LANA
The EMTs clear me. My blood pressure is okay. My oxygen is back to normal. My pupils are, apparently, responsive. They talk around me for a long while like I’m not here. They say things like smoke inhalation, follow up with your primary and plenty of fluids tonight.
Then they ask me if I have a ride home and my focus narrows. I open my mouth on autopilot to say yes… But nothing comes out because the truth is I don't have a ride and the home part is also questionable.
I have a home in the sense most people mean it. But having a person in this town who knows my phone number well enough to come pick me up from a parking lot that smells like wet ash isn’t the same thing.
"Ma’am, any local family I can call to come get you?”
The ground starts to shift and my breathing gets shallow all over again. “No, I don’t. My parents died in a fire… Not this fire, but a fire a long time ago. It’s been just me for a very long while.” My words are a mumbled overshare that I’d never normally let slip, but I’m out of sorts.
“Oh, well, that’s okay. We can call you an Uber when you’re ready," the EMT says gently. “You can get home and take care of yourself.”
I nod. Take care of myself. That sounds about right. “Thank you.”
“Why don’t you sit for a minute, have some water?”
I nod and the EMT gets up to attend to a girl in a yellow hoodie.
It’s my cue to leave, but I don't move. Instead, I turn my attention back to Jordan, the man who saved me. I pick him out of the crowd immediately and watch him work from across the parking lot. I wasn’t hallucinating, he’s every bit the handsome hero I thought he was.
Tall with broad shoulders and deep-set dimples that could stop traffic.
There was something in Jordan’s tone that wrapped around me just like his coat I’m still wearing.
It’s got his last name, Crush, etched onto the pocket.
It's so big it almost feels like a blanket and I want to melt into it.
It smells like smoke and pine, but I have not let go of either sleeve since he put it on my shoulders.
What does it say about me that I’ve just escaped a burning building and the thing I can’t get over is the jawline of the man who rescued me?
I shake my head and try to bring myself back to reality.
On the other side of the parking lot, a young guy is working the perimeter of the tape. There’s something vaguely familiar about him, but I can’t place it. Not that recognition means much in a town this small, a few trips to the local market and everyone starts looking familiar.
The man is slim with a hoodie under his jacket.
There’s a camera against his hip and a notebook tucked into the back pocket of his jeans the way people do when they talk with their hands.
He's already gotten a wide shot of the building, a tight one of the engines, and now he's angling for the kids being checked out by EMS.
When his eyes lock on mine, it clicks. I recognize him from social media.
The algorithm knew the moment I arrived in Whispering Pines and it has been pushing his content on me ever since.
He’s a local reporter. His name is Noah Kim…
I think. From the very first video, I liked him immediately.
I also can't, under any circumstances, let him talk to me.
So when he nods his head in my direction, I turn away. The second my name goes into a news story, a teacher who re-entered the building and carried a sophomore to safety, it will be online. Online means searchable, and searchable means findable.
I have spent two years making sure I'm not findable.
It’s been two long years of a chair shoved under the doorknob at night.
A blocked phone number. A bank account in a town three hours from this one.
All of it will be for nothing the second Noah Kim points his lens at me.
I take a sip of water and when I look back I find Noah has trained his focus on someone else.
I still feel unsteady when my eyes find Jordan again without my consent.
He’s standing six feet away with his helmet off and sleeves shoved up his forearms. He’s still talking to a man in a windbreaker with FIRE INVESTIGATOR stenciled across the back.
His jaw is set. I focus on them and catch bits of the conversation.
Textbook. Accelerant. Possible arson. My blood runs cold as the word repeats in my mind.
Arson. Someone did this on purpose. It couldn’t be him, could it?
Could he have found me? Would he take it to this extreme?
My throat runs dry and I think I might be sick.
It probably has nothing to do with me… But what if it does?
How can I sleep at night without telling someone?
The conversation wraps and my heart rate is out of control.
I look back at Jordan and I know he’s going to leave soon.
I feel it in every part of my body. I rail against it.
He's going to clip his radio back on and walk to a different rig and become a man I was carried by, once, who won't remember my name in six months.
And I will go home in an Uber never having said another word to him.
Unless…
My body makes the decision before my brain has a chance to catch up. I push off the tailgate and the whole world tilts, then rights itself under my feet. An EMT says something behind me but I ignore him and walk the six feet to where Jordan is standing.
He sees me coming before I get there. He turns, the conversation cutting off mid-word, and I watch his whole body re-orient around me the way a compass needle finds north.
"Hey." His hand comes up under my elbow. "Hey, hey. Sit down, you shouldn't be —"
"Jordan, can I talk to you, please?" It comes out smaller than I mean it to.
The sunlight glistens across his tanned skin and he turns to the investigator. "Give me ten."
"Take twenty.” The investigator’s face is stony and unreadable.
Jordan guides me with a still hand under my elbow and his touch sends comfort whipping through me. We move away from the rigs and across the lot.
“I’m right over here.” He points to a black truck parked at an angle behind the engine.
“You came in your own truck?”
He opens the passenger door and helps me up into the seat like I'm something breakable. “I wasn’t on duty today, but when something like this happens, you show up.” He closes the door and walks around to the driver’s side. He peels off layers of gear before he climbs in.
The cab is warm. It smells like coffee. The windshield frames the burning shell of the only building in this town I've let myself feel safe in and I can hardly look at it. Jordan puts a gas-station coffee in my hands.
"It’s still warm, barely. But you should drink a little if you can."
I wrap both hands around the cup. I can't drink it.
But I also can't let go, my stomach ties itself in knots.
"Thanks. I uh, I have to tell you something," I say. "I don’t think it’s anything, but I heard that there is a possibility of arson and I just need one person in this town to know.
Just in case there is something to it. Just in case… "
In case he finds me again. But I can't say that part out loud.
"Take your time," Jordan says and the genuine kindness in his stare threatens to break me. “You’ve had an eventful morning.”
“That’s one way to put it. I was sort of hoping Gatsby’s adventures would be the highlight, but this tops it.”
“Boats against the current.”
“A Gatsby quote?” My eyebrows shoot up in surprise.
“I read.” He shrugs with a chuckle. “You were amazing in there today.”
I look at the coffee and let out a deep breath. “I did what anyone would do. But, I…” And then, I start talking.
Maybe it’s because of the fire. Maybe it’s because the only way out is through. Or maybe I tell him everything because some irrational, hormonal part of me wants to trust the hot firefighter that swooped me up like I weigh nothing.
But either way I tell him. I start with my ex.
I give him the full name. He should know, because there is always a chance the man will show up.
I tell him about the two years of control and mind games.
A restraining order he violated twice, both times in ways that weren't quite enough for an arrest to stick.
I tell him about the night I left and the first time he found me in a town six hundred miles away. I tell him how the second time it was eight hundred. Both times I moved within forty-eight hours. Both times it didn’t matter.
I pause. Jordan isn’t pulling away from me and he doesn’t look scared. He leans toward me and the muscles in his throat tighten. “Is that how you got here?”
“Yes, well sort of. I sat on the floor of an apartment I'd been in for three months with a packed go-bag, a laptop, and a Google map of school district openings. I closed my eyes and picked a town I'd never set foot in. Something in me picked Whispering Pines because it was the kind of name that sounded like nothing bad had ever happened in it. I have no history here. No friends. No social media trail that ends here but that doesn’t mean anything.”
“You think this jackass is connected to the fire?” His eyebrows pull together.
“I don’t know, but he hasn’t been above arson in the past and it all seems too coincidental.
” My chest tightens and I have to force my breath to steady.
I’ve lived with this weight for so long that telling someone feels like the best kind of release.
“Sorry, this is a lot. I just wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t at least mention it.
I didn’t mean to get into the weeds with all the details. I know you need to leave.”
“I want the details.” Jordan puts a hand on my forearm and sparks of electricity shoot through me. “All of them.”
So I tell him. I tell him about standing three feet back from windows and the chair I shove under the doorknob at night. I tell him about the kitchen boxes I haven't unpacked because some part of me doesn't believe I get to stay.
I watch his jaw the whole time. I wait for him to react, but he stays steady. Jordan doesn't look away from me, and he doesn't reach for the door handle. I talk as parents flood the parking lot and leave with their students in tow. I talk while first responders organize the chaos.
When I finally run out of words and go silent with my hands shaking around a cup of coffee I haven't drunk, Jordan shakes his head. Then he turns in his seat to face me fully. He takes the cup out and sets it in the console then takes my hands in his.
He looks at me and speaks with a voice so solid it brings tears to my eyes. "Three things, Lana. One, you're not alone anymore. Two, I’m not going anywhere. Three, to get to you he's going to have to come through me. And he won't."