Page 47 of Sparking Sara

Bass comes over, patting me on the back. “You okay?”

“I almost got him killed,” I say. “Hell, I almost got you all killed.”

“How do you figure that?”

“I hesitated.”

Bass waves his arms around the scene. “I don’t see any dead people. Do you see any dead people?”

“If that truck had fallen two minutes sooner …”

“That wouldn’t have happened, Denver. They had it secured. It only fell when they were trying to right it,afterwe had the victims out.”

“Still. I hesitated.”

“And then you did your job.”

“What if next time, my hesitation costs someone his life?”

“You’re not going to let that happen. Are you?”

“Shit. I don’t know, Bass. You tell me. Sometimes I just freeze. It’s like I can’t move and my feet are cemented to the ground. It’s like everything is going on around me and I’m not there.”

He puts an arm around my shoulder. “You’ll get past this, brother.”

“What if I don’t?” I ask. “What if I can’t?”

“Well, I don’t really think that’s an option now, is it?”

Steve yells at us from the road. “You ladies want to get your asses over here and help us clean this mess up?”

An hour later, we’re heading back to the firehouse. I think about calling Reverend Feldworth. His words ring in my head.Talk to someone you trust. Someone who won’t judge you.

He’s not the one I want to talk to, however. The only one I really want to talk to is the one person who can’t talk back to me. She may be the only one who can really understand. Because she was there. She was in the car with me. I was in the car with her. It was like my dreams where I’m in the back seat of my parents’ car after their accident. Only this time, I was really there. And those eyes, they don’t judge me. I trust them. I trust them even when I have no reason to. Just like she has no reason to trustme. Yet she does.

Chapter Twelve

Oliver is waiting for me in the hospital cafeteria when I arrive with two bags of food. I texted him on my way over to see if I could bring him lunch and save him from the cafeteria food. I also figured having a meal together might help us get past our argument the other day.

“Smells good,” he says when I pull out a few Styrofoam containers.

“Itisgood,” I tell him. “It’s from Mitchell’s. Have you eaten there before?”

“No.”

“Well, you need to start. The restaurant is run by some friends of friends, and it’s one of my favorite places.”

We make some small talk about the weather and our jobs while we eat. I notice he uses idioms from both the US and the UK. And that, along with his moderate accent, has me wondering.

“How long have you lived in the States?” I ask.

“I suppose it’s been about eleven years now. I moved here after university.”

My eyebrows shoot up in surprise. I knew he was older than me, but not by that much.

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-four.” He eyes me curiously. “You think I’m too old for her.”

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