“Yeah? So, you wanna go grab a beer?” I asked.
She tucked the honey-colored wisps of hair behind her ear. Even disheveled and shiny from day-old makeup, she was beautiful. “Thank God I have a bottle of wine at home waiting for me.”
“Is that an invitation?” I asked.
“Nope.”
“At least give me your number,” I begged as a car behind me honked. The driver waited just seconds before swerving onto the shoulder, leaving as quickly as he had arrived.
I glanced up at the green light and cursed under my breath, hoping my time wasn’t up. Like my prayers had been answered, it switched to a dark yellow, and I returned my attention to her, instantly deflated. She couldn’t have been less impressed. I needed to try harder.
“Give you my number,” she repeated, amused. “So I can be added to your little black book of shame?” Her teeth dug into the plump flesh of her lower lip. “Do you really think the nurses don’t talk?”
I chuckled, feeling nervous, watching her smile fade into a scowl. She was getting more annoyed with me by the second, but I couldn’t stop myself. As long as she was talking to me, I was still in the game.
“Are you laughing at me?”
“No, no, Jacobs. I’m laughing at myself. I should have known better.” I bent down, picked up a penny from the floorboard, and tossed it into the ashtray. Running my hand over my short, dark hair, I noticed the tension in her expression hadn’t eased. “You’re just too uptight.”
“I guess you’ll never know,” she said as her whisper-quiet car pulled out to cross the intersection.
I reached out, already seeing what she would see just a half-second later, but that would be too late. The light had already turned red. She stiffened her hands on the wheel, watching helplessly as the tractor-trailer approached her driver side at forty miles per hour. Her expression turned to horror as the sound of metal twisting and cracking under impact filled the air.
My fingers gripped the steering wheel so tightly, my bones felt like they could snap under the pressure. I watched as glass exploded and the crumbled remains of her Prius launched toward me. The semi’s brakes whined in protest and Jacobs’ name ripped from my chest in a warning that had come too late. It was all too late.
I was used to saving people after tragedy struck, but it was easy to remove yourself from their pain when you didn’t have to witness the shock and horror of the event.
The last words Jacobs had spoken to me tumbled over and over in my subconscious as I scrambled to back my car away from the wreckage barreling toward me.
I resigned to my fate as my car propelled backward, my neck slamming against the headrest. When the semi finally came to a stop, the world stilled. The silence was more deafening than the horrific accident. It took me a few tries to open my door. Using my shoulder, I shoved my way out, rushing over to Jacobs’ mangled Prius. The sound of stones under my boots turned to broken glass. I was going to save her. I was going to save us both.
I sat in the waiting room down the hall from her room, biting at my thumbnail, my knee bobbing up and down. Nurses, doctors, and family members passed by without acknowledgment, oblivious that my entire world had shifted on its axis. Everything had changed.
“Josh,” Quinn said, appearing above me. He sat in the chair next to me and patted my shoulder. “You okay?”
I didn’t answer, staring at the floor.
“It’s going to be all right. Just hang in there, buddy.”
“She was there. She was right there, and then she wasn’t,” I said finally.
Quinn watched me, waiting for me to continue.
“I’ve been trying to get her attention since the first time I brought her a patient. She was finally talking to me, and … I can’t explain it.”
“That had to have been hard to see. It’s a miracle you’re okay.”
I cringed. “Even at the stoplight, when she was talking to me, I was thinking of ways to get her into bed.” I shook my head, disgusted. “Avery has been this un-gettable get, you know? She’s sitting there, smiling, finally acknowledging I exist, and my mind defaults back to the same douchebag shit.”
“Don’t be so hard on yourself, Josh.” Quinn shrugged. “Avery’s a beautiful woman. All the guys at the station talk about her. She’s confident, feisty, and those eyes …”
I glowered at him.
He cleared his throat. “Sorry. Everyone knows you’ve had a thing for her, too. I’m just saying that just because taking her home crossed your mind, that doesn’t mean that’s all it would have been.”
I didn’t want a would have or should have. My story had no more room for regret, yet I had watched it take physical form right in front of me.
I grazed my nose with my knuckle. “This is my fault.”
Quinn shifted in his seat. “Don’t go there, Josh. You can’t take the blame for this one.”
“I was there. If I hadn’t been talking to her … I’ve told you that when people get too close—”
Quinn blew out a frustrated breath. “You’ve got to give that up, man. The universe doesn’t have it out for you.”
I shook my head. “I couldn’t get to her fast enough. She was hurt, I ran as fast I could to get to her, but my whole body was moving in slow motion. And then—against all my training—I cradled her in my arms and held her. That’s all I could do.” I felt Quinn’s fingers press into my shoulder. “I’ve only felt that helpless one other time in my life. I’m tired of being too late.”
“All paramedics get that way, buddy. It’s why we do what we do.”
“No, this was different. I wasn’t doing just my job. I needed her to be okay, Quinn. I need her to be okay. I have to see her again.”
“She’ll be okay.” Quinn said the words slow, watching me intently. “Are you? Okay?”
“I’m fine. And I know what you’re thinking.”
“That you hit your head harder than I thought? A little,” he admitted.
“I saw her get T-boned by a semi. I thought I’d lost her.” Heartbreak and loss were a part of life. Those of us who worked hand in hand with death learned early to appreciate those few precious moments we had before it was all taken away. I recoiled from Quinn’s expression. “Don’t look at me like that.”
“I get it. Sometimes I think about the people I’ve lost, and it makes me work that much harder to bring people back,” Quinn agreed.
“That’s not it. I made a decision in the ten minutes I listened to the sirens get closer.”
“What kind of decision?”
The possibility of losing something before it was even mine was something I'd never imagined. Watching what could have been slip away before it was in your grasp was enough to break a man. But it had also given me the chance to redeem myself, make myself worthy of her, in the event we finally got our moment.
“You’ll see.”
My muscles hurt even before I opened my eyes. I hadn’t dreamed, nor could I recall the moment of impact. My only memory was the pain. But when the room around me came into focus, it all but went away.
The hideous brown and mauve wallpaper was peeling in the corners. The fake plants and watercolor prints were meant to resemble a nineteen-eighties living room, even though anyone would know by the smell alone where they were.
Nurse Michaels walked in with a stethoscope hanging from her blue floral lab jacket. She had the same dark circles I’d had when looking in a mirror mid-shift. Michaels typically worked in ICU but sometimes moonlighted in the ER with me, not that she was any help at all. Being in her care was unsettling.
The tiny catheter wiggled a bit beneath the thin skin of my hand while she fussed with the tape covering the entry site of my IV. I frowned and peered up, seeing Michaels’ infernal, frizzy orange hair, and then my surroundings. Yep. I was definitely in Step-Down.