He's The Goal

by Faith M Troyer

  My favorite one is when Janie helped me sit on the sand, and the surf just happened to crash against my left side facing the water. I remember how cold it was, causing me to gasp. My mouth hung open in shock, but a flicker of enjoyment danced in my eyes as the shutter clicked.

  I click on my screen and watch the keyboard pop up on the net. I want to text him back, but I don’t know what to say or where to even begin if I did. I poke at the keyboard gently as I wonder if I am doing the right thing.

  Me

  Thanks for sending them. That was a fun day.

  I take a deep breath before sending the message and wait on pins and needles for Max’s reply. Another beep comes through, and my stomach drops. I look, and it’s not a text but another photo. My hand slides to my throat as I take in the sweet image of two people, once so deep in love, kissing. I feel the lump in my throat trying to push itself forward in the form of a sob. I know he still loves me. He’s never stopped. I know he hasn’t. I’m the one who’s questioning my feelings, and I realize that I’ll never stop loving him either.

  Me

  I love that picture so much.

  Max

  Me too, baby.

  My eyes sting as I read his text; all I want to type back is for him to come over and be with me. I trace the keys on the cell phone with my index finger.

  Me

  I miss you

  Baby, steps, Vada, I remind myself. Baby steps.

  I walk to my room with Chester, shutting the door behind me and laying on the bed. I look at the photo of Max one more time as I tuck it next to my chest.

  Vada

  I lay curled up on my bed, but I don’t feel Chester next to me. My eyes flit open as I see my hardwood floors are thick with smoke, as it pumps its way heavily through the bottom of my bedroom door.

  What the hell?

  My room is beginning to fill with dark gray smoke. My mind begins to race as I spring onto my elbows and quickly sit up. I scan the room for Chester but find no sign of him. As my vision clears, I can see more thick strands of smoke coming in. The dark clouds rise and curl high into the air. Coughing, I continue to look around the room for my cat. My head is pounding so hard, and my heart is rivaling the speed of my ever-growing panic.

  I grimace when my bare feet touch the floor. The heat spreads across my skin; I suddenly fear that my flooring will ignite. I wish Maxwell were here to rescue me.

  The smoke is getting worse as it seeps through my door, and I have to figure out a game plan if I’m going to get out of this apartment in one piece, but I can’t leave my cat behind. My heart’s racing as my head spins with exhaustion as I feel the horror and hysteria creep throughout my entire body.

  As kids in school, we learn to drop to the floor and look for the nearest exit. Instinctively, I fall to the ground and try not to scream. I have a window in my room, just on the left-hand side. I do my best to crawl towards it as my hands and knees begin to scream with searing pain as I drag myself across the floor. The pain nearly overwhelms me before as I press an open hand against the cool glass, soothing my burning skin.

  I continue to push against the glass, but I’m beginning to feel light-headed as I quickly realize I’ve been inhaling the smoke. My throat is dry, inflamed, and so tender.

  Is this a fucking dream? Where is the escape button? How do I get out of here!

  I begin to bang on the window as small orange flames begin to lick the backside of the door and quickly consume the wood, setting it ablaze.

  My window finally slides open as a fresh gust of wind hits me, and I cry out in relief. The iron fire escape that rests just outside my window is old and probably not the safest route down, but I have no choice. I have to take my chances.

  I glance back into my blazing bedroom, and I lose it! I’m going to have to leave Chester behind in my burning apartment, and my heart splits wide open. I’m sobbing as I jump onto the metal grate, and it shakes beneath me.

  I scream as it jerks and sways to the side but finally comes to a stop. I quickly grab the cold bars, feeling rusty oxidized stains from the elements slide beneath my fingers as I try to safely and rapidly ascend the stairs. Once safely on the ground, I do my best to get as far away as possible from the fire, and I'm so weak from running, I find myself doubled over, trying to breathe.

  Months ago, I read up on smoke inhalation and the terrifying effects it can have on a pair of human lungs. I’m a nurse in the making, damn it. We learn to keep calm during any situation, and right now, I need tranquility in spades as I assess my injuries. I get to my knees, embracing the cold, wet grass against my blistered knees and hands.

  My chest is tight and wracked with pain-causing shortness of breath. My nostrils feel singed, and my head pounds achingly. I have smoke inhalation, and I need access to an oxygen tank right away. The sound of an ambulance wails into the night as I roll to my back, fighting to keep my eyes open.

  The sirens only get louder as my eyelids grow heavy, and I do everything I can to stay awake, but my chest is so tight and constricted, I know I’m not getting much oxygen to my heart. Rolling to my side, I do my best to hold on and feel a warm, furry body press against my bare leg. Before going to bed, I stripped down to my t-shirt and panties. What it must look like to have a woman laying on the green of a burning apartment complex, half-naked.

  I feel the furry body again, this time as a head boops my nose. I fight to open my eyes all the way, and when I do, there’s Chester! He’s pushing himself against my face, arms, and chest and meowing like a mad man! I struggle to make a sound, anything, to show him how happy I am that he’s here with me. The bright moonlight shines down on him as his tail swishes wildly. His orange fur is all sooty from pressing his body against my own, but he appears to be unharmed otherwise.

  I wonder how the hell he got out. It seems as though someone carried him outside.

  “She’s over here! We have another one! Someone help her while I direct the ambulance over,” I hear a man, his shouts entwined with the sound of approaching fire trucks.

  Footsteps shuffle in the grass next to me as a few people come to my side, kneeling beside my shoulders and head. Blue and red lights flash on the pavement as the two gentlemen help me to my feet. The sound of a metal stretcher is guided against the concrete pavement of the parking lot as I’m lain carefully on to the stretcher, and a thick, soft blanket rests over my legs.

  “Vada! Vada!” comes a familiar, masculine voice from afar. The voice sounds just like home. I try to sit up, using my elbows, but the EMT uses his large hand to push my chest down gently.

  I see Maxwell racing from his Audi across the parking lot, and more tears surge from my eyes. I thought that I’d never see him again, But he’s here now.

  “I’m sorry, sir, you can’t come any further. This is a police matter,” says a police officer as he stands near the stretcher.

  I shake my head, feeling a little dazed.

  “No, please! That’s my boyfriend.”

  My vision is hazy, but I can see Max’s thankful smile as he comes closer to me. He swallows hard, and his dark blue eyes shine with tears as the medic puts an oxygen mask on my face. I inhale and feel my lungs begin to expand and quickly accept the much-needed air.

  Everything goes dark around me as I’m gently pushed inside of the back of the ambulance, and I can feel my fingers slip away from Max’s hold.

  Max

  November 22

  The steady sound of machines beeping and clicking carry through the room as I watch Vada sleep. Earlier, I stood and watched helplessly as the ambulance carried her away to the hospital. I silently screamed that I wasn't allowed to come, as I’m not her husband or immediate family, so I called Vada’s mom and Monica right after she was taken by ambulance to St. Dominic’s downtown.

  This past week has been an emotional rollercoaster, and with Bianca hitting me below the belt, she had only made time more insufferable. She was a menace! Depriving me of my friendship with Jack, her attacks made thr
ough social media in hopes of tarnishing my name, and worst of all, the lies that she created costing me my happiness with Vada.

  I’m exhausted, but I’m happy that Vada has been given a clean bill of health from her doctor and nurse. I had been sitting in the waiting room for a while until Katie, Vada’s mom, came pushing through the heavy glass doors of the hospital’s front entrance with her eyes wide and full of fear.

  I sat straight up when I heard her call for me and ran to her quickly as she embraced me in a tight hug. The first time I met Katie was back when Jack and I became good friends. She fancied me as “a good boy, who just thinks he’s bad.” She could see through me the entire time.

  “How is she? Did the doctors tell you anything yet?”

  I shake my head, and her eyes fall slowly closed as she lays her head on against my shoulder. I hate seeing her this way. Katie has been through hell and back with her marriage, and to know your daughter could be fighting for her life alone in a hospital is the rotten cherry on a shit-cake.

  “They’ll tell us something soon. Don’t worry.”

  An hour later, after venturing to the cafeteria to buy two coffees, I came back to see that Katie was talking to Vada’s doctor. I almost dropped the cups when she waved me over, smiling.

  Thank God, finally, some good news. Monica and Katie quietly fussed over a sleeping Vada, including going through an entire box of tissue as they both cried in relief to still have their favorite person in their life. I sat off to the side, not wanting to get in the way. Monica’s eyes caught mine as she softly smiled in my direction, hoping that was a sign she may have forgiven me. The ladies left after about an hour, deciding to give the patient and me some alone time.

  Now that I’m holding Vada’s hand in mine, my heart feels as if it’s beginning to heal.

  After the break-up, I knew that I had to leave, no questions asked. I wanted to respect Vada’s space and wishes, but it tore me apart when Vada stayed in her room the entire time with Chester while I was moving my things out of the apartment. She packed my stuff and put it all in Jack’s room, so we didn’t have any contact when I came over.

  My stubborn ass wanted nothing more than to ask her for just one more chance to explain my side of the story, but I knew it was too late.

  I ended up finding a cozy rental house in Dade County.

  As far as Bianca went, she found out where I was living and tried to invite herself repeatedly. Though, when she finally saw that I wasn’t going to rest until I got Vada back, she eventually left me alone. With her finally out of the picture, it was a nice change of pace, but I found myself wishing that I could spend that solace with Vada.

  The house has its charm. But it can’t give me Vada and Chester or even the apples and cinnamon candle that she likes to light, making the entire house smell like heaven. Last night was one of the hardest nights there, and sleep did not come easily. It didn’t come at all.

  When the photo proofs from Key West came through on my phone of Vada’s mermaid shoot, I fell in love all over again. Seeing her soft hazel eyes catch the lens of the camera, and the way it loved her back, had my chest aching.

  Then she sends me that text.

  I miss you.

  That was it; I couldn’t sit on my hands any longer and let her fall for another guy. Vada’s mine, and we belong together. End of story.

  I had pulled up to her building with a bouquet resting on my passenger’s seat, and I saw the bright orange flames engulfing the front end of the apartment. People were everywhere in their small groups out by the street, watching in alarm as fire trucks, police cars, and ambulances came racing into the parking lot.

  I left my car running with the keys still in the ignition as I ran as fast as my legs would carry me. Panic grew with every passing second that I didn’t see Vada. The fire began on the top floor. That’s where the unit on end, apartment 3B, held my every reason for existing.

  My hope died one piece at a time as I saw the building’s residents flee from the ground floor, pouring into the night, yet Vada wasn’t in the growing crowd.

  The Miami Fire and Rescue squad didn’t skip a beat and worked together quickly to contain the fire and put it out as fast as possible.

  As I stood on the lawn, my cheeks felt the heat from the flames. Helpless coursed through my veins, and all I could think was, how is Vada going to make it out of there?

  A policeman politely tapped me on the shoulder and ushered me off to the side, and I panicked, not wanting to move, in hopes that I would find her fleeing from the apartment building.

  “My girlfriend is in there!” I cried, my knees weak with so much trepidation that I thought I was going to collapse. “Please, you’ve got to help her!”

  His dark brown eyes searched mine. He saw the fear in them and asked, “What’s your girlfriend’s name?”

  “Vada Finley, she’s a resident in 3B.” He took a small notebook from his pocket and jotted her name down. I gave him my first and last name and phone number, silently praying for a miracle.

  “We’ll do our best, Son. We got a good team of firemen in there,” he says and softly claps my shoulder.

  Five firemen fearlessly ran into the building to anyone on the two top floors, and I waited there by the curb, pacing like a chained animal. Was she going to be the next one out? Did they find her?

  “That’s all for the third floor, chief!” I heard a man shouting from across the parking lot, and my soul shattered.

  My hearing went fuzzy and rang loudly in my ears for several, long seconds until something or someone grabbed my attention.

  She stood amongst the thick crowd of onlookers. Her blonde hair piled in a messy bun on the top of her hair, and those God awful gold earring rings that I’ve always hated sparkled in the moonlight as they dangled from her little earlobes.

  She stood there, watching as the firemen were still managing to contain the fire that grew to almost half of the entire apartment. She looked so satisfied, triumphant as if she was the one who started the fire.

  Bianca looked at me; her green eyes sparkled with not one bit of remorse as she walked past me as her mouth curled into a proud smirk.

  I look around the small but tidy hospital room that Vada is held up in right now, the thick plastic cannulas in her nostrils that deliver life-saving oxygen to her lungs, and I want to fucking punch something.

  If I hadn't been a foolish bastard five years ago, forming a friends-with-benefits agreement with Bianca, she would have never got in the way of my relationship with the most beautiful woman I’ve known. And Vada wouldn’t have almost lost her life as a result. My chest aches as I watch the pulse oximeter on her forefinger blinking red against her skin and praying her oxygen is still staying above the appropriate levels.

  If I had never inserted myself into her life in the first place, none of this would have happened. I can blame Bianca all I want, and yes, she has a part in this mess, but if I had learned to love Vada from a distance, she wouldn’t be here, bound to all of these wire tubes.

  Still, I’m bound to her; I can feel it in my heart.

  Vada stirs a little under her blankets, and as I watch her, I lean back in my seat. I pull my phone out. Shaking my head, I begin typing.

  Me

  You need to come clean. You know why you were at Vada’s apartment complex. I know it was you who set the building on fire, and I’ll fight till my dying breath to make sure your crazy ass goes to prison. Turn yourself in by the end of the day, or I’ll do it for you—your choice.

  Bianca

  This is all your fault, Maxwell, for avoiding my calls and texts? Changing your fucking number! What’s Vada got that I can’t already give to you? You should have loved me, Max. I knew Vada would find my planted gifts and kick you to the curb, and she fucking did! And it was so easy, just like taking candy from a baby. The welcome mat key was an easy find. You should have come back to me! But no, you go back to Vada! I hope the fire scared the dumb cow! Before you threaten me, just remem
ber, my daddy's rich. He can and WILL bail his baby girl out of this little jam. Have a good life with Miss Trailer Park, USA.

  Closing my eyes, I pinch the bridge of my nose, attempting to breathe like a normal human being, as I’m about ready to crush my cell phone.

  I hate Bianca. If the devil and Charlie had a baby, it would be her. She’s an abomination to everyone she meets. I hope that she spends many years behind bars for what she did, and I’ll do everything in my power to ensure that she does.

  “Max,” comes a small, scratchy voice from about four feet away.

  I look up and see that Vada is finally awake.

  Vada

  When my eyes finally pop open, I’m greeted with the sound of machines beeping and a blood pressure cuff that’s wrapped tightly around my upper arm, routinely squeezing the shit out of me every fifteen minutes. I swallow and find that my throat is still raw as hell, but I’m just so happy to be alive and decide that I can live with a sore throat for a while. When my eyes connect with the most handsome man I’ve ever seen, my vitals go wild.

  I smile weakly, offering Maxwell my hand as I rest it on the control bars’ cool plastic. Max leans in and takes my hands in his. Those full lips come into contact with my chapped skin, and he softly glides a kiss over each finger.

  This man is all I’ve ever wanted, and I almost let him go.

  My eyes fill with tears, my free hand comes to stroke his cheek, which is getting harder to see since Max hasn't been shaving, and I must admit, he looks good with scruff.

  “Who had Chester?” I immediately feel dumb to ask about my cat first and not acknowledge him in any sort of greeting.

  He chuckles and leans down to kiss my head gently.

  “Ole’ boy is fine. Monica made sure to pick him. She set him up, all fancy like at her house with blankets and treats. She said she’d take care of him until you come home.”