My heart started pounding.
“Is he alive?”
“Yes. He’s alive.”
I finally breathed.
“Then where is he?”
“He was taken to St. Matthew’s Hospital.”
PART 2
The cake nearly fell from my hands, but one of Tyler’s coworkers caught it.
“How badly is he hurt?” I asked.
Captain Reyes hesitated.
“He was conscious when they transported him.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
There had been a warehouse fire that morning. Tyler and two other firefighters were inside when part of the structure collapsed. Everyone made it out, but Tyler took the worst of the impact.
I could barely process the words.
Tyler had called me that morning.
He had sounded completely normal.
He had smiled in our kitchen, told me not to do anything crazy, and said he loved me.
Now those ordinary words felt terrifyingly important.
“Why didn’t anyone call me?”
“We tried,” Reyes said.
I pulled out my phone.
No missed calls.
No messages.
Nothing.
Reyes checked Tyler’s emergency contact information and went quiet.
The station still had my old phone number, one I had changed almost two years earlier.
“I need to go.”
Reyes offered to drive me, but I refused.
I untied the birthday balloons from my wrist and left them beside the cake.
On the way to the hospital, I repeated the same words.
He’s alive.
He’s alive.
When I reached Tyler’s room, my legs nearly gave out.
His left arm was strapped against his body. A bandage covered part of his head, and bruises spread across one side of his face.
But he was awake.
He looked at me and managed a crooked smile.
“Hey.”
For a few seconds, I couldn’t speak.
Then fear turned into anger.
“You idiot.”
“Fair.”
“You absolute idiot.”
“I know.”
I kissed his forehead and started crying.
Tyler took my hand.
“I’m okay.”
“No, you’re not.”
“I will be.”
That answer I could accept.
The doctors said he had a fractured shoulder, three cracked ribs, and a concussion. They wanted to keep him overnight.
It could have been much worse.
Later, Tyler asked, “How did you know I was here?”
“I went to the station.”
His eyes closed.
“Oh no.”
“With balloons.”
He groaned.
“And cake.”
“Amanda.”
“Your favorite one.”
He laughed, then winced.
“Don’t make me laugh.”
“You don’t deserve cake.”
“That’s cruel.”
I almost smiled.
Then I remembered Captain Reyes’s first words.
*You don’t know yet?*
“Tyler, why did Reyes act like there was something else I should know?”
His expression changed.
Not fear.
Guilt.
PART 3
Tyler looked down at our hands.
“The warehouse wasn’t empty.”
“I know. Reyes said you got everyone out.”
“Not everyone.”
A chill ran through me.
“There was a little girl trapped upstairs,” he said.
The floor had already become unstable. Captain Reyes had ordered everyone to evacuate.
Then Tyler heard a child crying.
“I went back.”
I stared at him.
He had disobeyed an evacuation order and gone back inside a collapsing warehouse for a child he had never met.
