Now’s the time.
His hand brushed the soft skin of her shoulder as he searched for the words. “I, um, need to share something with you.” He wasn’t quite ready to tell her about seeing a therapist—afraid she’d think he’d been some kind of basket case—but he wanted to open up about how he’d known what to do tonight. While some had come from his firefighter and EMT training and his recent rescue diving class, the breathing technique had been Lisa’s teaching.
As the silence dragged on, she stiffened, as if dreading some bad news.
“You know you can say anything to me at this point, Tony.”
Do I? Okay, yeah, I do. “You showed a lot of courage during the dive tonight, Carmella.”
She lifted her head to meet his gaze. “Seriously? I panicked and nearly drowned myself as a result.”
“Momentary panic, sure, but it didn’t take you long to get your fears under control.”
“Thanks to you.”
He glanced away to recapture his train of thought before reconnecting with her again. “The point I’m trying to make is that you faced your fears by continuing the dive rather than abandoning it. That took a lot of courage and perseverance.”
“I did that because you were beside me helping me through it.”
“When I saw you were in distress, I did what I had to do in order to help you through it.”
“And I appreciate that you knew what to do.”
Now—or never.
“Carm, there are times…when I’ve become almost paralyzed with my own fears, so I understand. Especially after…”
Tell her.
Carm had hinted earlier in the week that she was aware of the incident at the river, although he hadn’t wanted to discuss it with her to see how much she knew.
Carmella searched his eyes, waiting for him to spill it.
I’m not sure I can.
Just do it, for fuck’s sake!
“After that bad call in June that you heard about, I struggled. A lot.” He swallowed, his mouth suddenly dry. “Instead of dealing with what happened, I crawled into a bottle to numb myself to what I was feeling.”
Admitting his failure as a firefighter made his heart squeeze tight. Before saying anything more, he waited for her to pass judgment on him.
But she nodded instead. “I can’t imagine what you go through when things go wrong like that. It wouldn’t surprise me that you’d want to block out the horror of it all.”
“Maybe, but I can’t afford to be at less than one hundred percent on a call.” Tony turned away. “My job is to protect people. If I don’t show up and stay alert, I’m no good to anyone, especially the people I took an oath to serve and protect.”
Could he tell her?
After a few moments of silence, she said, “Go on.”
“I screwed up on the job last week. That’s the reason I’m off work this week. Mandatory leave to get my head on straight.” He told her about the woman and child stuck in the ditch and how he’d frozen, flashing back to the river incident.
“Have you been able to talk with anyone who’s been through a similar experience?”
Tony nodded, remembering the intervention at Angelina’s café. “Rafe and my lieutenant told me about some of their bad calls and how they haunted them for a long time. I never even knew my brother was going through anything like that, so he must have handled it better.” Although he hadn’t been around Rafe much then. Would Tony have noticed a change if he had been?
“I doubt any firefighter can be on the job as long as you have without experiencing the horror of the job. Most people wouldn’t have the courage to run into a burning building, but you’re prepared to do it every day. And yet you’re still with the department.”
By the skin of my teeth if I don’t straighten up.
And yet, his trigger incident had come in a deluge of water, not flames.
“Those drownings were the worst thing that’s happened to me on duty. I was so close to rescuing them….” His mind played the scene for the thousandth time. “It was the day after the wedding. I’d gone into work to cook for the guys when the call came in. The small SUV carrying a young mother and her eighteen-month-old daughter had gotten swept off a low roadway just south of the reservoir.
“Rafe and I crawled out on the ladder, which had been stretched over the river, to extricate them from the roof of their vehicle. They pleaded for our help. I was in the lead, because I was the strongest swimmer if we went into the water. I’d made it onto the roof of the vehicle seconds before a large tree trunk hit it and sent them into the river. I unhooked my safety line and jumped in after them, thinking I could still reach them in time.” The scene played out in slow motion in his head. He paused to catch his breath and slow his heart rate. “Gone in the blink of an eye.”
Tony’s voice cracked with the retelling. He didn’t realize his hands were trembling until Carmella squeezed them. He took a slow, deep breath. “Ryder and I found the woman in her Broncos shirt and the toddler in her pink outfit the next day.”
Carm lifted her head again to meet his gaze, concern in her eyes as she stroked his cheek. “Oh, Tony.” She lowered her hand to his chest. “I’m so sorry you had to go through that.”
He dismissed her words. Tony wasn’t the one who had suffered the most; the victims and their family had.
“I read about the tragedy in the paper a few days later and that you and Ryder found the victims. My heart bled for you and your crew, Tony, but I had no idea you blamed yourself.”
“Nobody to blame but me. I was right there but…couldn’t get to them in time.”
“It wasn’t your fault that they were
