“Benji is great. Looking at him now, you’d never know anything happened at all. All the doctor reports are coming back good. We’re staying at my parents’ house, and he’s loving all their attention.”
“That’s good. And you?”
Sarah sighed and sipped her coffee. “I can’t sleep. I can’t relax. I just replay it in my head over and over, but in my nightmares, asleep or awake, I don’t make it to Benji in time. It was so awful being outside, seeing the smoke and knowing he was alone and helpless, trapped inside the burning house. It feltlike I was moving in slow motion running back in. Like every step I took, the door moved further away. Then I finally got to him, and I panicked.”
Sarah looked away and swallowed hard. “If I had just grabbed him and run back out the front door, we would’ve made it in time. The fire was still small enough. But on my way to him, before I knew that, I was imagining the worst-case scenario and planning what to do. If I couldn’t carry him safely out of the house, I’d go out the window of his room, jump with him in my arms, and use my body to cushion his fall as best I could. I was more than ready to break every bone in my body to save him.
“Then for some dumb reason, when I got to him, I panicked. I continued with that plan even though the fire was still contained in the kitchen. We could’ve made it safely downstairs and out the door. But I didn’t even try. Dylan found me upstairs in Benji’s room, stupidly trying to open his window. By then, the fire had spread, and we couldn’t make it back down.”
Wow. I admired Sarah’s forthright honesty. “Then you, Benji, and Dylan were all stuck in there. I can’t imagine how scary it was waiting, not knowing if help would arrive in time.”
Sarah leaned back into the oversized chair, looking more relaxed for a moment. “No, that part actually wasn’t too bad. Dylan was so confident in what we should do, so confident in you and the other firefighters… I couldn’t help but trust in everything he said. He even had a plan to get us out if help didn’t come quickly enough.”
My heart tripped over itself at Sarah’s words. “Can you—what did—” I cleared my throat, took a deep breath, and tried again. “What makes you say that he was confident in me?”
Sarah looked at me for a long moment, like she was seeing way more than I wanted to show her. She leaned forward and grasped my hands.
“Juliette, Dylan loves you so much. It felt like a long time, but I was really only with him for a few minutes, and even in that short time, it was so obvious. Our lives were in danger, and he was just as worried about you. I was terrified, but Dylan was so certain that help was on the way. He told me his girlfriend knew we were in there. He said you’d run through fire yourself, if necessary, to get us help.”
I stared at the twinkling lights and blinked quickly to fight back the threatening tears. “He’s right. I would’ve done anything to get help to you. But wanting it and being able to do it are two completely different things. I’m so sorry it took so long.”
“You listen to me now,” Sarah said firmly, releasing my hands but holding me prisoner with her intense gaze. “I don’t know why you’re saying you aren’t capable, but it doesn’t matter. You did it. We are all here today, alive and healthy. That’s all that matters.” Sarah’s voice cracked, and for the first time since we sat down, she looked on the verge of coming undone.
“You think I don’t know guilt? I left my baby alone in that damn house. I was outside pulling weeds, enjoying the sun and fresh air and—” She dropped her head into her hands and took a few shaky breaths. When she looked up at me again, despair was etched into her face. “I was enjoying the quiet without Benji there,” she whispered, as though she were ashamed to say the words out loud.
“Sarah—”
“No. I don’t want to hear anyone else tell me it wasn’t my fault. It was. I made a mistake. The biggest, dumbest, worst mistake of my life. But thank God Benji is okay. And thank God for my husband. He keeps dragging me back from the edge of insanity. He keeps telling me that he loves me and that Benji loves me. He tells me that he loves me for exactly who I am, even if that includes a love of being alone in my garden. He tellsme that he’ll love me forever, even if I become paranoid and psychotic and never let Benji out of my sight ever again.
“He says, when you really love someone—the way I know he loves me, and the way I know Dylan loves you too—that you love them just as they are. We don’t get to design a person like we’re creating a piece of pottery. If you want to make a vase, you can make it into the shape you want, you can repair cracks, choose to add a little of this color or that. If there’s a part you don’t like, you can rework it to your liking. You can cover up any blemishes, and if you do it well, it’ll be like it was never there. But that’s not how people work. If you love a person, you have to accept them exactly as they are. To keep the cheesy analogy going, you may like the shape of that vase, but not the colors. You may like one side of it, but not another. It may have cracks, or be more fragile than you’d like. Or be thicker and rougher than you’d like. But if that’s the vase you choose to keep, you accept it all and you love it all. Because you can’t change what’s already there. You can only love and accept it, just as it is, the good parts, the ugly parts, and the broken parts too. And once you choose that vase, it’s yours to take care of. If you take good care of it, maybe you can patch up some of the cracks. If you can do that well, it can even be stronger than before, but the scar of that will always be there. And even if it breaks, you don’t throw it away. You fix it. You accept it.
“Juliette, this past week has completely broken me apart. My husband is trying to glue me back together, and somehow I got lucky that he loves me enough to forgive me. I’ll never be the same again, but I have to believe that my husband and I are strong enough to put me back together. Thanks to you and Dylan, I still have a son who needs me. I’m going to work on being strong enough, I’m going to let my husband help me, and I’m going to hope that when the pieces are put back together, I still resemble who I was before, even with some extra scars.
“I don’t know your story, but from what Dylan said, I know that he knows there are cracks there, and he still loves you exactly the way you are. So if you can love him the way he is too, hold onto that with everything you have. If you guys are a little more broken after this nightmare, help fix each other. Trust me when I say, life is too damn fragile.”
Sarah took a big breath. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to lecture you. I’ve just been so emotional, I can’t help it. I only meant to bring you cupcakes and say thank you.” She pushed the tin towards me, and we both laughed, breaking the tension.
“You gave me a lot to think about. Thank you. Go get back to your husband and Benji. You’re an incredible family and I’m so happy you are all okay.”
We stood and hugged again. At my car, I waved awkwardly with one hand, while trying to open the door and hold the tin steady with the other. Was Sarah right? Could Dylan really accept me as I am? I sat inside, but didn’t drive away yet. I replayed Dylan’s voicemail.
I’ve always been so proud of how hard you’ve worked to accept yourself and even when self-doubt creeps in, you never let it take over. You accept that things are the way they are, and you see the best in everything and everybody.
Was he right? Could I accept myself enough to be strong for him?
51
Dylan
“Yo bitches, I’m back!” I called out as I hobbled into the station on crutches for the first time in two weeks.
The guys gathered around to give me back slaps and hugs, and I could finally breathe a little easier. I was back at home with my family. At least now that I was able to get around more, I could keep busy and try to distract myself from constantly worrying about Juliette.
Recuperating in my house was not what I needed to heal. My parents had hovered over me for the first week until I sent them back home. My brothers and the guys had visited often, and Squirrel had even brought over food that he and Blythe cooked for me, but none of them could make up for the gaping hole where Juliette belonged. I’d spent too much time pacing painfully and restlessly from empty room to empty room.
Remembering her on my couch. In my bed. Smelling the fresh, exotic scent of her coconut infused shampoo that still lingered on her pillow. Staring at the drawing that was propped on my dresser and the photo leaning up against it. We almost forgot to take that photo, too drunk on our kisses and our first declarations of falling in love. I’d started to pull her along, eager to get back home, but she’d dug her heels in and stopped me, turning us to get the perfect angle of the bridge behind us, just like in the drawing, but the only thing I saw when I looked at that picture was the possessive hold we had on one another. That day would always remind me of the first time I’d realized the power that simply holding Juliette, even just her hand, gave to both of us. God, I’d do anything to hold her again.
I would never regret saving Sarah and Benji. Every firefighter knows that any call can be career ending, life changing, or even life ending, and I’d accepted that for myself, but I’d never wanted to hurt Juliette.