My chest ached.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” I whispered.
“Rebuild,” Austen said simply. “When you’re ready.”
I let out a shaky breath. “I don’t even know where my truck is right now.”
“Best guess?” Allie said. “Somebody at the firehouse knows.”
Pepper squeezed me again. “If you want to determine what’s salvageable, that’s where you start. Ask at the station.”
My stomach did an unhelpful flip.
Going to the fire station meant walking onto their turf. Meant being watched. Meant probably having to look Powell Ferguson in the eye and pretend I didn’t remember exactly how his hand had felt on my back while I tried not to fall apart.
“I don’t—” I started, then stopped.
There were a lot of things I didn’t want: I didn’t want to need help. I didn’t want to owe anyone. I didn’t want the whole town to see me cracked open.
But I wanted Pour Decisions back more than I wanted any of that.
“Ask Chief Holloway,” Pepper said gently. “You don’t have to talk to… anybody else if you don’t want to.”
The hesitation after anybody else hung heavy between us.
Meghan bumped her shoulder against mine. “You can hate him and still let him save your truck.”
“I don’t—” I began automatically, then stopped myself. The word hate felt different in my mouth now. Complicated. “I don’t want to owe him.”
“You already do,” Allie pointed out. “Twice over. You’re still breathing.”
Fair.
I stared down at the blackened crescent on the pavement. The ghost of my truck. The ghost of my life, if I let it be.
The fundraiser total glowed in my peripheral vision like a dare.
“Okay,” I said finally, exhaling. “Fine. I’ll go.”
Pepper perked up. “Now?”
“Not with a face full of snot,” I said, wiping at my cheeks. “But today. I’ll… I’ll go down there. I’ll ask where they hauled it and what’s left.”
“And if he’s there?” Austen didn’t bother pretending she didn’t know who he was.
I swallowed hard. Thought of his voice in my ear, low and steady:You’re okay. You’re safe.Thought of the way he’d said, “We’ll figure it out,” like my problems were automatically his too.
“If he’s there, I’ll deal. I always deal.”
Nobody pushed. Nobody teased.
The girls closed in around me, four points of warmth against the December chill, while I took one last look at the empty space where my truck had been.
I turned away from the scorch mark and the ghosts and the version of my life that ended here.
If I wanted that life back, I was going to have to fight for it.
Even if that meant walking straight into the fire station and asking my least favorite firefighter for help.
