Chapter 3
Maya
I dreamed about David again.
You're too much work.
We were in our old apartment. He was standing in the doorway with his suitcase.
No one's going to want your mess.
I woke up gasping, sheets twisted around my legs, heart pounding like I'd been running. The clock read 5:17. Thirteen minutes before my alarm.
I didn't try to go back to sleep. I just lay there in the dark, waiting for my pulse to slow, and for his voice to fade into the background noise of my life.
It never fully did.
By 5:30, I'd given up on rest and started the coffee maker. By 5:45, I was in the shower, letting water hot enough to scald wash away the remnants of the dream. By 6:00, I was standing in front of the mirror, concealer in hand, trying to make myself look like someone who had slept.
It didn't work. It never worked.
The drive to school was quiet. Zoe sat in the passenger seat with her earbuds in, scrolling through her phone, giving me nothing but one-word answers when I tried to make conversation.
I'd stopped pushing weeks ago. Now I just drove, watching the traffic lights blur together, letting the silence fill the space between us.
But something shifted when I walked into my classroom.
James read two whole pages today. Not a paragraph, not a sentence. Two pages, out loud, in front of everyone, his finger tracing the words while his brow furrowed in concentration. He only stumbled twice, and both times he corrected himself before I could help.
When he finished, the class applauded, and something in his face cracked open. Pride. Real, earned pride.
For a moment, watching him grin at his classmates, I forgot about the dream. Forgot about David. Forgot about everything except this kid who'd fought so hard for something that came easy to everyone else.
This was why I did this job. This exact moment.
The feeling carried me through the rest of the morning. Through multiplication tables and a minor crisis involving spilled glue and Sofia's dramatic retelling of her weekend. For a few hours, I felt like myself again.
Then the lunch bell rang, and the adrenaline faded, and the headache I'd been ignoring since 5:17 AM came roaring back.
By lunch, I was running on fumes.
I'd planned to eat at my desk, avoid the lounge entirely, but Sofia's mom had brought homemade empanadas for the class and insisted I take some.
Eating alone in my classroom felt pathetic.
Eating with my colleagues felt worse. But the empanadas were getting cold, and my stomach had been growling since the second period.
So I settled at my usual corner table, unwrapped my food, and tried to become invisible.
Mrs. Patterson's voice reached me before I'd taken my first bite. She was by the supply cabinet today, blocking access to the coffee machine, her audience arranged around her like courtiers attending a queen.
"And Richard says if we get the promotion, we're looking at the lakefront property. It's about time we had a view that matches our lifestyle, don't you think?"
I've been running on four hours of sleep for weeks, grading papers until midnight, and waking up early to get my daughter ready for school. The headache that had been building all morning was getting worse. I pressed my fingers to my temple, trying to push the pain back.
Mrs. Patterson reached for the supply cabinet, still talking over her shoulder, still not looking where she was going.
She swung the cabinet door open without looking. It caught me hard in the temple.
The sound was sickeningly sharp. A crack that seemed to split the world in two.
White-hot sparks exploded behind my eyes. The empanada slipped from my fingers. I tried to stand, tried to catch myself on the edge of the table, but my legs weren't there anymore.
The floor rushed up to meet me.
The mess David promised you'd become, his voice whispered.
Then everything went dark.
I came back slowly.
The world arrived in pieces: the smell of something clean and woodsy, cedar maybe, or smoke. The sensation of floating. A steady warmth against my back, my shoulder, the side of my face.
I wasn't on the linoleum anymore. I was being cradled in the massive arms of a firefighter, and everyone in the lounge was staring down at me.
"Can you tell me your name?" His voice was deep and steady. I felt it vibrate through his chest and into mine. "Do you know where you are?"
His face swam into view above me: sandy blond hair, a strong jaw, blue eyes bright with focus. A small scar cut through his left eyebrow. He was holding me like I weighed nothing, one arm supporting my back, the other under my head.
"Maya Cummins," I managed. My voice came out strange.
"Good. That's good." He shifted me slightly, adjusting his grip without jostling my head. "You're in the teacher's lounge at P.S. 147. You took a hit to the temple. Do you remember what happened?"
The cabinet door. Mrs. Patterson's careless swing. The crack of wood against bone.
"Cabinet," I said. "She didn't look."
"Yeah, I saw." Something flickered in his expression. "Can you tell me what day it is?"
"Wednesday."
"Who's the president?"
I told him. He nodded, satisfied.
Around us, the lounge had erupted into whispers. I could hear them like static, fragments cutting through the fog in my head.
"Oh my god, is that—"
"It's him. It's definitely him."
Apparently, he was famous in our town, and I heard the teachers whispering his name as he lifted me off the floor.
"Shane Briggs," someone breathed.“The one from the video… and the calendar.”
The name floated past me. I didn’t follow local celebrity gossip on social media. Between lesson plans, grading, and keeping a teenager alive, I barely had time to watch the news.
He lifted me, rose to his feet with me still in his arms, and I should have protested, should have insisted I could walk, but my legs didn’t feel like mine anymore
"That's probably the closest she's been to a man since her divorce." I heard Mrs. Patterson say.
The words cut through the fog like a knife.
I flinched. Heat flooded my face as shame and anger tangled together in my chest.
Too much work, David's voice echoed again. Too much mess.
Mrs. Patterson was still laughing, that high, brittle sound she made when she knew she’d landed a hit. The other teachers were watching, waiting, ready to see what I’d do.
Heat flooded my face. I blinked hard, fighting the sting behind my eyes. Anything I said would only feed it. Anything I did would make it worse.
Shane went very still. He looked down at me in his arms and growled loud enough for all of them to hear, "Are we still on for dinner tonight at seven, Ms. Cummins? I'd hate for a little bump to ruin our plans."
The room went silent.
Mrs. Patterson's laughter had died in her throat. The whispers had stopped. Every eye in the room was fixed on us, waiting.
I stared up at him, my heart slamming against my ribs. He met my gaze. I didn't know this man. I had never seen him before in my life. But he was looking at me like this was a plan, and I was already part of it.
Maybe it was the head injury. Maybe I was hallucinating. Maybe I'd wake up any second now and find out I was still on the linoleum, dreaming about a stranger who'd defended my honor like something out of a movie.
"Seven?" I managed.
"We'll have to make a detour first." His voice was calm and steady. "I'm calling an ambulance. I could drive you myself, but head injuries are tricky. If something changes on the way, you're going to want paramedics with equipment, not just me and a truck."
"I can walk," I said, trying to push myself up.
"No." His hand pressed my shoulder back down. "You lost consciousness. You're staying down until the medics get here."
"Is that really necessary? I feel fine."
"The temple is the thinnest part of your skull. We don't gamble on head strikes." His voice was calm but left no room for argument. "You need a CT scan. It’s non-negotiable."
He lowered me gently to the floor, keeping one hand cradling the back of my head, and reached for his phone with the other.
"This is Shane Briggs, FDNY, off-duty," he said into the phone, his voice clipped and professional.
"I need a bus at P.S. 147, 4502 Eighth Avenue, Sunset Park.
Female, late twenties, blunt force trauma to the left temple, lost consciousness for roughly forty-five seconds.
She's alert and responsive now, but I need a transport for a full neuro workup.
" He paused to listen to the dispatcher.
"Copy that. We'll be at the main entrance. "
He looked up, scanning the room until his eyes landed on Mrs. Patterson, who was still frozen by the supply cabinet.
"You," he said. "She's going to need coverage for the rest of the day. Go find the principal and make it happen."
Mrs. Patterson's mouth opened. Closed. For once in her life, she had nothing to say.
She left without a word.
The ambulance ride was a blur of fluorescent lights and questions I'd already answered three times. What's your name? Do you know where you are? Can you tell me what happened?
The ER was more of the same. Triage, intake forms, a curtained bay where a tech wheeled in a machine, and told me to hold still. The CT scan was quick but loud, and by the time they rolled me back to my curtain, my head was pounding in time with my heartbeat.
I closed my eyes, just for a second. When I opened them again, Shane was there. Still in his navy FDNY shirt, sitting in the chair beside my bed like he'd been there all along.
"I'm so sorry," I said.“You really didn’t have to come. I’ve already taken up enough of your day.”
"You didn't take anything." He leaned back in the chair, easy and unhurried. "I volunteered. And besides, this is a lot better than what I had planned."
I raised an eyebrow.
"Laundry," he said.
A laugh escaped before I could stop it, and I immediately winced. Laughing hurt.