, please call.
Sirens wail faintly in the distance, and hope flares for a second.
I force myself into the space, my eyes and lungs burning. Dread clawing at me.
Then I see him.
Clay is on the floor. My husband. Still. Too still.
“No,” I choke, dropping to my knees beside him. My hands hover, terrified to touch him, terrified of what I’ll feel. “No, please, no.”
It should’ve been me. Not him.
“I can’t lose you,” I whisper, my voice breaking apart. “I can’t… please. I fucking won’t lose you.”
The sirens grow louder, but all I can hear is my own heartbeat and the sickening question pounding through my head. Why? I don’t understand.
The sirens are deafening by the time they reach us. Red and blue lights slice through the smoke, through my thoughts.
Hands pull me back, voices shout instructions I can’t process. Someone asks me his name. Someone else asks me to step aside. Everything is happening so fast.
“My husband,” I keep repeating. “That’s my husband.”
They load him onto a stretcher. I follow too closely, tripping over my own feet, terrified that if I let them take him without me, he’ll disappear.
The ambulance doors slam shut, and I’m inside before I remember climbing in. My fingers are wrapped around Clay’s hand. Cool, dusty, and not squeezing back.
I talk anyway. I tell him to stay with me. I tell him I love him, like maybe that will be enough. It has to be enough.
The ride is a blur of voices, jolts, and numbers I don’t understand. Blood pressure. Oxygen. Pupils. Every word feels like a verdict I’m not ready to hear.
At the ER, everything explodes into motion. Doors fly open. Hands take him from me.
“No,” I protest, my voice cracking.
A nurse gently blocks my path. “We’ll take good care of him,” she says, already turning away.
And just like that, I’m alone.
The waiting room is too bright. Too quiet. Time stretches and folds in on itself. My hands won’t stop shaking. I scrub them together like I can erase what happened, like I can rewind the day to a yardstick and an old man who wouldn’t stop talking.
I don’t understand any of this.
I want to wake up from this nightmare. This has to be a nightmare.
A doctor walks past, and my heart lurches. Every time the doors open, I look up, bracing myself for the worst. I rehearse it over and over, how I’ll survive it and how I won’t. You hear about these stories all the time.
I think about Clay laughing in the mornings, half-awake and warm. About the way he kisses my shoulder without thinking. About how ordinary today was supposed to be.
I press my palms into my eyes and whisper, “Please.” I don’t know who I’m talking to. God. Fate. Anyone listening. “Please help him live. Please.”
My heart is threatening to shatter.
When a nurse finally calls my name, my legs nearly give out. I stand anyway. I have to.
Because whatever comes next—whatever they say—I already know one thing with terrifying clarity.
If I lose him, I won’t just lose my husband.
I’ll lose the part of my soul that’s living.
They tell me he’s going to be okay.
The words don’t land all at once. They move slowly, like they’re wading through water to reach me. I nod, even though my body doesn’t believe them yet. Not fully. Not after everything.
“He’s stable,” the doctor says. “Very lucky.”
Lucky.
I cling to that word as it might anchor me.
When they finally let me see him, the room smells like antiseptic and is quiet. Machines hum softly, rhythmically, like they’re reminding him to keep breathing. Clay is pale, wrapped in blankets, with a thin line of dried blood near his hairline. But his chest rises. And falls.
I sit beside him and don’t touch him at first. I’m afraid I’ll wake him. Afraid I’ll realize I imagined all of this. He's alive, this room, and the relief pressing painfully against my ribs.
I reach for his hand anyway. It’s warm this time.
My breath stutters.
I stay here as the hours crawl by. The chair is uncomfortable, the lights too bright, but I don’t move. I don’t sleep. Every small sound pulls my attention back to him, every shift of his fingers and every change in the machines.
I replay the day over and over. Mr. Walden. The parking lot. The moment I turned my back. I keep trying to find the second where I could’ve stopped it, as if I just think hard enough, I’ll see it.
Guilt settles deep in my chest. Heavy. “It should’ve been me.”
I lean closer to Clay, my forehead resting against the edge of the bed. “I’m so sorry,” I whisper. I don’t know exactly what I’m apologizing for. Leaving. Not knowing. Living in a world where this could happen to us.
At some point in the night, his fingers twitch. Then curl faintly around mine.
I freeze.
“Clay?” My voice shakes.
His eyes don’t open, but his grip tightens just enough to tell me he’s still here.
Tears spill before I can stop them. Silent, messy, relief-soaked tears. I press my lips to his knuckles and let myself breathe for the first time since the roof came down.
He’s alive. He’s going to be okay.
My hand still wrapped around his, afraid that if I let go—even for a second—I’ll wake up and find this was a nightmare. The fear doesn’t disappear. It sits beside me, a reminder.
I know when morning comes, everything will look the same. The store, the road, and the parking lot. But nothing will feel the same again.
Because now I know how quickly normal can shatter.
And how close I came to losing the man I love.