I heard a groan and stopped.
The groan came again, and I followed it, walking carefully.
“If you’re not going to cry…can I?”
My eyes widened when they zeroed in on where the voice was coming from, and I saw Benji lying under a metal door, his hair singed and parts of his clothes fried to a crisp. His arm, forehead, and cheek were all blistered and charred, but he was alive.
“Benji!” I yelled, rushing over to him.
“Hi, babe.” He grinned through the fatigue and pain.
“I don’t believe it! How are you…how did you…” I wanted to hug him, but I wasn’t sure what was broken or burned.
“Think you could get this thing off me?”
I nodded. “I’ll try.” I began to lift and pull, and then I found a pipe to wedge between the ground and the metal. It took me a few tries, but I finally pried it open long enough for Benji to roll out.
He landed on his back again and let out a raspy breath.
I fell to my knees, trying desperately to find a place to touch him. “Where else hurts? Is anything broken? I can’t believe you’re alive!” I cried the last bit.
“I ducked behind this door. Luckily, when I was blown back, that huge piece of concrete and rebar broke my fall.” He noticed my swollen red eyes and reached up to touch my face. “Have you been crying over me?”
“Shut up.” I sniffed, laughing once. “Don’t ever do that to me again.”
“I promise,” he said, his breath catching.
“Ribs?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m not sure where the nearest hospital is. Or the nearest car.”
Benji was trying not to move. He definitely had cracked a rib or two, but I began to worry he had internal bleeding.
I could hear sirens, but they were all closer to town.
“I’m going to, um…” I said, sniffing and worried all over again. “I need to find a car. We need to get you to a hospital.”
Just then, a car engine caught my attention, and my head perked up. It was an orange Mustang with Bryn at the wheel.
“Benji?” she cried, slamming the car into park and jumping out.
“Help me get him into the backseat,” I said. “We need to get him to a hospital.”
Bryn nodded. “There’s a hospital in Chester. Maybe twenty minutes away.”
Benji growled with every movement, crying out loudest when we stood him up. He held his right arm against his chest. Benji’s dad was in the front seat, still not quite conscious. Bryn helped him lean forward, letting me crawl into the back.
Benji cried out again as we maneuvered him into the back of the car. “I’m not sure all this pain trying to get to the hospital is worth medical attention.” He rested his head on my lap and relaxed. “But this is definitely worth cracked ribs.”
I touched each side of his face as Bryn pulled away from the burning wreckage of the warehouse. Benji grimaced with every bump.
“Sorry,” I said, cringing every time he tensed.
“It’s not so bad. Maybe I can even get a date out of this?”
I grinned. “No way.”
“No way?” he said, his eyebrows shooting up. “Cheese and rice, woman, what’s it going to take?”
I leaned down, just an inch from his face. “You can’t get a date, but you can get a first date because I want more than just one.”
Benji lifted his hand to the back of my neck and pulled me the short distance to his lips. As he kissed me softly, slowly, and passionately, I knew that I finally had the unconditional love, safety, and security I’d been missing.
I peered up through the back window at the smoky sky. Cy and Apolonia were somewhere up there, not knowing that I wasn’t alone after all.
“I have a feeling we’ll see them again,” Benji said.
I looked down at his brown eyes and smiled. It was possible. Anything was possible.
I looked at the road ahead. For the first time in a long time, it felt like good things were coming, and for the first time since I died, I felt alive.
The End