"Actually, I do." His voice was matter-of-fact. "I've been listening to you talk about wine for hours. You know your stuff. Inside and out. That kind of knowledge doesn't disappear because your car broke down."
"It's not just about knowledge," I said quietly. "It's about preparation. Structure. Control."
"Why?" The question was simple, direct, and somehow more penetrating than if he'd asked a more complex one.
I lay there for a moment, considering whether to give him a superficial answer or the truth. Something about the darkness made honesty easier. "Because when I don't have those things, bad things happen."
"What kind of bad things?"
I swallowed hard, surprised at my own willingness to share. "When I was six, our mom forgot to pick me up from school. She was supposed to get me at three, but she was high again. I waited for four hours before I finally started walking home. It was dark, and I got lost. A police officer found me around nine, sobbing on a street corner."
Griffin was silent, but I could feel him listening intently.
"After that, I made a plan for everything. I memorized bus routes. I kept emergency quarters taped to the inside of my shoe. I packed my own lunches. Because I learned that the only person I could count on was myself."
I paused, waiting for the judgment, the pity, or worst of all, the dismissal. But Griffin remained quiet, giving me space to continue if I wanted to.
"When you grow up with addict parents, you learn pretty quick that chaos is the enemy. Structure is survival." I turned toface the wall, suddenly feeling too exposed. "So yeah, I'm a little uptight about my schedules and my plans. But they've kept me safe."
The mattress shifted slightly as Griffin turned toward me. Not touching, but closer. "Makes sense to me."
I blinked in surprise. "It does?"
"Sure. You learned to adapt to your circumstances. You found a way to protect yourself. That's not being uptight—that's being strong."
His words washed over me, unexpected and soothing. No one had ever framed my need for control that way before. Even Bowie, who understood better than anyone, occasionally teased me about my planning obsession.
"Thank you," I said softly. "For understanding. And for not making fun of me."
"I'd never make fun of something like that," he replied, his voice equally soft. "We all have our ways of making it through the day. Yours happens to involve color-coded planners."
I found myself smiling in the darkness. "And yours involves rescuing stranded motorists and fighting fires?"
"Something like that."
We fell quiet again, but the silence was different now—comfortable rather than tense. I found myself relaxing into the mattress, my earlier anxiety melting away.
"Can I ask you something?" I said after a few minutes.
"Shoot."
"Why did you really stop today? You could have just driven past."
He was quiet for so long I thought he might not answer. Finally, he said, "My mom died because someone didn't stop."
My breath caught. "What?"
"Car accident. Middle of nowhere. She survived the initial crash but bled out waiting for help. Three cars passed by before someone finally called 911." His voice was even, but I could hear the pain underneath. "So I stop. Every time."
I reached across the space between us, finding his hand in the darkness. I squeezed it once, then let go. "I'm sorry."
"Long time ago," he said, but I could tell the wound was still raw. "But yeah, that's why I became a rescue pilot. Why I'm part of the fire crew. Because I know what it's like to need help and not get it in time."
The revelation settled over me, reshaping my understanding of the man lying beside me. His dedication to his crew, his instinct to help me despite his grumbling—they weren't just personality traits. They were born from the same place as my need for control: survival.
"We're quite the pair, aren't we?" I said softly. "Both trying to control the uncontrollable in our own ways."
"Life has a way of laughing at our plans," Griffin agreed, a hint of his usual humor returning. "But we keep making them anyway."
