Enough

by Matthew J. Metzger

  There was no enough. Now there never would be.

  He dressed in a numb haze. He deleted the rest of Ezra’s texts, too scared to read them, and headed out into the five-thirty world with no care for the clear sky, that washed-out pale shade of blue that said it was early morning even after the sun had risen. It was a warm morning, but Jesse didn’t care. A pleasant breeze ghosted through his hair and plucked his collar, but he didn’t notice. His thoughts were on Ezra, and his mind strayed away to the little house around the corner as he passed by the cul-de-sac on the main road, twisting despite himself to glance at the closed curtains and silent car, just visible near the end. Flopsy’s dark shape was upright and majestic on the gatepost.

  Jesse’s heart lurched at the thought of never going back, or going back only to have a box of his spare things shoved into his arms and be dismissed with a cold look and an icy word.

  He felt sick all over again.

  “You look like shit,” Alan said the moment Jesse walked in, at three minutes to six.

  “Up all night,” Jesse said.

  “Doesn’t look like it was for the right reasons.” Pete whistled, and ducked away when Jesse glowered at him. “Sorry, mate, just sayin’.”

  “Well, don’t,” Jesse snapped, tossing his bag into his locker and hauling out his kit.

  “You can sit and stew in the back, then,” Alan grumbled. “They want us cruising. Reckon we’re due.”

  “We are,” Pete said flatly. “Not been a good blaze since Dawkins and Henley got themselves smashed up.”

  “I’d like to keep it that way,” Alan said, but it was a stupid dream.

  Still, Jesse liked cruising. It kept his mind on the banter around him. It was his first proper shift since the accident, and Mac hadn’t come back yet, still waiting for his skin grafts to heal fully, so Jesse got the lot, both barrels in the face, and he wanted it. Badly. It would take his mind off the mess he’d just made of his personal life, of what he’d said and done in the living room of that little house around the corner, and maybe in the break, he could dare to hope.

  His hope was shaken when Ezra texted at eight o’clock, though.

  Ezra <3: Come over at four-thirty. We need to talk.

  No kiss. No endearment. No request to stay safe. Cold, clinical, detached.

  We need to talk.

  “Dawkins, box the phone,” Alan grunted.

  Jesse stuffed it in the box where they kept all phones in the truck, and swallowed.

  “I fucked up last night,” he confessed.

  “Don’t wanna hear about you fucking last night, thanks,” Ryan cut in immediately, and a general jeer went up.

  “Fucked up, you tosser, open your ears,” Jesse grumbled, smacking him around the back of the head.

  “Same shit,” Pete protested.

  “It’s not,” Jesse said, and swallowed. “I think I’m single again.”

  “Oh shit.” Pete grimaced. “Sorry, mate. You were keen on that one, weren’t you?”

  “If you only think, you know, maybe it’s not,” Ryan offered awkwardly.

  “You know,” Pete said. “If the missus is mad at me, I go all out—flowers, jewellery, cards, the lot. Offer to cook. Everything. That’ll sort you out!”

  “Yeah, ’cept for the bit where his missus is a bloke,” Ryan interrupted, and Alan shook his head.

  “I run a team of fuckin’ gossipy harpies and girls,” he said severely. “What God did I piss off, eh?”

  “Well,” Pete started, then the radio cut in, chattering like a monkey on speed.

  A moment later, the sirens were on and Alan was turning a thirteen-tonne vehicle in the time and space usually required by a three-tonne vehicle, and the banter was abandoned as they scrambled to don their gear. Car crash. Possible fatalities. Police en route, ambulance only just launched from the A&E across town, four vehicles involved. A cruncher, as Pete would call it, when he wasn’t being serious and shrugging on his jacket.

  “Usual pairings!” Alan snapped as they barrelled along the road, ploughing through traffic barely parting fast enough for them, and Jesse forced his life aside, the adrenaline flooding his system and soothing his nerves.

  That was, until he jumped down from the truck as it screeched to a halt behind the grisly scene of crumpled cars stinking of burnt rubber and spilled oil, and stopped dead, his brain stalling at the sight in front of him.

  A car had crossed the central reservation and across a lane of traffic. It was a crushed, mangled heap, its bonnet buried in the front of a blue car, and both passenger-side doors were crushed from the impact of a Jeep into its side. A fourth car had rear-ended the Jeep, and a woman inside it was screaming. Jesse could see blood, the shimmer of heat off exposed engines, the coughing grumble of one car still attempting to turn its engine over, and the hiss of rapidly cooling petrol. Glass and metal were strewn across the road and passers-by gawped and took pictures but made no attempt to help. A police car had screamed up on the opposite side and two coppers were just jumping out, but Jesse couldn’t move. It was his job, technically, to liaise with them, but he couldn’t move.

  Because in the middle of the smash sat the crumpled remains of a very familiar Peugeot 207.

  Chapter Ten

  His heart stopped—then it jumped, the adrenaline spiking in his system like cool water flooding his veins.

  “Pete, with me!” he roared, and was moving without feeling it, sprinting the thirty metres across the skid-streaked road towards the crumpled mess that was the remnants of Ezra’s car.

  It had been hit dead-on, the bonnet less than two feet in length, the driver’s door crumpled and battered in its now-crooked space. The windscreen was cracked and webbed, but intact. The white flash of the airbag obscured the steering wheel and was streaked red with blood.

  “Casualty!” Jesse dimly heard Pete bellow over his shoulder, then Tony was shuffling into place to pop the stuck door.

  “Shit, Dawkins, is that—?”

  “Get me that fucking ambulance,” Jesse replied harshly, and the door burst open with a bang.

  The car barely shuddered with the violent motion, still snaked and bound to the other wreck, where Ryan and Alan were popping the other door, and very noticeably not calling for medical assistance. But Ezra was alive, Jesse realised in the same second, slumped over the airbag in a boneless heap, but for his face.

  His face was twisted in agony, eyes screwed shut and sweat standing out on his forehead in huge cold beads.

  “Sir—” Tony began, new to the crew and ignorant of most of their personal lives.

  “Ez,” Jesse interrupted, and Pete was dismissing Tony to check the second vehicle with Ryan and the boss. “Ez, sweetheart, it’s me.”

  Ezra took a shuddering gasp, a hand shakily wavering up from the steering wheel. There was something off, horribly off, about the way he sat, and yet Jesse’s brain refused to compute it. The driver’s recess was crushed into a third of its usual space, Ezra’s legs entirely hidden by—

  Oh, Jesus. Oh, holy sweet Jesus.

  The steering column had collapsed onto his thighs, and the crumple zone had not been enough to stop half the car’s guts from being forced backwards like a sandcastle before the tide. His legs would be crushed.

  “Okay.” Jesse caught the hand and squeezed it tightly. “Ezra, listen to me. The ambulance is coming. Your engine is off, the car has stopped moving and the road’s closed. There’s no further risk from the car, you hear me?”

  Ezra squeezed his hand until the bones creaked, and didn’t say a word. His eyes were still closed. His breathing was coming in rapid, jerky pants.

  “Pete,” Jesse whispered.

  “On it,” Pete said, and slipped away to tell the boss and flag down the first arriving ambulance. In the car that had smashed into Ezra’s, Jesse could see Ryan unfurling a foil blanket and draping it over the destroyed driver’s side.

  Dead.

  “Ez,” Jesse lowered his voice. “Look at me, baby.”
/>
  Ezra was gasping. Jesse dared to rest a hand as gently as possible on his bloodied hair and rubbed a thick lock of the irrepressible blond between his thumb and finger.

  “I’m right here, baby,” he whispered, glad Pete had retreated to a safe distance. They couldn’t proceed until the ambulance arrived anyway. He would need cutting out, but with his legs smashed under the weight of the engine block, he might bleed to death within minutes of being freed if they didn’t have paramedics on standby. There was nothing to do until those distant sirens were on top of them. “Look at me, sweetheart. I’m right here.”

  Ezra’s eyes opened to thin slits, but he wasn’t really looking. He sucked in a deep breath, hissed, coughed and began to gasp again.

  “J’ss…Jess, pl’se,” he whimpered, and Jesse squeezed his hand tightly.

  “Just breathe, sweetheart,” he urged, pitching his voice low and gentle, like they taught in first aid courses. He knew shock when he saw it. “Nice and slow. Once the ambulance gets here, we’ll get you out of the car. And I promise, I will not go anywhere until you’re on that stretcher and safe. All right?”

  Ezra just squeezed his hand again. The sirens were close, and Jesse could hear the attending police shouting it in their direction. A shadow fell over his shoulder, and he glanced up into Alan’s grizzled face.

  “How we doing?” he grumbled.

  Ezra didn’t react to his voice in the slightest.

  “Shock and unknown leg injuries,” Jesse said shortly, trying to find the phraseology that wouldn’t panic Ezra more than he already was. “Steering column,” he settled for eventually, and Alan nodded.

  “You stay here,” he said gruffly, and Jesse was struck with the urge to kiss him. Which had never happened before and was a little disturbing.

  “You hear that?” he murmured as Alan moved away. “Boss’ orders, I have to stay here and hold your hand all the way through this. And I will get you through this, Ez, I promise.”

  “I can’t do it, Jess, pl’se, God, get me out, pl’se—”

  He was slurring, his voice rapid and panicky, and Jesse cupped his wrist to feel for a pulse. It hammered under his fingers, thready and erratic.

  “Ssh,” he soothed again, squeezing his hand again when Ezra whimpered. “I know you’re in pain, baby, and I know this is like your worst fucking nightmare and I can’t wake you up this time, but I’m here.”

  “M’sorry.”

  “What?”

  “F’Liam,” Ezra whispered, eyes screwed shut again. “I’m sorry, m’sorry, so sorry, Jess, didn’t think how it’d look to you—”

  “No, Ezra, ssh, stop it. I’m sorry too. And you’re right, we need to talk, and I was going to come over tonight, I swear, sweetheart, but right now, we don’t think about fighting, all right?” Jesse urged desperately. “I’ll get you through this. I know I’ve been awful lately, but you do trust me, don’t you?”

  Ezra squeezed his hand tightly, eyes half-open and gazing at him as though peering through a heavy fog. “Mhmm,” he murmured, then blinked rapidly.

  “Stay with me, sweetheart,” Jesse coaxed softly, cupping the exposed cheek.

  “M’scared, Jess.”

  “I’m not going to let anything happen,” Jesse promised.

  “What have we here, then?”

  A cheery paramedic with red hair in a jaunty ponytail and a round, motherly sort of face appeared at Jesse’s shoulder, snapping her gloves on and taking in the scene with a professional flick of the eyes.

  “Looks like you’ve got yourself in a bit of a mess, eh, lovey?” she asked cheerfully, elbowing Jesse aside. Tony had popped the door right off, though, and Jesse was able to crouch by the twisted front wheel and still hold Ezra’s hand, stroking up to his elbow when Ezra whimpered at the movement.

  “I’m right here,” he repeated gently, and looked to the paramedic. “Name’s Ezra Pryce, twenty-five. Steering column’s collapsed on his legs, can’t tell if the engine block is involved as well.”

  “Adjustable column?”

  “Yep.”

  “And you two know each other or not?” she asked, wrapping a blood pressure cuff around the outstretched arm.

  “B’yfriend,” Ezra suddenly croaked, clutching Jesse’s fingers tightly. “Pl’se—need’m, pl’se—”

  His voice had dropped back into a near-impenetrable slur, and from his new vantage point, Jesse could see the edge of a vicious cut on Ezra’s forehead, sticking his face to the airbag with half-dried blood.

  “It’s all right, lovey, long as he doesn’t get in my way then he’s quite all right to sit here with us,” the paramedic said cheerfully. Her jaunty attitude was clearly part of the job. “My name’s Ellie, and the hulk over here is Rob. I need to take your blood pressure and oxygen levels, get a nice little recording of what your heart’s up to in there, and work out the best way to help you out, lovey, because you’ve obviously hurt your legs and I’ll bet your back’s smarting a fair bit, too.”

  It hit Jesse then, when she said that, why Ezra’s position had looked so off. The driving seat had retained most of its original position, the steering column rammed into the seat where Ezra’s knees would have been, and yet he was sagging forward as though the bend in his spine to let him rest his head on the airbag was in his lower back, not his upper back. An unnatural bend, even for a yoga enthusiast.

  A cold fear prickled in Jesse’s stomach.

  “Can you tell me what happened, Ezra?” Ellie asked loudly, stroking back some of his bloodied hair and pulling down each eyelid one at a time to shine a penlight into his eyes. One pupil contracted sharply. The other didn’t.

  “Don’t—I don’t—”

  His breathing began to pick up again, but Ellie was not for the flustering.

  “That’s all right, lovey, perfectly normal, don’t worry,” she soothed, and the death grip on Jesse’s fingers eased fractionally. “What’s your boyfriend’s name?”

  “J’ss.”

  “Speak up for me a bit, lovey.”

  “Jesse.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “D’wkins.”

  She glanced aside at Jesse and he nodded.

  “Do you know why he’s here?”

  “Fire service,” Ezra mumbled, and tugged his hand in towards himself, refusing to let go of Jesse’s palm. “Jess? M’legs hurt, Jess.”

  “I’m not surprised, lovey,” Ellie said briskly. “Try and slow down your breathing for me, eh? I don’t want you hyperventilating in there.”

  Instead of calming, it sped up again, and Ezra closed his eyes again, screwing his face up and turning slightly into the airbag and the padded steering wheel under his face.

  “He’s claustrophobic,” Jesse said tightly, and leaned over her to touch Ezra’s hair and whisper in his ear again. “Ez, it’s all right, babe. I know it hurts, but I need you to keep calm for a little bit longer, all right? The sooner Ellie can tell me what’s wrong with your legs, the sooner Pete and I can bust you out of here, okay?”

  “While you’re up there,” Ellie interrupted briskly, handing a fabric neck brace to him, “fasten that around his neck. He’ll have whiplash at the very least. Then I’ll need you out so Rob and I can brace his back.”

  “No!”

  It was the clearest thing Ezra had said yet, and Jesse’s fingertips bloomed blue as the grip turned from hard to vice-like.

  “Okay, Ez, ssh,” Jesse urged. “Ellie,” he said over his shoulder. “Yell for Tony, would you?”

  She had a set of lungs on her. Moments later, Tony was hovering anxiously, shifting on his feet.

  “Tony, pop the passenger door off for me,” Jesse said. “And get started on getting that bloody Nissan off the front of this car.” They would have to unprise the column, the driver’s seat and the engine block to get Ezra out, and Jesse had a fair idea that it would be twice as hard and twice as painful for Ezra if they didn’t get the two vehicles untangled first.

  “Boss already
has us on it,” Tony said, and mouthed, “Two dead,” before disappearing around the other side of the car. The wrenching sound of the door being prised open was deafening from the inside of the Peugeot, and Ezra let out a choked sob, face creasing even further.

  “Just one moment,” Jesse soothed, then the passenger door was wrenched off, and Tony gave him a thumbs-up in the gap before returning to the work on the ruined Nissan. Untangling a multi-car wreck felt like it took seconds, usually. Now, it felt like hours.

  The next twenty minutes were nothing short of painful. The paramedics worked feverishly to get Ezra braced and ready to be moved the moment it was possible. His rising awareness, and therefore rising panic, kept Jesse anchored on the torn mess of the passenger seat, squeezing his upper body into the small recess to hold Ezra’s other hand and murmur reassurances under Ellie’s questions of what hurt, what he could feel and whether he’d ever injured his back before. Ezra’s panic ebbed and surged in waves. His strangled gasps turned into screams twice, and broken pleas a half-dozen times, begging Jesse not to go, begging Ellie to help him, even begging the God he didn’t believe in to save him, and Jesse had never seen anything so horrific in his whole damn life.

  Then the car started to groan.

  Ezra seized up with a gasp. Jesse forced himself farther across the space and pushed a hand across that fine blond hair, clumped with rusty splotches of now-dried blood. It hurt to see Ezra so panicky, and Jesse had never appreciated before how terrifying this must be for the driver. He squeezed Ezra’s hand tightly, mindless of the scratches along his arm, and exchanged anxious looks with Ellie as the front of the car screamed, the Nissan finally being pulled back enough to allow them to spread the Peugeot back out.

  “Can’t breathe, J’ss, I can’t breathe,” Ezra whispered frantically, and Jesse hushed him and kissed his knuckles.