Something Worth Saving

by Chelsea Landon

  We don’t want to be accountable some days. Some think that’s why Axe is the way he is.

  At some point being accountable finds us, whether we want it to or not.

  For me, I wanted it to find me. Begged for it. I wanted Aubrey and our kids in my life.

  Now look at me.

  I don’t know when it happened.

  For us, we had gotten into a comfortable, familiar pace of parenting and living together, and I thought for sure I should propose. Then she got pregnant with Jayden. And I told myself she had two babies, so the least I could do was put a ring on her finger. But I had fears.

  Fears I hadn’t told anyone. Even Logan.

  Aubrey grew up in a home where men were changed like bed sheets. Weekly. Seeing that, and the way she was treated, changed her mindset on a lot of things.

  I never thought Aubrey would cheat on me. It wasn’t in her nature after seeing her mom act that way for so long. But it did put doubt in her head about my intentions. Just as much as she saw her mom treat men like dirt, her mom was used just as often.

  And then you take into account what Ridley did to her – you have a girl with underlying commitment issues and a boy afraid to push her into anything. I wasn’t sure Aubrey wanted to marry me. We literally never talked about it. Just went with the flow, so to speak.

  But I did wonder, would she even say yes?

  We’ve never talked about marriage. Not since we were little.

  A while back we spoke about her mom and all her shit she’s pushed upon Aubrey, and Aubrey said, “I don’t understand marriage.”

  She never expanded on the statement, and it got me thinking it wasn’t what she wanted. To me Aubrey was a simple girl. Insecure in some ways, had dealt with her fair share of assholes, and didn’t always open up. There was self-doubt in her veins that hadn’t even touched the surface of our relationship, and to me, she wasn’t ready for it.

  She loved me, I knew that. But was she ready for marriage?

  No one really knows the extent of what Ridley and Georgia had done to Aubrey emotionally. I had an idea, but it scared me to think that we’d never spoken about it. I knew he hit her, and that didn’t sit well with me. But what I lost my head about was that her mother allowed it and never did anything to stop it. Aubrey would never admit to it, but I know Ridley wasn’t the first guy to lay a hand on her in anger. Georgia’s clutch of endless men had done it, too. I saw it firsthand when we were younger.

  I never said anything, and it killed me when she moved away with her mother, because I knew it would happen again. And it did. Only this time it was with someone she trusted her heart and body to.

  That someone was supposed to be me.

  For that reason, I despised her mother and the way she used her, and manipulated her. What if she convinced Aubrey that we weren’t meant to be again?

  I didn’t think she’d listen, but you never know, and with the way shit’s been going lately, it’s hard to say.

  Logan and I spoke about it often. He thought it was strange we weren’t married but had two kids together. Nowadays, though, it wasn’t all that weird and was rarely questioned. Logan didn’t know about everything else that was going on but he had an idea.

  Gracie is four now, and I know she sees it. The strain that’s there. The change.

  I make an effort. Aubrey makes an effort. We both feel it now. The distance that’s creeping in and everything in between. It’s money, it’s work, it’s distance and time and a silence you want to break but just can’t. Not always within your control, but it’s there. I fucking hate it. I hate all of it and I want my family back, but breaking that cycle is hard to do. Saying something is hard.

  Logan and Brooke are different. Not sure how they do it, but they do. Maybe it’s because Brooke stays at home with Amelia during the day, or maybe it’s that their relationship is just stronger. High school sweethearts, married after college, had Amelia not long after.

  Storybook romance, even.

  It was that kind of relationship. The one you saw in kids’ movies where the king was so devoted to his queen he brought her a magic flower–type shit like in Tangled.

  He adored Brooke.

  While most of the guys at the firehouse complain about wives and girlfriends, I’ve never heard Logan say a single negative thing about Brooke. If he had, I never heard it, and he told me everything. Even the shit I didn’t want to hear. The details I never needed to hear, he subjected me to.

  Where’s this going?

  I believe what they have is obtainable. But it requires work.

  Work which Brooke and Logan put into their relationship. There’s something else, too.

  You have to realize, fuck, you gotta know that shit doesn’t last forever. People die. They die every day, and when you have a job like we do, you know that. One minute they’re there and the next, they’re not. Logan knew that. If you didn’t when you started, you found out early on.

  Did I?

  Sure I did. You couldn’t be a firefighter and not know that.

  But I also hadn’t experienced personal loss like Logan had with his sister and then his mother two years ago.

  Heavy on the heartache, his life hadn’t been easy. Just like most firefighters.

  I knew very well everything in my life could be taken from me. Regardless of whether I knew it, I hadn’t changed my ways. I saw it with my grandpa, my dad, my brother. It was the endless cycle of a lifestyle we chose. Then again, we lived for it.

  Believe it or not, there are firefighters out there who’ve never battled a fire other than in training exercises. Then there are some who battle them every day for thirty or forty years.

  My point is, the more you fight, the more it changes you and becomes some sort of accelerant to your own lifestyle. You crave it.

  There’s an eerie stillness in a fire. It’s a moment when it either gains strength or begins to die down. I was that stillness right now.

  It wasn’t that I didn’t want to marry Aubrey, because I did. Without a doubt, she was the one for me.

  When Gracie was born, I intended to marry Aubrey, but then she had found out that I was in the middle of getting my certifications for the fire boat amongst being neck deep in building fire inspections and side jobs. Then with a new baby and Aubrey’s business taking off, it wasn’t exactly the right time. We were already living together and playing the part of a married couple.

  It was more or less at that point a piece of paper. I had insurance for Gracie and Jayden, and Aubrey had her own. It wasn’t like we needed to be married for things to work.

  There were times when I felt like the biggest asshole for not proposing to her. Now more so than any other time.

  I treated Aubrey as my wife. There was no doubt about that. I didn’t sleep around, and I didn’t flirt. If Aubrey walked into a room, my eyes were only on her.

  To me love was like a fire. In the beginning, it’s high heat, destruction, heavy breaths, spark, fuel . . . You’re in love.

  A fire is a chemical reaction between chemical compounds with energy. Some fires come on like a flash fire, quick to burn, but die down quickly, too.

  Then you have the slower-moving fires, the ones that burn steadily, hot but maintaining their heat and destruction. No matter which way you come at it, the flames rage on.

  You gotta maintain it. You can smother it, and it’ll eventually die down. You cut off its fuel and heat, and eventually it’ll burn out.

  And should the spark go out, well, we will know once the flames are gone. All that’s left eventually is the volatile gas that makes smoke.

  Fire and love are the same. When you understand fire and are aware of how it gains strength, you can fight it. When you understand love, you can give it.

  When you fall in love with someone, it’s done one of two ways.

  The first kind of love is friendship. Something connects you to them in some way. Maybe it’s liking the same music or the same restaurant. You have a spark that starts a fire.


  Now, let’s say you develop a mutual love for this, and you soon find you have other interests together, too. The spark spreads, catches wind, and creates a fire.

  And before you know it, you’ve started something that would take a fleet to put out.

  Then there’s the instant attraction. You don’t need more than one spark, because that instant fuel mixture you have hits hard. The backdraft. The kind you never see coming until it’s too late.

  When you understand fire, and how it gains strength, you can fight it. When you understand love, you can give it.

  WHEN WE got back to the station, we topped off the water in the tank, refueled the trucks, cleaned the SCBA by putting new air bottles in the packs and refilling the used ones, including Denny’s. Loaded new hoses, charged batteries for the radios, generators and fans, cleaned the gear, and then showered.

  We no sooner had finished showering than another call came in. This time it was a guy who’d fallen off his roof and landed on his buddy’s truck with the gutter he was cleaning up his ass.

  We must have driven around that block three times and still didn’t see the address they kept calling out. Turns out we were on the wrong street. Never let Axe drive. Ever.

  “Ladder 10, please respond.”

  We didn’t respond again, and they just tapped in with another request when Axe grabbed the radio. “Ladder 10 to command, we’re on site.” Axe looked at me and smiled. “They’re so impatient.”

  We all laughed.

  “What happened here?” Logan asked, trying to hide his grin when we caught on to what the call was for. He always loved the calls when people did stupid shit and ended up hurt. Kind of morbid, if you ask me, but they were always entertaining.

  “He had a few shots and decided to clean the gutters.” That made sense, but how the gutter had gotten up his ass didn’t make a lot of sense to us.

  Logan and I both looked up. I could see Kasey and Axe standing over by a tree to the far right, eyeing the same location where there should have been gutters.

  “What gutters?” Logan couldn’t help but laugh now.

  The dude holding his cell phone, who more or less probably videotaped the entire thing, glanced up there, too. “Well . . . that explains why he’s in the ambulance now.”

  Logan summoned the guy by waving him forward. “We’re gonna need to see that video.” The guy looked skeptical, so I added, “You know, so we can let HMS know how it happened.”

  “How what happened?”

  As if it wasn’t obvious.

  “How this dumb shit managed to shove a gutter up his ass.” Logan tried to keep the humor from his voice, but it wasn’t easy.

  The video was more than we needed to see, that’s for sure.

  Logan shook his head as we walked back to the truck, a little disgusted. “Poor bastard will never shit right again.”

  “Thank God it wasn’t a fire call.” We all looked to Denny, who was sitting beside the engine on the curb as we loaded the equipment and tanks back on the trucks.

  None of us could understand why Denny, dim-witted but a skilled EMT, had become a firefighter. Fire terrified the poor fucker. Maybe that was why he was on the engine as opposed to ladder, but the thought of running into a burning building was terrifying to him. When the bell rang, you could literally see the sweat pouring from him.

  “You probably would have shit your pants again, huh?”

  Blank stare.

  “Hey, dude.” Logan waved over his shoulder at gutter boy’s friend. “Come show our probie that video. He shit his pants earlier. I think he’d appreciate that video.”

  Another blank stare when Denny saw it.

  My phone buzzed in my pocket, and when I saw Aubrey’s face and the screen, I looked down at her message. We hadn’t talked since Sunday night about much of anything. Part of me knew this was coming.

  I’m going to dinner with my mom and Lauren tonight. The kids will be with your mom.

  Just like a fire, you can never predict its path. You can never predict the path a relationship will take.

  How do you know when it’s too involved and there’s no chance of survival?

  How do you know when to back out?

  Remember when I said smoke kills just as easily as flames do?

  When you’re in a room when a fire starts, all you focus on is that burning flame. The one you can see. What you don’t see is the smoke. Sure, you see it, but you never realize what it’s destroying before it’s too late.

  Dispatch to command, additional units arriving now. Do you have a plan?

  Command to dispatch, this is Battalion 2 assuming command, they’re announcing now what our plan will be. The hydrant on the northern side is frozen. Request a still and a box alarm. Include L4, E17, L 9, E27, Medic 10, Medic 18, Battalion 5, and Battalion 4. Send PD Squad 3 as well, we’re looking at a possible arson here.

  10-4 command, calling in additional units and PD.

  * * *

  Tuesday, November 20, 2012

  Aubrey

  EVERYWHERE YOU went in Seattle they were constantly doing construction, rebuilding, tearing down, you name it. Needless to say, if you looked out our kitchen window, you saw a bright red or yellow tower crane. Always what I wanted to look at.

  Sometimes I wondered what that was like for the ones who built these buildings to one day have them torn down. Did they feel sadness when they saw the building going to waste, rotting or otherwise destroyed?

  To me it would be sad. Sometimes years of work go into the construction of something, only to have it torn down ten years later. It would be like building a relationship with someone and then have them walk out one day.

  I didn’t want that.

  I checked my phone again; my text to Jace was still unanswered. Today wasn’t his usual scheduled day; his were Wednesday and Saturday, but lately overtime was what he did.

  As the blanket of clouds gave way to darker ones that night, the wind whipped around and fresh rain took over as the leaves began to dance. I loved days like this in the city. Stormy and angered, but full of color.

  Seattle in the fall was one of my favorite times of the year. Always had been. The cool crisp mornings, the array of leaves, bright and bursting with orange, red, and yellow that all scattered across the skyline. It was like summers’ end’s way of providing you with a little more color.

  Beside me Jayden played with my iPad, moving through screens better than I ever could, and Gracie washed her hands for the tenth time tonight. She hated to be dirty. We’d just finished dinner when Lauren came over, never bothering to knock as she walked through the door with Gavin close behind her. He didn’t bother looking up, just smiled as I kissed his cheeks, and sat quickly by Jayden, his own iPad in hand.

  There was no way Lauren could have afforded an iPad, but Judie had graciously given Gavin one for his third birthday. I wasn’t a big fan of kids having all these electronic devices and not being children who played outside, but Gracie was four now and could already write her name, read site words, play a mean keyboard, and operate Netflix.

  Clearly, some tasks were more important than others.

  Sitting there, I heard the sirens again, only this time I didn’t look out the window. I did feel the pull at my heart, hoping that if this was a call he was on, he was safe.

  My eyes caught Jayden’s. He heard the sirens and smiled. “Daddy?”

  Every day our kids reminded me of Jace. I saw Jace in Jayden’s long eyelashes, so quick to make you forgive him, and Gracie’s thick black hair, always wild like her attitude. He was everywhere even when he wasn’t.

  “Yep, Daddy’s going to save someone.”

  I doubted Jayden understood that, but he smiled at me anyway.

  Judie was on her way to watch the kids at my apartment so Lauren and I could go to the gym and then meet our mother for dinner.

  Worst idea ever, I know. It wasn’t that I wanted to go, but Lauren had talked to her and arranged it. I wanted to chok
e my sister.

  After changing into my clothes, I watched Lauren, curious as to why she was stuffing so many pairs of underwear in her purse, and then laughed. I never knew why Lauren did half the shit she did – clearly. After all, she’d invited our mother to dinner.

  There was no use in guessing, so I asked, “Why are you putting underwear in your purse?”

  “I sweat at the gym.” Reaching for her bag, she set it by the door.

  Judie arrived then, quickly bombarded by three anxious little people waiting for their energetic grandmother.

  We were out the door a few minutes later, and I decided to ask about the underwear.

  “What’s with the underwear? So you sweat, like . . . your va-jay-jay sweats?” Pressing the “down” button on the elevator, I watched her cheeks flush slightly.

  “Yeah.” She looked ashamed. “Yours doesn’t?”

  “Hell, I don’t know. Maybe. I guess. But what’s with the underwear? Why not just change when you get home?”

  “I can’t stand a sweaty crotch. Ever.”

  “Oh.” And then it hit me. She was seeing Axe after our dinner. “You’re going out with him again, aren't you?”

  “Listen, the dude took my clothes off like a goddamn pro. He knew exactly what he was doing around my firehouse, and damn it, I need that. I’m a single mother with no life.”

  I shook my head as we finally got to the street and began walking toward the gym, which was two blocks away. “I worry about you.”

  “Don’t. I’m great.” We walked through the doors, and she glanced over at me and held up a book. “Sweaty crotch an’ all. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to read and get sweaty.”

  There was literally never a dull moment around her. As we both found a comfortable pace on the stationary bikes, my thoughts drifted to Jace and how he hadn’t replied to my text message that said I was going to dinner with my mom.

  He would probably be pissed, but for the life of me, I couldn’t really understand what his beef was with my mother. I mean, yeah, she’s not exactly what you call stable, but that’s her and really has nothing to do with him. I could understand if I was going with Ridley or another guy, but not my mom.