Page 127 of The Forever Rule

“You shouldn’t be the one comforting me.”

“I think, you’re the one who needs this more.” And I squeezed her tightly, before letting her go. I hadn’t even realized I was letting tears fall before I wiped them away, and she did the same.

“I don’t want to be the terrible ex. I don’t need to be your best friend, because I realize that would get tricky, but I promise to never stand in your way. And if I ever see some woman making cat eyes at him, I’ll block the way for you.”

That got a laugh out of me. “I can do that myself, but you really can’t help them. Aston’s beautiful.”

“I want to say yes, but since I just tried to say that I was doing better, I’m not going to put my foot in my mouth anymore.”

Laughing, I shook my head. But before I could say anything else, a huge crack of lightning shattered into the sky, the sound eliciting a scream from both of us. Meredith reached out and gripped my hand, as the electric pole in front of the building snapped.

In an instant, I tugged at her arm, and we dove back behind the lone counter in the room, as the pole slammed into the sidewalk, shattering the glass fronts.

“Cover yourself, Blakely!” she shouted, as we covered our faces from flying glass. Smoke filled the building immediately, and the scorching sound of fire from the transformer hit my ears.

“We need to get out of here.”

“Is there a back door?” Meredith asked, and we each coughed, both of us looking around.

“I think so. I don’t know this building. We were just checking it out.”

“Okay let’s go,” she whispered, and I realized that she had glass in her hair, and a cut on her face. Since my face hurt as well, I figured we each looked the same.

We gripped each other’s hands, bending down so that way we were as close to the ground as possible. Getting out the front way wasn’t going to work, so we had to use the emergency exit. Only when we pressed the back door, it wouldn’t budge.

“No no no no no,” I shouted, alarm spreading through me.

“Is it not opening?” Meredith asked, coughing.

“Help me push it. It’s either rusted shut, or something’s blocking it. But we have to get out.”

“Okay, we need to call 911.”

“Yes. And let’s just keep pushing,” I said, knowing that we needed to get out of here quickly. If we didn’t, the smoke was going to get us before anything. I wasn’t even sure that the flames were coming into the building, but it wasn’t raining yet, just lightning on this side. And that was dangerous in any weather.

“I can’t get it,” Meredith said, kneeling down.

I pulled out my phone and dialed 911, but the busy signal was the only thing I heard.

My brain went oddly blank before calming, as if I knew pure panic would break me. Because I was indeed panicking. “They’re going to be able to see the fire. They’re going to get us. We just have to keep pushing,” I said, trying to remember everything that my dad taught me, and keep calm. But there was nothing calm about this.

Meredith and I shoved again, each one of us pounding on the door and screaming, and all I could do was think about the moments that would never come. I tried to push those thoughts from my mind, but there was nothing.

Just screaming.

And then the door was being pulled open from the other side, and I fell into Aston’s arms, Meredith coming with me. I only saw Aston’s shocked face for an instant,before he was pulling us both out of the building, other people shouting around him. Smoke billowed behind us and I tried to suck in clean air even through the rain.

“Blakely? Meredith?” As Meredith tried to pull away, he tugged her closer as well, moving us toward where an ambulance was pulling in.

“What the hell happened?” he called out over the rain.

I tried to catch my breath and answer, only I coughed loudly instead.

“We need help over here!” Aston yelled, as I threw my arms around him, hugging him tightly.

“You saved us.”

“Blakely. My God. How did this happen?” He looked over my shoulder and stiffened as he looked at Meredith, and I realized that he was probably thinking the wrong thing. He hadn’t realized who had fallen into him at first and now he leapt to the wrong conclusions. I pulled away and gripped Meredith’s hand.

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