by Shey Stahl
“It’s okay,” I cry against his shoulder.
Thrusting inside me, I can understand what he’s trying to do, in part. He cares for me, but he’s not in a place in his life where he can offer me what I want, though I haven’t told him what I want.
Threading my fingers through his hair, I try to give him what I can. My understanding.
His tongue slides across my collarbone, my legs lifting to wrap around his waist.
At my touch, Caleb shudders, kissing down my neck as he rocks into me with slow, languid movements that set my nerves a blaze.
Drawing back, he swallows, his chest heaving with a breath, the muscles in his throat working as the tears still flow. I don’t think he can stop them now and it breaks my heart that he can’t.
“Mila,” he whispers, his lips close to my ear. It’s two more thrusts inside me before his body shakes, his mouth returning against my lips as we share his whiskey breaths. His hands, his lips, the ones that have touched me so intensely over the last month, hold me in place as he comes inside of me.
Breathing heavily against my ear, he holds himself still, gripping my hips so hard they begin to hurt.
I let my hand drift up to the side of his face, running my fingertips along the edge of his cheek. For a spilt second, his eyes open to me. I want to see warmth and connection reach his eyes, and when I don’t see it, a hint of fear pricks at my skin because all there is sadness. His lids fall shut again as he kisses me harder, pouring emotions he says he doesn’t have into them. Under the sadness, there’s vulnerability he doesn’t want.
When he’s finished, he pulls out and a sudden loss washes over me. He shifts above me, severing our connection.
And then he pukes. On me.
AN HOUR LATER, Caleb’s a mess and on the bathroom floor puking his guts out. Poor guy. He looks worse by the hour, and I don’t know whether to rub his back, call 911, rock myself and cry, or sit with him. Instead, I sit on the floor in the hallway.
His phone keeps ringing and dinging and I’m curious who keeps calling him.
I don’t know whether I should look.
Maybe I can just peek and make sure everything’s okay. That’s not an invasion of privacy. It’s just me making sure there’s no emergency.
At least this is what I tell myself when I reach for his phone in his jeans on the floor.
With my stealthy phone-snatching skills, I grab it and hold it up as the screen lights.
There are fifteen missed calls and a number of text messages. Most are from Jacey, but there’re a couple from Owen, the chief, and Gavin.
Jacey’s been the one texting him the most so I click on her name.
Jacey: Are you ok? Text me back, asshole!
Jacey: Seriously, CALEB! Are you dead? If you’re dead, I hate you for leaving me alone in all this.
I should let her know he’s okay. He’s clearly not okay, but at least he’s breathing still, so we have that going for us.
Dropping the phone slightly, I stare at Caleb for a moment. He’s in the same position on the floor, his left arm sprawled out, the right over his head. I watch his stomach, making sure he is in fact breathing.
It rises and falls rapidly.
Good.
Holding the phone up again, I click on the last message Jacey sent and hit Reply.
Me: Jacey, it’s Mila. Caleb’s passed out on my bathroom floor. He’s fine.
And then I wait. It’s like three in the morning, but those tiny blue message dots pop up immediately and dance around indicating she’s typing. And then they stop. They stop and start a few times before she replies.
Jacey: Thank God! Fuck, I was so worried about him. Don’t let him drink and drive.
Me: I won’t. He’s in no condition to even move from the floor.
Jacey: K. Thanks for letting me know.
Me: You’re welcome.
I know her relationship with Evan, and I want to tell her how sorry I am, but I don’t.
Setting Caleb’s phone back down on the floor, I’m not sure what to do next, so I find my place in the hallway again. It’s safer out there because I do not want to be puked on again.
Scarlet comes home about an hour later, and by the lack of lighting, she trips over me on the way to her bedroom.
After face-planting, she looks back at me with her angry eyes as she peels herself from the floor. “Mila, what are you doing?”
I use the wall to sit up and cross my legs while keeping my eyes on Caleb. “Making sure he doesn’t die.”
She peeks around the corner into the bathroom to see Caleb half-naked and sprawled out on the bathroom floor like he’s dead. He’s even in one of those really weird crime scene positions that if you were to draw a line around his body, it’d be used on CSI.
“What’s wrong with him?”
“Brother died.”
She gasps. “Oh shit. Really?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck.”
“I know.”
I hate this. I hate that I can’t take away his pain.
I WATCH HIM all night, refusing to sleep because I’m afraid he’s going to choke on his vomit and die, and I can’t have that happening.
“You’re still here,” he says, trying to sit up but failing, his voice worse. He manages to push himself against the tub and uses it for support.
His words “You’re still here,” make me sad, because despite whatever it is we were, I could never leave this man, especially when he needs me the most.
“Where else would I be?” I ask and then give a small grin. “This is kinda of where I live.”
He runs his hands through his hair. “With someone who’s not fucked up,” he mumbles, and I know in a way, that’s a hit at me.
“What if I like fucked up?”
Caleb’s brow pulls together, scanning my face. “That’s what scares me.”
I stare at him, wanting the truth. We haven’t spoken since that night in the hotel. Then he comes here after his brother dies, fucks me, pukes on me and then passes out.
Where does all this leave us?
“Why’d you come here?”
“I was drunk,” he replies casually. His callous reply hurts, but I remain silent.
He stares at me for the longest time, a battle of silent communication, one I don’t win. I don’t say anything. I don’t know what I want to hear. Maybe that he cares, that he came here for me, but I know it’d be a lie even if he did say it.
“What? Isn’t that what you want to hear?” he asks, moving from his place on the floor and reaching for his shirt, swaying. “Does it make you feel better?”
“No, it doesn’t,” I reply, voice shaking.
“Well, then, you have your answer.”
The truth is, Caleb’s lying. He didn’t just come here because he was drunk. He needed me, in whatever way I was going to allow it. And I allowed him to fuck me.
I swallow against the lump in my throat. Taking a deep breath, and then another, I gain the courage I need to ask, “What are we doing?”
“What are we doing?” His tense tone lets me know he doesn’t want to talk about us. He never wants to talk about it. And as always, he’s very much in control of the conversation and can twist it the way he wants. “That’s really a question you want me to answer right now?”
And then he surprises me and stands before me, his palms out. I stand with him, and he draws me into his chest. He smells so bad, but I still hug him.
“I have to go.” His voice is barely above a whisper, as if he’s not sure he wants me to hear him.
“I know you do,” I admit. “I’m really sorry about Evan.”
He nods, but doesn’t say anything, distance stealing his heat from me and his presence in the room as he leaves. Again.
Lust and desire, they’re dangerous. They seduce your mind then lead you to the edge of a cliff blindfolded and expect you not to fall off the edge.
I think I jumped off the motherfucker.
Vapor Supres
sion
Process of reducing the amount of flammable or other hazardous vapors, from a flammable liquid, mixing with air, typically by careful application of a foam blanket on top of a pool of material.
Every morning I wake since Evan’s death, nothing changes for me. I’m stuck in a cycle of waking and existing in the presence of others.
Jacey, she’s in the same existence. Surviving but surrendered to a loss controlling her.
“I wonder what he was thinking.” Jacey’s voice trembles with each word as she stares out the window of the car. “Is it normal to wonder about that?”
I glance at her, but don’t offer much in the way of support besides, “It’s normal to wonder what the last few seconds were like for him.”
She looks at me, kind of stunned, kind of relieved.
“It’s natural.” I nod, trying to convince her and lean in so she can hear me. “I’ll tell you something though,” I whisper in her ear. “He was thinking of you.”
As odd as it sounds, I wonder if he knew he was going to die. Was there a moment when he thought to himself, I’m not making it out of here alive?
I remember thinking it that day, but when the flames swallowed him, did he suffer? We didn’t know the cause of death just yet, but I assumed smoke inhalation secondary to the burns covering his body. When the flames reached him, he was still alive, so that meant he suffered.
Nobody wants to die, firefighters included. There’s this myth that we die so others can live. Well, we take risks rescuing people if and only if there’s a chance we will come out alive. No firefighter who dies in a fire does so willingly. That’s a fucking slap in our face if you say that. Evan didn’t want to die. I promise you he didn’t.
What happened in that building shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and we’re forced to accept it.
I still say Evan died a hero. He saved that child. The two-year-old in his arms. His older brother who happened to be the exact same age my brother Wyatt had been at the time of the fire that took my family. Six.
Coincidence?
Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to think about it in terms of being a coincidence. It’s just fucked up.
I’m know nothing will bring him back. Nothing will bring my parents back or Jacey’s parents, and thinking about all the ways it could have been prevented won’t help.
As devastating as that is, it’s a reality and a concept I understood early on.
Death happens. It’s a reality of life and death and something I see every day. It’s nearly always unexpected, no matter how well you prepare yourself for it.
Owen’s twin sister died of cancer two years ago. He knew for four months she would die from the cancer eating her body, but it still didn’t prepare him for the devastation of the day it happened, the day it finally took the breath from her lungs and left her no longer in pain.
It took Owen an entire month to come back to work, and I didn’t blame him one bit. You can’t prepare your heart for loss and I think the more you try to, the harder the loss is because the feeling is entirely different than what you imagine it to be.
Death changes your way of life. It can be as subtle as a song suddenly having a different meaning to a missing person at the dinner table. Like it or not, the change isn’t always good. Sometimes it’s scary, overwhelming, unbearable . . . but you have to accept the change because if you don’t, you’re stuck. Never moving forward, always grieving your loss and the change you never saw coming.
Sadly, I hadn’t realized Evan’s impact on me until he was gone. Until the guy two days older than me who used to sit on the roof with me at night and point to the stars, tell me my family was there with me, was now with them.
It’s the day of the funeral, and I’m in a limo with Mila and Jacey on the way to the church. Mila’s in a black dress next to me, holding my hand, being there for me when all I’ve ever done is constantly push her away.
I can’t tell if she hates me. She should, but she’s looking at me like she either wants to punch me in the face or kiss me. Maybe both.
It’s my brother’s funeral. The day we bury him. The day he’ll be forever part of the dirt as Finn so elegantly put it this morning. And all I can think about is why Mila won’t look at me. She’s been staring out the window the entire drive.
I bet she’s mad about the other night. I feel bad. Who shows up at your apartment, fucks you for an hour and then proceeds to throw up all night long?
Me. I do that shit.
“I’m sorry about the other night,” I whisper in her ear after a few minutes, hoping my apology means something. The way the words shake, I think they do, but I’m not sure she takes them the way they’re delivered. “And for the way I behaved at the hotel that night.”
I wonder if she knows I can literally count the number of times I’ve said I’m sorry on one hand?
Mila regards me silently but then looks out the window again. “I know you are, Caleb.”
Does she or is she just saying it because she thinks I need to hear it?
Sometimes I wonder what the hardest part is of someone dying. I think moving on is because you’re accepting the fact they’re gone.
And that’s what it’s about, right? Acceptance of what happened?
Accepting the fact that they’re gone.
In the beginning, when all you have is shock, it’s scary because it’s a change you never wanted, yet here you’re forced to accept it.
It’s not easy. No one said it would be.
When you lose someone close to you, the news, while devastating, has a way of festering. Like an infection, it starts out painful, sharp and radiating. Then it takes over, and you can’t move or so much as breathe without thinking about it. And then you get medication, because without it, then what?
So let’s say in this case the medication is the funeral. It should offer closure, maybe the only closure you’ll get.
Sure, it will never take away the pain of them being gone, but the initial shock, the pain, the redness of the infection, in time, it fades. It may not feel like it, but it is.
I know from experience the pain doesn’t last forever. It can’t.
Jacey knows too.
In the week since he died, every night I’ve had the same dream. It’s one where I wake up in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and crying. It’s the one where Evan is in flames, and I’m walking away from him. It’s an image I can’t shake.
At the church, faces and voices all contain the same stoic tone, one that conveys their grief, but I don’t want to hear what everyone says, and I know damn well Jacey doesn’t either. Everyone offers condolences and shit that doesn’t matter. I don’t want to hear “We’re sorry for your loss,” or “Everything happens for a reason.”
Fuck that shit. Fuck you for saying it. Everything doesn’t happen for a reason. Everything is fucked up.
Inside the church, my mind goes blank.
As a firefighter, you never want to attend another firefighter’s funeral.
It makes the possibility of it happening to you and your family real. You see it. You see the family suffering and know that it could have been you. Death is suddenly right there in your face, taunting you, reminding you just how precariously you’re balancing on the edge of disaster.
The heartache in the church is suffocating, filled with an agony so excruciating that it can’t be relieved by anything I’m about to say. The pain is unyielding, a merciless torture that won’t let up, because with every breath, I know he’s no longer taking one, but as I look at his picture of him in his Class A uniform next to his casket, I’m proud to have been his brother. Regardless of the differences we had, I’m a better person for having known him.
Soon Evan will be laid to rest. Buried. And soon people will forget him. But not us. Not me, not Jacey, not my parents or any of the guys at Station 25.
THE PROCESSION IS silent. Nobody says a word during the journey from the church to the cemetery.
I’ve never experienced silence like that. Not since they pulled his body from the fire.
Just when I thought we couldn’t possibly hurt anymore, the flag that represents freedom and reverence is carried through crossed ladders, and the casket caring my parent’s first born son, my hero and Jacey’s love, is loaded on the back of an apparatus and taken to the final resting ground.
Left holding a helmet, a badge, and triangle of material that showed his contribution and loyalty to a life that gave very little back, my mother cries, sobbing into my father’s chest. There’s a pain in this world that will never touch another.
Losing a child.
Slowly, a set of blue eyes find mine and tears spill over her cheeks.
I’m careful not to react in any way when Mila’s watching me. I don’t want her to see the fear in mine that someday this could be me and would she be the one left holding my helmet?
When they do the bell service, my chest shakes, but I don’t cry. Maybe I can’t anymore.
A bell service is the last alarm for a firefighter as they’re called home.
“We will now ring the bell for Firefighter Ryan,” Chief Davidson’s says, holding back his own emotions. “The bell recalls a time when the firefighter is called to service and then again to signal the alarm has ended. For our comrade, Firefighter Evan Jacob Ryan, last alarm. He is coming home.”
They ring the bell, the sound piercing the rush of sobs that follow and then recite the firefighter’s prayer.
“When I am called to duty, God, wherever flames may rage, give me strength to save a life, whatever be its age. Help me embrace a little child before it is too late, or save an older person from the horror of that fate. Enable me to be alert, and hear the weakest shout, quickly and efficiently to put the fire out. I want to fill my calling, to give the best in me, to guard my friend and neighbor, and protect his property. And if according to your will I must answer death’s call, bless with your protecting hand, my family one and all.”