He didn’t respond, but he didn’t pull away when I settled beside him on the couch. Up close, I could hear his breathing, which was way too fast, too shallow. Classic panic attack. I’d seen enough of them in rookies facing their first big fire.
“Can I touch you? Your hand?”
A tiny nod. I took his hand gently, shocked at how cold his fingers were. “Okay, we’re going to breathe together. In for four, hold for four, out for four. Follow my count.”
I started the breathing pattern, exaggerating my own breaths so he could follow. At first, his breathing stayed ragged, hitching on every inhale. But gradually, incrementally, he began to match my rhythm. His hand gripped mine like an anchor, and I let him hold on as tightly as he needed.
“That’s it. You’re doing great. Breathe with me.”
The storm raged outside, throwing rain against the windows like handfuls of gravel. Thunder rolled across the valley, and with each crack, Calloway flinched. But he kept breathing, kept holding on.
I don’t know how long we sat there—time went strange in the storm-darkened room. Long enough for my bad leg to cramp from the position, though I didn’t dare move. Long enough for Calloway’s death grip to ease into something less bruising. Long enough for his breathing to find its own rhythm again.
“S-s-sorry,” he whispered finally, the word barely audible over the wind.
“Nothing to be sorry for.” I shifted carefully, trying to ease the pressure on my leg without letting go of his hand. “Storms are bastards. They bring up all kinds of things.”
He turned to look at me then, really look at me, and I saw he was coming back to himself. The blind panic was fading,replaced by embarrassment and something that might’ve been gratitude.
“The d-d-dark. And the w-water.” He stopped, shuddering.
It reminded him of drowning. I thought of five-year-old Calloway going under in that quarry, the water closing over his head, the darkness pressing in. No wonder storms undid him. “How about some light? I’ve got camping lanterns in my truck. Give me five minutes?”
His grip tightened immediately. “D-don’t?—”
“Okay.” I settled back against the couch. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Instead, I pulled out my phone, grateful I’d charged it fully before the power went out. The flashlight function cast a small circle of light, pushing back the gray. Calloway’s shoulders dropped slightly.
“Better?”
He nodded, then seemed to realize he was still clutching my hand like a lifeline. He started to pull away, but I held on gently. “You don’t have to let go. Unless you want to.”
He stared at our joined hands for a long moment, then carefully turned his palm to interlace our fingers. It felt like a decision, a choice to accept comfort instead of suffering alone.
We sat in silence for a while, listening to the storm. The worst of the panic had passed, but I could feel the tension still thrumming through him. He needed a distraction, something to focus on besides the weather.
“Want to hear about the worst storm I ever worked in?”
A tiny nod against my shoulder. When had he leaned into me?
“Wyoming, 2012. We were spiked out on this smoke in the Medicine Bow forest when this monster storm rolled in out of nowhere. I’m talking biblical stuff with hail the size of golf balls,lightning striking every thirty seconds, winds that could knock you flat.”
I felt him settle slightly, sinking deeper against me.
“We had to shelter in place, couldn’t get to the safety zones. Twenty of us crammed into deployment shelters. They’re these emergency fire shelters that look like aluminum foil burritos. You’re supposed to be in them alone, but we doubled up because half the crew didn’t have theirs readily accessible.”
“W-were you scared?” His voice was steadier now, though still barely above a whisper.
“Terrified. The sound was incredible, like being inside a freight train made of fire and water. My shelter partner was this kid from Texas in his second season. He was praying in Spanish, and I was praying in English, and I’m pretty sure we were both saying the same thing: please let this pass.”
“What h-happened?”
“The storm passed. Took about an hour, but it felt like a lifetime. When we finally crawled out, the whole landscape had changed. Trees down everywhere, spot fires from the lightning strikes, our camp completely destroyed. But we were alive. All of us.”
“H-how did you stay c-calm?”
In my nightmares, I still relived that endless hour pressed against the earth. “I wasn’t calm. I was scared shitless. But I had someone depending on me to keep it together, so I did. Sometimes being brave means you’re scared as hell but you do it anyway.”
