Seven Summers Later

The house was almost gone by the time we got there — smoke black as tar peeling into the sky, flames chewing through what was left of the roof. “Engine 23, secure water supply. Ladder 14, search and rescue!” Captain barked through the radio. I yanked on my mask, mind already racing through the checklist. Hose lines, exposures, where’s the collapse zone? Where are the people? That’s when I saw her. Across the lawn, just past the flashing lights, a girl knelt in the grass with an old woman in her lap. She was talking low, calm, pressing gauze to a bleeding forehead. She wore navy scrubs, hair twisted up like she used to when we were kids running around town. My heart stopped. Kaylie. She didn’t look up — too focused on the woman in her arms — but I’d know her anywhere. Same way you remember the smell of rain on hot asphalt. Some things just stick. “BEAU! You with us?” I blinked, snapping back. Turner shoved a hose line into my hands. “Yeah,” I said, voice rougher than I meant it to be. “I’m good.” We set up fast. Hydrant, lines charged, pressure checked. The whole time my eyes kept cutting back to her. She moved like she belonged here, confident, steady. EMT, maybe? I wanted to say something. Hell, I wanted to drop the nozzle and just look at her. But the fire didn’t care about old lovers, and neither did the job. I turned back to the inferno, steam hissing around us, and went to work. The hose jerked in my hands, spraying white-hot mist. I braced, muscles remembering the drill even while my mind was ten miles away. She was right there. Closer than any memory, more real than any dream I’d cursed myself with at two in the morning. Focus, dammit. Focus. Flames roared against the sky. The roof groaned, threatening to give. I dug in harder, anchoring the line, but it didn’t stop the flicker in my chest — that wild, reckless hope that maybe she hadn’t forgotten me either. ——————- The fire was almost knocked down when I caught sight of her again — standing toe-to-toe with Captain Simmons near the engine. Even from here I could see the tight line of her mouth, the furious set of her shoulders. She was arguing. Hands flying, body rigid. I couldn’t hear what she said over the crackle of the radios and the roar of the hoses, but I knew that look. Kaylie never backed down from anything she thought was right. The captain shook his head, sharp and final. Her shoulders sagged. Defeat, bitter and reluctant. She hesitated for half a second — just half — then turned and sprinted toward the burning house. My heart stopped. The second she bolted into that house, my gut twisted into a knot so tight it nearly dropped me. Every instinct screamed at me to go after her. But instincts didn’t put out fires. Focus. If I broke rank now, I’d be one more body somebody else had to pull out. One more problem instead of a solution. So I planted my boots, forced my hands to stay steady on the hose, and watched. Seconds stretched into a lifetime. The roof groaned, spitting sparks into the sky. The front window shattered outward, glass raining down like a waterfall. I sucked in a breath through my mask, willing her to come back through that door. Come on, Kaylie. Come on, baby. A flash of movement. There — the doorway — she stumbled out, arms wrapped tight around something small and wriggling. A chihuahua. Relief slammed into me hard enough to leave me dizzy. She was out. She was safe— Then her knees buckled. I saw it happen like a slow-motion car wreck — the way her body sagged, the way the dog tumbled from her arms, the way she crumpled to the ground without a sound. I ripped off my mask and helmet, tossing them without a second thought. Now — now — I could move. “Medic! We need a medic over here!” someone yelled. But I was already there, sliding into the grass beside her. Her face was streaked with soot, lips pale against the dirt. She was coughing, shallow and weak. I pressed two fingers to her throat. Pulse — fast but there. “Kay,” I rasped, my voice breaking around her name. Her eyelids fluttered. She blinked up at me, confusion knitting her brow like she wasn’t sure if I was real or just a bad dream. “It’s okay,” I said, voice low and steady like we were back in the woods behind her daddy’s farm and she’d fallen off the tire swing. “You’re okay. I got you.” A medic skidded to a stop beside us, pulling an oxygen mask free from their kit. I backed up just enough to let them work, my hands shaking harder than they should’ve been. Turner clapped a hand on my shoulder, hard. “You know her?” he asked, shouting over the chaos. I didn’t look away from her. “Yeah,” I said. “Yeah, I know her.” They worked fast — oxygen mask on, vitals checked, radio call for transport. I stayed back just enough not to be in the way, but close enough that if she so much as twitched, I’d know. She kept slipping in and out, eyelids fluttering like a moth caught against glass. Every time they told her to stay with them, she looked like she wanted to fight it — stubborn to the last. That was my girl. Still swinging even when she was flat on her back. The medic team loaded her onto the gurney, securing her with quick, practiced motions. They were already wheeling her toward the waiting ambulance when it happened. She turned her head — slow, disoriented — and her gaze snagged on me. Recognition hit her like a gut punch. Her whole body jerked, weak but frantic. I stepped closer without thinking. Close enough she could see it wasn’t smoke messing with her head. It was me. It was really me. Her hand fumbled free from the blanket, reaching — and I caught it. God, I caught it like it was the last good thing left in the world. “Kaylie,” I said, rough and low. “I’m here.” Her fingers curled into mine, tight even though she was shaking. “You…” she rasped through the oxygen mask, voice breaking. “Beau…” I squeezed her hand, my throat thick. “Yeah, baby. I got you.” The medic shot me a look — we had to move — but I couldn’t let go yet. Not until she knew. Not until she saw it written all over me — that I never stopped looking back. “You’re safe,” I told her. “I swear it, Kay. You’re safe now.” She blinked up at me, a tear sliding through the soot on her cheek, and then she was gone — eyes closing, body going slack as the medic shoved another IV into her arm and rushed her into the back of the rig. The doors slammed shut. I stood there, still clutching the empty air where her hand had been, smoke swirling around me, feeling like the boy I was the day I left her behind.