“Everything is fine, but Wren might need a ride home,” Emma says, and before she’s finished her sentence, I’m shaking my head. No.
“I can walk, it’s fine. It will be good for me,” I protest, standing up from the bench and brushing some invisible dirt off my pants. I’m lightheaded when I rise, but I shake it off.
“I mean, I’m pretty sure you had an asthma attack or something. It’s probably best if you get a ride,” Emma says, her tone sterner now. Hudson is glancing between us, assessing what transpired. Pretty soon, he’s nodding in agreementwith Emma and ushering me over to where his truck is parked.
I’m too tired to fight it. The breathing issue also saps me of my energy, my motivation, my drive. So, I climb up into the passenger side of Hudson’s truck and wait for him to make his way around and get in. I lean my head back on the seat and close my eyes. Emma’s voice floats through the parking lot calling for Hudson to wait up. I’m sure she’s running over to give him a goodbye kiss or something, so I don’t look. I don’t want to see it. It’s none of my business anyways.
They talk for a minute or two behind the truck, and then Hudson gets in and turns the key in the ignition.
“Are you sure you’re okay? I can take you to see Mason at the clinic if you want.” His eyes roam over my face. His expression is worried, but he doesn’t need to be. I’m not his concern anymore. Haven’t been for a long time.
“I just want to go home,” I say, my voice weary.
Hudson reaches across the seat, turning his body to look out the back window as he reverses out of the parking spot. As he does, his smell wafts towards me. It’s citrus and spice, and it hits a primal part of my brain. The one that remembershimin every fibre of my being. What it was like to be with him, what it was like to have his scent envelop me, make me feel safe. What it was like to have his hands, his lips, on every inch of my skin.
I squeeze my thighs together and look out the window, trying to get the image out of my mind. But it’s too late. The attraction I felt is now a sharp pang in my chest, because thememory is just that. A memory. It’s in the past, and Hudson is no longer mine.
We make the rest of the drive in silence until he pulls into the driveway of my childhood home. It takes several minutes of reassuring him that I’m not going to die in my sleep tonight, and saying ‘Really, I’m okay’ before he finally accepts I’m not going to let him help me anyways.
The house is quiet and dark when I close the front door behind me, and I sag with relief for finally being alone. But I also sag under the weight of something else—all the feelings I’ve pushed down trying to get through the public forum tonight. Seeing Hudson with Emma. The memories of Hudson and I together that came up on the drive home. There were things I hadn’t thought about in years coming back to me in vivid detail.
I suddenly realize I’m fucking starving, so I go into the kitchen and make myself something quick and easy. Nothing that could potentially start a fire. And because I can’t use the oven right now anyways, I throw together a simple peanut butter and jelly sandwich, adding a cut-up apple on the side, and sit at the kitchen island in the dark while I eat.
My phone lights up from where it’s sitting on the counter next to me, and I glance at it, crunching off a piece of apple.
An e-mail.
Miller,
Maybe this is getting annoying, and you can rightfully tell me to fuck off if you want to. Please know you canmessage me if you need to tonight. I haven’t changed my phone number, but I’ve put it below just in case. I’ll keep my phone on tonight.
Hudson
This time, there’s no tally.
CHAPTER 14
HUDSON
My phone has been burningin my back pocket ever since yesterday. I slide it out to check it again. It’s compulsive at this point. I can’t stop myself, and it’s been borderline dangerous at work. I had my head down earlier on a job site and nearly got knocked out by someone carrying an armload of two-by-fours. It doesn’t help that I hardly got any sleep last night, so I feel like I’ve fried my last nerve.
I check it, and check it, and check it, until I’m going insane. It’s like when you keep opening the fridge, hopingthistime there will be something in there that wasn’t there before. Except, instead of food in my fridge, I’m desperately hoping to see Wren’s name pop up on my screen. An e-mail, a text, it doesn’t matter. I’ve been worrying about her since the public forum. Fretting. Wanting to know if she’s okay and that she didn’t sit in her room and spiral. Or worse.
I was initially worried about her having a medical emergency, an asthma exacerbation, or whatever she tried to tell me it was. Then, Emma stopped me as I was getting into thetruck, and the reality of what Wren was struggling with hit me like a freight train. And like a freight train barrelling towards me at breakneck speed, I should have seen it coming from a mile away.
It was right there in front of me the entire time. I’ve seen it before in my line of work at the firehall. When people experience something traumatic, they usually respond in a few ways, and one of them looked almost identical to how Wren reacted at the public forum. The distant eyes, disconnected from reality. The shallow breathing. The desire to be as far away from everyone as possible.
She had a panic attack.
Emma said she had a gut feeling, that Wren needed a friend more than she needed a doctor. The whole way back to Wren’s house, we sat in silence, and I turned over this new perspective, trying to look at it from all angles. Trying to make sense of moments I’ve shared with Wren over the last few weeks.
The pieces started to fit together like a game of Tetris. The way Ruby pawed at her, forcing contact, leaning into her with her body weight. I know Ruby well enough I should have recognized it. It’s how she was trained to support people in crisis. She rubs up against them until they are forced to pet her, and then she leans all her body weight into them like a big, fluffy, warm, weighted blanket.
I saw the tension release from Wren’s shoulders as she pet Ruby, too. It should have been obvious, and I’ve been on edge about it all day, angry with myself that I didn’t see it sooner. Angry I didn’t realize Wren needs help. She needs an ally, not an adversary.
I finish taking off my work boots, dumping them in the bed of my truck and swapping them for my worn-in brown leather ones. I slam the tailgate closed and rest a hand on my lower back. It’s been sore all day, but that’s what I get for the way I slept last night.
“Hey Hudson,” Nav calls over to me as he starts packing up, removing tools from his tool belt and chucking them into the back of his truck, “we’re just about finished here for the day. Framing is done for now, so we’ll get working on the exterior walls tomorrow.”
