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“We’ve gotta move back, get behind this building,” Nathan says to Callie, dragging me along. I hear the dullness of his voice, I know it’s not a good sign.
Jesse is Nathan’s best friend, if there was anything he could be doing to save him, he’d be doing it, but he’s not. He’s standing here, making sure Callie and I stay safe as if I even care to make it through this without Jesse.
“Deep breaths, Thea. In and out, slowly,” Callie chants softly, making me realize that I’m hyperventilating. It’s the same feeling I get before a panic attack, except this time it isn’t because of my past trauma, but because of the trauma that I’m about to experience in real time. Only this is something I’ll never get past. Ever.
I focus on Callie’s voice and the worried screams of people around us still looking for their loved ones, but my head lulls back, staring into the sky. Deep breaths… In and out… I can’t do this right now… Don’t panic… Don’t pass out…
I know the blast happens, but somehow my brain blocks it out. In its place is a high-pitched ringing in my ears. My eyes stay glued to the birds above my head, flying scatteredly, anywhere but here. I feel their pain.
“Take her,” Nathan shouts to Callie, our hearing all affected by the blast. He plops my body against Callie, giving her my weight. I watch him run back toward Main Street, but it still takes my brain a second to come to.
Jesse. He’s checking on Jesse.
All the strength that had evaporated from my body comes back in a landslide, I pull out of Callie’s arms and take off toward the blast zone. “Thea, no!” She shouts but chases behind me anyway.
I need to see him. I need him. I run harder, skidding to a stop when I get to the corner where the finish line was. The street in front of me is in shambles. The barricades are knocked down, and the race tents and banners have collapsed into tatters from the mass of people they had to evacuate. The dumpster across the street is on fire and a store’s awning is catching flames, but the firetrucks are still firmly parked down the street behind another barricade.
What I’m looking for is about twenty feet in front of me. It’s him. Jesse, Curtis, and Malec all lay hunched over the curb. Their bodies are utterly still. Please, no.
My eyes ping to Nathan. People are shouting at him not to, but he breaches the perimeter anyway, running toward his friend before collapsing to his knees. The sight of it paralyzes me.
What if he’s dead?
The sob tears from my throat at the thought of him being gone. “Please, Nathan!” I shout, needing to know one way or another. Not knowing is agonizing, the slight hope in my heart is torturing me slowly.
He bends down, checking his pulse while seconds tick by. When he squeezes his eyes shut, embracing Jesse’s limp body, it guts me and I fall to my knees.
Callie embraces me as the bomb squad finally comes rolling through the barricades, but all I can see is Jesse’s prone body as Nathan raises his head and looks at me with tears in his eyes.
* * *
“With a head injury like this, all we can do is wait. He’ll wake up when he’s ready, then we’ll run tests. Try to rest, maybe get a bite to eat. It could be awhile,” the doctor tells me and Nathan reassuringly. Or, as reassuring as he can since we’re in a hospital.
I slump back into the chair next to Jesse’s bed, not daring to leave him even for a minute. The wires and bandages scattered across his body are foreign and hard to look at. He doesn’t look like our Jesse. Holding his hand is the only way this even seems real.
Nathan’s torn up, pacing the room while Callie’s down the hall. She offered to call our mom before she sees the events on the news.
“He’s going to be fine,” my brother mumbles, but it sounds like he is saying it to himself.
Seeing his best friend injured has shown a different side to him that I’ve never seen. He’s never been a worrier. He barely cried at my dad’s funeral. I’ve only ever seen him fuss over Callie.
He already expressed his immense guilt for not being with Jesse when the blast went off, but he knew his priority needed to be me and Callie. He even said Jesse would do the same thing in his shoes and that’s the only reason he could stomach not being right beside him.
“Why didn’t you bring him around sooner?” I ask, feeling that despite what the doctor said, my time with Jesse could be ticking away. He might not wake up.
This feels too similar to the day we spent in the hospital watching our dad die slowly. The cancer ate away at him until there was nothing left. This cannot happen like that, I won’t let it.
“I don’t know. He met mom a few times when she visited. You never came with her, and when I came home a few times… I don’t know. I wanted to pretend like things were how they used to be before I joined the military.”
He doesn’t talk about it much still, even though Callie told me he had a hard time the last few years. He never told me. I always thought he was a workaholic. It never occurred to me that my brother could be struggling in life like I was.
“You should have come home more,” I whisper, barely keeping a lid on my emotions. The day has been too much already.
“I know,” he admits. “Callie won’t tell me what you two talked about at the cabin that day he was MIA, but she scolded me for being a shitty brother.” He laughs, but there is no humor in it.
“No, she didn’t,” I argue, knowing Callie would never tell him that.
“No, she didn’t, but she said I should have been there for you more. That I should try to make up for lost time.” He shrugs. “That’s what I thought I was doing when I moved here,” he finally admits.
