Page 100 of No More Heartbreakers

“Yeah. I’m fine.”

Word of the tragedy had obviously spread. There were groups of weeping girls, clinging to each other on the side of the road, outside the yellow police tape.

When my live shot was done, I’d have to go over and talk to them, see if I could get the other names and ask if the girls had any pictures of the victims they’d be willing to share.

Ugh. I hated that part of my job.

The thing was, they’d probably give me the pictures and information eagerly, but I’d still feel like scum for asking. It seemed so vulturistic.

I kept telling myself people needed to know what happened, why it happened, and ultimately their friends and families would want these girls’ names to be remembered and memorialized. And it was my job.

As I got the one-minute cue in my IFB, my old friend nausea came back to visit me.

Sugar. Not now. This was too important.

I tried to remember one of the relaxation techniques Aric had taught me, and a slash of pain cut through my heart at the thought of him, sitting there at the bar, believing I’d gotten engaged to Hale tonight.

Oh Aric.

Breathing in and out deeply, I closed my eyes and focused my attention on my feet and calves, willing them to relax as I mentally said to myself, “I’m starting to relax now.”

I tightened and relaxed my leg muscles, my torso, my arms and hands, shoulders, neck. “…starting to relax now.”

“Ten seconds Heidi,” Tony said.

And then the camera’s red light came on, and I began my live report.

The nausea was gone. The adrenaline was still there, but it was helping me, giving me energy and bringing the right words to my mind at the right time as I recounted the details of the accident I’d learned so far.

In a few minutes it was over.

“Nice,” Tony said when the director switched away from our camera.

“Thank you.” I smiled at him. I’d done it. My first live shot without the pre-show vomiting routine.

And it was good. At least it hadfeltgood. I’d have to check the show tape later to make sure.

Over the next hour I had many more chances to practice, as the station’s accident coverage continued with cut-ins every fifteen minutes.

I grew more confident, more at ease with each one. In fact, I could easily picture myself doing this on a regular basis in a bigger market, say Nashville, for instance.

For the first time, I felt ready.

In between cut-ins, Tony and I interviewed the police sergeant, a witness to the accident, and some of the girls who knew the victims.

As they wept through their words, I cried, too. This was so messed up. So senseless. Four lives gone in an instant. I’d learned the girls were seniors, only one year younger than me.

As I wrote my wrap-up story to leave for the morning news, it hit me—you never know how long of a ride you’re going to get in this life.

You might have till you’re a hundred and two. You might only get twenty years or thirty or forty, and that’s it.

If I died tomorrow, would I be happy with the way I’d lived my life? Or would I be sorry I hadn’t reached out for more, taken more chances and found out where they would lead?

Would I be sorry I hadn’t saidI love you?

A charge went through my body, the aftershocks awakening the parts of my heart I’d been keeping in an induced coma since Jason’s betrayal.

Those poor girls—they were out of time. But anyone who was still here still had a chance to change things, to make things right, toreallylive.

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