Chapter Thirty-Six
BACK FROM THE EDGE
Cole
It starts with a beeping.
Soft. Rhythmic. Annoying.
Then pressure. Something in my side—tight, pulling. My chest feels like someone sat on it. My mouth is dry as hell. Everything hurts in a dull, faraway kind of way, like my body’s trying to keep secrets from my brain.
I blink.
White ceiling. Fluorescent lights. IV pole.
Shit. Hospital.
A figure leans over me—blurry at first, then clearer. A woman in scrubs, hair pulled back in a tight bun, a pen tucked behind her ear.
“Hey there,” she says gently, brushing something—maybe a monitor wire—from my chest. “Welcome back, Cole.”
I try to swallow. It takes too much effort.
“Where…” My voice is gravel. “What happened?”
“You were in an explosion,” she says calmly. “Tanker truck on the highway. Your crew brought you in fast. You’ve been in surgery.”
Surgery? For what?
I blink again. Try to sit up. Instantly regret it.
“Hey, no—don’t move,” she says, pressing a hand to my shoulder. “You’ve got broken ribs, and we had to operate on your abdomen. Lacerated spleen, punctured liver. But you’re stable now. We stopped the internal bleeding.”
That’s… a lot.
I sink back against the pillow, heart pounding too fast for a body that feels this slow.
“Is Brennan okay?” I ask before I can think.
The nurse pauses. Just for a second.
“I’m not sure,” she says softly. “Someone else will talk to you about that soon, okay?”
I nod, but something tightens in my chest.
I try to remember—what was the last thing I saw?
He was heading for the hatchback. I’d just told him to check it out. He waved me off, said I’ve got it, and then—
The explosion.
That blast of light. The heat. The sound of it deafening.
I don’t remember seeing him after that. I don’t remember anything after that.
“Your mom’s in the waiting room,” she adds after a moment. “She’s been here all day.”
Of course she has.
“Do you want me to bring her in?”
I nod—just barely. “Yeah. Please.”
My throat burns. Not from the breathing tube. Not from the meds.
From the fact that I know what I’m about to see in her face when she walks through that door.
And I almost made her live through losing me.
The door opens slowly.
And then there she is.
My mom.
Her eyes are red and tired, and she looks like she’s been through hell.
“Hey, Ma,” I say, my voice still scratchy, trying to lift one side of my mouth in a smile. “Guess I really know how to make an entrance, huh?”
She lets out a sound—somewhere between a sob and a laugh—and rushes to my side.
“Oh, baby,” she whispers, her hands fluttering uselessly over me before finally landing gently on my arm. “Look at you. Look at all this. I—I thought—”
“I’m okay,” I lie, even as everything inside me throbs.
“You’re not okay, Cole,” she says, her voice cracking as she pulls a tissue from her pocket and wipes at her eyes. “But you’re alive. And I’ll take that. I’ll take that any day.”
She’s crying again before she finishes the sentence. I reach out slowly—everything hurts—and squeeze her hand.
“I’m sorry I scared you,” I say, softer now.
The door opens again.
A doctor steps in, clipboard in hand, and gives my mom a polite nod. “Good to see you awake, Cole.”
He pulls a chair up to the foot of the bed and settles in with a practiced calm. “I’m Dr. Sen. I just wanted to give you a clearer picture now that you’re awake and stable.”
“Okay,” I say cautiously.
“First, the good news,” he says. “You’ve got no head trauma. No spinal damage. Your lungs are clear, no signs of inhalation injury. No burns. That’s huge.”
I nod slowly. “Okay.”
“But,” he continues, “you did sustain serious blunt force trauma to your torso. You had a lacerated spleen and a puncture in your liver. We stopped the bleeding, but we had to remove part of the spleen. You’ll need to be very careful for the next few weeks.”
“How careful?” I ask.
“No lifting. No exertion. No work for at least six to eight weeks, minimum. More if there are complications. You also have three broken ribs, which will take time to heal on their own. You’ll be sore. Easily fatigued. It’ll be frustrating, but you have to take it seriously.”
I feel my mom flinch beside me.
The weight of it sinks in slowly, like fog filling a room. No work. No firehouse. No anything.
Just pain and waiting.
“And Brennan?” I ask again.
Dr. Sen gives me that same pause. “Someone will be in to talk to you about that soon.”
I nod once. Jaw tight. Maybe he’s still in surgery too. Damn, I hate this.
He glances at my mom. “He’s lucky, ma’am. He’s very lucky.”
She swallows hard, brushes the hair back from my forehead with shaking fingers.
“I know,” she whispers. “But I’d rather be lucky and yelling at him than—”
She cuts herself off, can’t finish. Doesn’t need to.
Because we both know how close it was.
As soon as the doctor leaves, the room feels too quiet.
Too still.
I shift slightly—just enough to make my ribs scream—and glance around, suddenly remembering something important.
“Where’s my phone?” I ask, wincing. “I need to call Andi.”
My mom, still hovering near the bed, gives me a soft look. “She’s here,” she says. “She’s been here all day. Since this morning. Jack called her.”
That hits me harder than I expect.
She’s here.
“I’ll go get her,” Mom says. “She’s just down the hall.”
I nod, and she leans in to kiss the top of my head before quietly slipping out of the room.
I try to sit up a little straighter, swearing under my breath at how every movement feels like a knife. My chest aches, my side is on fire, and my heart’s doing something I don’t recognize—something tight and unsteady.
And then she’s there.
Andi. With her lavender hair and her blue eyes. She looks like she’s barely holding it together—and the second she sees me, her mouth crumples.
She doesn’t say anything.
Just crosses the room in three quick steps and falls into my arms.
I grunt at the impact, biting back a groan, but I don’t let go. I can’t. She’s clinging to me like she thought I might disappear, and my body may be broken, but my heart remembers exactly how to hold her.
We stay like that for a long time.
No words. Just breathing.
When she finally pulls back, her hand cups my cheek like she’s trying to convince herself I’m real.
“You scared the hell out of me,” she says, voice shaking.
“Yeah,” I rasp. “I scared the hell out of myself too.”
She leans down and kisses me—carefully, softly—but I still wince when her arm brushes my ribs.
“Oh—shit, sorry—” She pulls back instantly, eyes wide with guilt.
“It’s fine,” I say, breath hitching. “Totally worth it.”
But I can’t help noticing the look in her eyes. That terror, still lurking behind her relief. Like if she lets herself exhale too deeply, I’ll vanish.
“Cole,” she says around a sob. Her face is still streaked with tears.
“Hey,” I say softly, trying for a smile that probably looks more like a grimace. “I’m okay. See? All in one piece. Well, mostly.”
A sad, broken smile touches her lips. She presses them to my forehead.
“Andi…”
She looks up.
“Where’s Brennan?” I say quietly. “Tell me. Please.”
Her face folds before she can even speak. A breath. A pause. “Cole.” Her voice breaks. “I’m so sorry.”
The words hit like a hammer to the chest.
“No,” I say, shaking my head. “No—he was right behind me. He was—he said he had it.”
She nods, tears spilling fast now. “I know. I know.”
“Is he still in surgery? Is it bad?”
She presses her hand to her lips and shakes her head. “His injuries were too severe. He’s…gone, Cole.”
My stomach turns. My lungs squeeze tight. My brain flashes—stupid shenanigans in the firehouse, Brennan singing off-key in the truck, stealing my fries when he thought I wasn’t looking, talking big about poker nights and girls he’d never call back.
Just being there.
Always there.
And now he’s not.
“But he can’t—” My throat closes up. “We were just... yesterday we made plans to… He can’t just be—”
Gone. The word I can’t say. Because saying it makes it real, and this can’t be real. This is some morphine nightmare, some twisted dream where everything goes wrong.
Except Andi’s climbing carefully onto the bed beside me, and her arms are real, and her tears soaking through my hospital gown are real, and the hole opening up in my chest is so real I can’t breathe around it.
Andi wraps her arms around me like she can hold the loss at bay.
But it’s already here.
And I feel it breaking me open from the inside out.