Chapter 2
Harvey
The firehouse smelled of soot, rubber, and sweat—a sharp, alive scent that stuck to my clothes and lingered under my skin.
Most people hated it. I didn’t. Not like I hated the memory that clawed beneath it, raw and insistent.
My fingers traced the cold, ridged hose rack, fingertips brushing every valve, every latch, checking twice even though I knew each one by touch.
The motion was soothing, but it didn’t quiet the memory.
Ten years had passed since that night everything broke.
Ten years since Aria Blake had walked away without a word, leaving a hollow ache lodged behind my ribs that never fully healed.
I could still see her.
The hallway dim. Too quiet.
Her dress torn at the shoulder. Fabric stretched where someone had grabbed.
Mascara streaked down her cheeks in uneven, broken lines. Not tears. Damage.
A bruise already darkening along her cheekbone.
Blood at her nose. Her lip split. Swollen.
She wouldn’t look at me.
Her hands shook. Small. Tucked close to her body like she was trying to disappear inside herself. Like the space around her wasn’t safe anymore.
I remembered how she leaned into the wall.
How she kept her eyes down.
How she sat there like she was bracing for another blow.
I hadn’t asked anything.
Hadn’t touched her.
Hadn’t moved.
I’d seen all of it. Every mark. Every fracture.
And still, I’d told myself the wrong story.
I never found out who did it.
Only that someone had.
And that I’d been standing right there when she needed me most.
Some nights, when the firehouse sank into silence, when the city sprawled beneath a quilt of amber streetlights, I climbed to the roof.
My boots scuffed against metal, cold edges biting through my uniform.
I traced the constellations, feeling the night press against my skin, the wind tugging at my hair, and there she was—the small girl by Miller’s Creek, barefoot, mud under her nails, trusting me to keep her from falling. And I had let her tumble.
The ache in my chest made my fingers curl into fists.
Women came and went like smoke—some for a night, some for weeks—but none filled the hollow that she had carved into me.
Every laugh, every touch, every fleeting connection reminded me of what I had lost and what I might never get back.
My chest still tightened, remembering the weight of her hand in mine, the tremble of her voice when she whispered, “Don’t let me fall. ” And I had.
Even now, ten years later, anger and longing coexisted in a way that twisted me up inside. Did she blame me, as I blamed myself? Did she remember, or had she erased me entirely? My jaw clenched against the bitter taste of regret.
I ran my hand along the rooftop railing, the metal cold beneath my fingertips.
I felt every heartbeat, each pulse in my veins like a warning I couldn’t ignore.
Each morning, I put on my uniform, kissed my mother on the cheek, and ran toward chaos with steady hands and a steady heart.
I saved strangers. I mended broken worlds.
Mine stayed in pieces, scattered and untouched, buried deep where only I dared to go.
And somewhere, south of guilt, past the marrow-deep regret, I kept a space for her—a space full of longing, anger, and impossible, stubborn hope. The kind of hope that refused to die. The kind that told me, even after all these years, I could still find a way back to her.