Chapter 9 #2
Because she was Mateo's fiancée. Because I promised a dying man I'd take care of her. Because every time I look at her, I see the life my best friend should have had. Because I'm building something with her, piece by piece, and it feels like stealing. Like I'm taking what was supposed to be his.
"It just isn't."
Liam studied me. I could see him working through it. The timing, the way I'd said "complicated," the weight I was carrying that went beyond just helping someone in trouble.
"This isn't just some woman," he said slowly. "Seems like you knew her before."
The words built up in my chest, pressing against my ribs. Three years of carrying this alone. Three years of not telling anyone the whole truth.
"She was his fiancée," I finally confessed. "Lucy. She was Mateo's."
Liam went still.
"He made me promise," I continued, the words coming faster now. "The night he died. Take care of her. And I've been trying, but—"
I stopped. Couldn't finish. Saying it out loud hurt; I felt like a traitor. But I also felt that I had the right to be happy, and so did she. Mateo would have wanted that. But... would he?
Liam was quiet for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was softer. Careful.
"Mateo's been gone three years, Cal. He wouldn't want you to stop living."
The words hit somewhere deep. Somewhere I'd been building walls around for three years, brick by brick, confirming to myself it was duty, it was honor, it was the right thing to do.
"You don't know that."
"Yeah, I do." There was no hesitation in his voice.
No uncertainty. "He was my friend too, remember?
I ate his terrible cooking. I listened to his terrible jokes.
I watched him light up every time Lucy walked into the station.
" A pause. "And I know exactly what he'd say if he could see you right now, beating yourself up over something he'd want for you.
He'd say stop being an idiot and let yourself be happy. "
I wanted to believe him. God, I wanted to believe him.
Wanted to believe that Mateo would understand, would forgive, would look down from wherever he was and give me his blessing.
That easy grin of his, the one that made everyone feel like they were in on the joke.
Go for it, brother. She deserves someone good.
But wanting something didn't make it true. And the voice in my head, the one that sounded nothing like Mateo and everything like my own guilt, kept whispering: You let him die. You don't get to have this.
"I should finish these checks," I said, ending the conversation.
Liam nodded slowly. He knew a dismissal when he heard one. He'd been on the receiving end of enough of them over the years, from me and from everyone else on the crew. We all had our limits, the places we couldn't let people in. He respected that, even when he didn't agree with it.
"Door's always open, Cap." He moved toward the exit, paused with his hand on the frame. "When you're ready to talk. Or when you're not. Either way."
The door clicked shut behind him as he left.
I stood there for a long time, staring at equipment I couldn't see, hearing words I couldn't unhear.
He wouldn't want you to stop living.
Maybe. Maybe not. The dead didn't get a vote, and the living were left to guess.
The kitchen was empty when I walked in an hour later. Almost empty.
Riley was at the counter, her back to me, pouring coffee into a thermos. The overhead lights cast harsh shadows across the room, that particular fluorescent glare that made everyone look tired. She didn't turn around when I entered, but I saw her shoulders shift. She knew I was there.
"Overheard you and Murphy," she said.
I froze mid-step. "Riley—"
"I wasn't trying to." She still didn't turn around, focused on screwing the cap onto her thermos. "The vents carry sound. You want privacy around here, you gotta go sit in the engine."
I waited. Didn't know what else to do. Riley wasn't the type to gossip, wasn't the type to use information against people. But she also wasn't the type to let things go unsaid.
She finished with the thermos. Set it down. Turned to face me, leaning back against the counter with her arms crossed.
"You can't protect someone if you're too afraid to let yourself care."
Coming from anyone else, it might have sounded like advice. The kind of thing you'd read in a self-help book or hear from a therapist. From Riley, it sounded like something she'd learned the hard way. Something she was still learning.
"That easy, huh?"
"I didn't say it was easy." She held my gaze, steady and unflinching, and I saw something there I recognized.
Weight. The particular weight of loving someone you couldn't save, couldn't fix, couldn't keep safe, no matter how hard you tried.
The weight of showing up anyway, day after day, because the alternative was unthinkable.
"Just said it was necessary."
I thought about Mia. Riley's twelve-year-old sister, the one she was raising alone.
The one who waited at home while Riley ran into burning buildings, who did homework at the kitchen table while her sister worked 24-hour shifts, who was growing up too fast because life hadn't given her a choice.
I'd seen them together once, at a station family day.
Mia looking at Riley like she hung the moon.
Riley looking at Mia like she was terrified of dropping her.
I thought about how Riley never talked about their mother.
Never explained why she had custody, why a twenty-six-year-old was playing parent to a kid who should still have one.
The crew knew bits and pieces. Addiction, maybe.
Or just gone. The details didn't matter as much as the result: Riley, carrying a weight that would have broken most people, showing up every shift like it was nothing.
We all had our ghosts. We all had our weights to carry. Some of us just hid them better than others.
"How do you do it?" I asked. The question came out before I could stop it. "Care about someone when you know you could lose them?"
Riley picked up her thermos. Headed for the door. She moved like she always did, efficient and unhurried, like she had all the time in the world and none to waste.
She paused with her hand on the frame. Didn't turn around.
"You just do," she said. "Because the alternative is worse."
She left. The door swung shut behind her, and the kitchen settled back into silence. Just me and the hum of the refrigerator and the echo of words I didn't know what to do with.
The alternative is worse.
I thought about Lucy. About the way she looked at me when I brought her tea, like I'd given her something precious.
About the way she laughed when we talked about Mateo, surprised by her own joy.
About the way she fit against me when I held her, like she'd been waiting her whole life for someone to hold on to.
I thought about the alternative. Going back to the way things were. Passing her in the hallway without speaking. Listening to her cry through the walls and doing nothing. Keeping the promise from a distance, the way I'd been doing for three years, and calling it enough.
Riley was right. The alternative was worse.
The question was whether I was brave enough to admit it.
End of shift. The sun was coming up, painting the mountains gold and pink through the station windows. I should have gone home. Should have showered, slept, done any of the normal things you did after a 24-hour shift.
Instead, I found myself standing in front of the memorial wall again.
Mateo's name was right where it always was. Brass letters on a brass plate, catching the early light. I'd stood here a hundred times over the past three years. Never touched it. Never let myself get that close.
This time, my fingers found the engraving.
The metal was cold under my fingertips. I traced the letters of his name, the way I'd traced the lines of a thousand incident reports, the way I'd traced the route to Lucy's building every day for six months.
"I don't know what I'm doing, brother."
My voice came out rough. Quietly. The kind of voice you use when you're talking to someone who can't answer back.
"I thought I knew what you wanted. I thought keeping the promise meant staying away. Watching from a distance. Making sure she was safe without ever letting her know I was there."
Silence. Of course. The dead can't answer, no matter how much you need them to.
"But I can't do that anymore. I can't be across the hall and pretend I don't hear her crying. I can't make her coffee and not think about how she smiles when I get it right. I can't sit next to her on the couch and not want—"
I stopped. Swallowed hard.
"I think you'd understand," I said finally. "I think maybe you'd want this. Want her to be happy. Want me to be happy." A pause. "I hope you would, anyway. Because I don't know how to stop anymore."
No answer. No sign. No voice from beyond telling me I was right or wrong, forgiven or damned.
But something loosened in my chest. Not absolution. Not quite permission.
There was just me, and the smallest crack in the wall I'd built around myself.
I'd spent three years believing the promise meant keeping my distance. Staying in the shadows. Watching over her without ever really being there.
But what if I'd had it wrong?
What if the promise wasn't about protecting her from a distance—but about making sure she wasn't alone?