Chapter Eighteen: The Call That Never Came
1307 Words
Harper
Gavin didn’t call.
At first, that meant nothing.
Calls ran long. Reports had to be completed. Sometimes he returned to the station covered in soot and too exhausted to speak until he had showered.
So I waited.
At seven, I reheated the soup I had made.
At eight, I sent him a message.
**Are you back yet?**
At nine, I called.
His phone rang until the voicemail answered.
“Hey, it’s me.” I tried to sound casual. “Just checking that you’re okay. Call me when you can.”
I placed the phone beside my plate and stared at it.
Ten minutes later, I called again.
Then again.
By ten, the soup had gone cold.
I opened the local news page on my laptop and searched for fires.
The first report was short.
**Two-alarm residential fire. One civilian transported. Firefighter rescue operation ongoing.**
Ongoing.
That meant they were still inside.
I refreshed the page.
Nothing changed.
I told myself Gavin was busy. That he was helping. That his phone was in the engine and he would laugh when he finally saw how many times I had called.
At ten twenty-three, the article updated.
**Fire department officials have confirmed that one firefighter was seriously injured during a structural collapse.**
My hands went cold.
No name.
No station number.
No photograph.
I called Gavin again.
Voicemail.
I called the firehouse.
No one answered.
The key hanging around my neck pressed against my skin as I stood too quickly and knocked over the chair.
I didn’t stop to pick it up.
---
The street outside the firehouse was crowded with vehicles when I arrived.
Not emergency vehicles.
Personal cars.
People were entering through the side door in small groups. Some wore station shirts. Others were dressed in ordinary clothes, their faces pale and tight.
No one was talking loudly.
The bay doors were closed.
I ran toward the entrance.
A firefighter I had seen at the charity event stood beside the door. He recognized me immediately.
His expression made my steps slow.
“Where’s Gavin?”
He looked away.
“Where is he?”
“Harper—”
“Is he at the hospital?”
The man swallowed.
“You shouldn’t be here right now.”
I stared at him.
The sentence didn’t make sense.
“I asked where he is.”
He lowered his voice. “The family is inside.”
The family.
Not *his* family.
The family.
The people who belonged there.
My lungs stopped working correctly.
“Is Natalie here?”
He nodded.
“The children?”
His silence answered.
I gripped the strap of my purse.
“Why are they here?”
“Harper.”
“No.” I shook my head. “Tell me where Gavin is.”
The side door opened behind him.
Marcus stepped outside.
He looked different without his usual grin. Older. His eyes were red, and there was soot embedded in the lines of his face.
The firefighter at the door moved away.
Marcus stood in front of me.
I waited for him to say Gavin was injured.
That he was in surgery.
That I had to wait somewhere else because Natalie had the legal right to be beside him.
I would have accepted any of those answers.
“Harper,” he said quietly. “I’m sorry.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
His face tightened.
“No,” I repeated. “You don’t know what I’m asking.”
“I know.”
“He promised to call.”
The words came out broken.
Marcus looked down.
“He didn’t make it out.”
Something inside me went completely still.
Not shattered.
Not yet.
Just still.
As if my mind had shut every door before the words could enter.
“You’re wrong.”
“I wish I was.”
“He came back last time.”
Marcus closed his eyes briefly.
“He always comes back.”
I turned toward the closed bay doors.
Maybe Gavin was inside.
Maybe everyone was gathered because he was injured and they were waiting for news.
Maybe Marcus had confused him with someone else.
There were other firefighters.
Other married men.
Other fathers.
“I need to see him.”
“You can’t.”
“I need to know it’s him.”
“The department identified him.”
“That isn’t enough.”
My voice rose.
Someone inside the station began crying.
A woman.
Natalie.
The sound passed through the door and struck me harder than Marcus’s words.
I had never heard her voice before.
But I knew.
Of course I knew.
Marcus stepped closer.
“You should go home.”
“I don’t have anyone at home.”
The answer escaped before I could stop it.
His expression changed, but pity was worse than cruelty.
I backed away.
“I need Cole.”
Marcus glanced toward the station.
“Cole’s with the captain.”
“He was with Gavin.”
“Yes.”
“Then he knows what happened.”
“He’s not in a condition to talk.”
“Neither am I.”
I moved toward the door.
Marcus caught my arm.
“You can’t go inside.”
“Let go.”
“Natalie is in there with the kids.”
“I know.”
“You being here will make this worse.”
For them.
He didn’t say it.
He didn’t have to.
I pulled my arm free.
“I loved him.”
Marcus looked at me with something that might have been sadness.
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
Because if he knew, he would let me inside.
He would understand that I had spent months waiting for Gavin to give me a place in his life, and now Gavin was dead before that place had ever become real.
The door opened again.
Cole stepped outside.
His shirt was torn near the shoulder. A white bandage wrapped one hand, and dried blood marked the side of his face.
He looked at me.
Whatever remained of his expression disappeared.
“You told her?” he asked Marcus.
Marcus nodded.
Cole’s eyes closed for one second.
I crossed the distance between us.
“What happened?”
He didn’t answer.
“Cole.”
His gaze moved toward the closed door.
“He fell.”
“From where?”
“The second floor collapsed.”
“Were you with him?”
“Yes.”
“Did he suffer?
Cole’s face tightened.
I grabbed the front of his shirt.
“Answer me”
Marcus moved toward us, but Cole lifted his uninjured hand to stop him.
He looked down at my fingers gripping his shirt.
Then at me.
“I don't know”
It destroyed more than a lie would have.
I released him.
Cole could have softened it.
He could have told me Gavin had been unconscious.
He didn’t.
“He talked about his children,” Cole said.
I stopped breathing.
“Then he saved my life.”
The guilt in his voice should have mattered.
It didn’t.
Not then.
Inside the station, a child cried out for his father.
Cole flinched.
I stared at the door.
Gavin’s wife and children were on the other side, surrounded by people who knew they belonged to him.
I stood outside.
Exactly where Cole had told me I belonged the first night we met.
“Go home, Harper,” he said.
I looked at him.
His eyes were red, but his voice was still hard.
Not because he hated me more than he had yesterday.
Because Gavin was dead, and hatred was easier than deciding what to do with the woman he had left behind.
“I don’t have a home,” I whispered.
Then I walked away before anyone could tell me again that I wasn’t allowed to grieve him.
- Writer
- chap_listContents
- likeADD