Page 4 of Fighting For You

The front door opened and two guys in fire station t-shirts walked in. They went straight to the counter, said something to the waitress, and waited. Pickup order.

"I saw that."

"Saw what?"

"You're looking at them."

"At who?"

"You were looking at those firefighters that dropped off that guy this afternoon too."

I picked up my water. "Was I?"

"You have a thing for them." She leaned forward. "Come on, Nora. You're gorgeous! Why don't you just go ask one of them out?"

"I don't have time for that. You know I don't have time."

"You're working now. You're a real nurse in a real ER. You're not juggling school and work anymore." She pointed at me across the table. "You deserve to have some fun."

She was right. For six years I'd been running on two tracks at once: school during the day, CNA shifts at night. There was no off switch. No weekend that was actually a weekend. Just the next shift, the next exam, the next bill, the next thing Ian needed.

And now I was here. One job. A real schedule. Days off that were actually days off. I should have felt lighter. Gracelyn could see it, even if I couldn't.

The problem was I had no idea how to stop. You run that hard for that long and your body forgets what rest is supposed to feel like. I'd sit on my couch on a day off and feel guilty for sitting. I'd look at the clock and think I should be somewhere. Six years of barely holding it together, and now that I didn't have to, I couldn't figure out what to do with my hands.

I looked down at the menu the waitress had left on the edge of the table.

"I think I'll order another to-go for Ian's lunch tomorrow."

The house was dark when I got home. Ian's shoes weren't by the door.

I put the paper bag with his chicken tenders in the fridge and pulled out my phone.

NORA

What time are you coming home?

I waited a few seconds. No reply. He was probably still at Jesse's, deep in whatever project they were working on. I set the phone on the counter.

The shower was the first quiet I'd had to myself all day. I stood under the hot water until every bit of the shift washed off me. The blood, the noise, the screaming kid on the pavement. All of it down the drain.

I pulled on a t-shirt and shorts and turned on the TV, kept the volume low. The house felt too still without Ian in it. I was used to coming home and finding him on the couch with his feet on the armrest and the remote balanced on his chest. Without him there, the rooms felt bigger than they were.

I opened the fridge and checked the meal prep I'd done on Sunday. Containers lined up on the second shelf, labeled and dated. Enough for the rest of the week. Everything accounted for.

I closed the fridge, sat down on the sofa, and waited.

A cartoon was playing on one of the cable channels. I almost changed it, but then the theme song started and I stopped.

Ian used to love this show. He'd sit on the living room floor with his cereal bowl balanced on his knees and watch three episodes back to back before school. He was five. I was fourteen, already running late, shoving textbooks into my bag while he sat there laughing at a cartoon fox who couldn't figure out how to cross a river.

We were nine years apart. I'd spent years begging my parents for a little brother or sister, and when Ian was born, I was the happiest kid. I carried him around the house like he was mine. Changed his diapers, fed him his bottle, read to him until he fell asleep on my shoulder.

Now that baby boy was turning seventeen.

I left the cartoon on.

The front door clicked. "I'm home!"