Something Worth Saving by Chelsea Landon

wall late at night and his uncertain movements around me. He was lost, lost in what, I didn’t know, because he never said what he was thinking.
    “Has your mom called you yet?”
    The question caught me off guard. My silence caused him to look up and watch my reaction in the mirror.
    “No.”
    His lips parted, and I thought for a moment he might say something that would make me feel better, assure me that what we had wasn’t lost and this void wasn’t really there.
    Instead, he set his toothbrush in the holder and left the room, closing the door with a soft click . I wanted him to slam it. I wanted him to because if he did, it meant he had some fire left in him.
    I followed him into the bedroom, where his hands were at the button of his jeans. The scene here was the same as a few nights ago. Same words, same doubtful thoughts.
    “Why do you care if she’s called?”
    He shrugged.
    “Why do you do that? You say things and act like I’m just supposed to read your mind. What is it that’s bothering you?”
    “Nothing.”
    Yeah right.
    “So I’m imagining this space between us?” Both of us stood on either side of the bed, the space between us now revealed in our stance. He was on one side, and I was on the other. “I’m imagining that you’re never here and when you are, you’re quiet?”
    “I didn’t say that, Aubrey,” he said forcefully, but I shook my head. He looked back and forth between my eyes.
    “You didn’t have to. I see it on your face. You know it’s there, but you’re not doing anything to save it, either.”
    His lips curved at the corners, but not from amusement. It never was. “You couldn’t be more wrong if you tried . . . ” He wanted to say so much more right then. I felt it.
    Jace wasn’t the type of person who would hurt me. Not purposely.
    “You’re reading too much into it. It’s nothing.”
    It was just like him to say that right then. He was wrong, though. This wasn’t nothing. It was everything.
    His body stiffened, and when I looked up again, his expression was intense. His mouth opened as if he were going to say something. But he didn’t.
    Say something!
    When he didn’t, this time I was the one walking away. To the couch.
    It hurt to do so. I wanted to crawl inside his chest and hold his heart. I wanted to beg him to save this, me, us, and ask him where it had gone wrong. Had we not smelled smoke before it was too late?
    As I lay there, my eyes on the ceiling and the faint glow from the city lights streaming in through our blinds, I thought back to how we got here and when these problems first began.
    I couldn’t pinpoint any date specifically. It was gradual.
    Just as the rain outside picked up, Jace came out of the bedroom, his eyes finding mine in the dark. He wanted to say something, but as usual didn’t. His hand found his hair, tugging, and then he sighed, retreating back to the bedroom. The door closed behind him.
    Lately this was what we did.
    Tired remarks and so many words unsaid. We argued, but most of all, we ignored. But never had we sat and talked and ventilated to clear the smoke and see where the fire was coming from. Most of us never assume life in general can tear two people apart. It can. And it will if you let it.
    I felt like we were no longer a couple making decisions together but more like two people living separate lives, linked by the two children we’d created.
    As my head hit the pillow and tears soaked it, I dreaded doing this again tomorrow.
    When would it stop? When would be able to talk? Or would it always be like this?
    We used to be one person, one heart and one soul fighting fire together. Now we’re struggling to find our own way, our safety line cut, lost in clouds of smoke with no visibility.
    We’re trapped.

 
    Ladder 1 on scene. Transmit a second alarm.
    Spend all units available.
    Dispatch to command, there are reports of two children and a mother trapped on four.
    10-4
     
----
     
    Tuesday, November 20,