Throw Him My Way

But by the time she got home and checked for a reply, she started wondering what was wrong.

Was he one of those weird hot and cold guys?

How much did she really know about him?

By lunchtime, after her daily baking, she gave up and tried calling him.

But it went to voice mail. She left a message.

“Hey, Christian. I haven’t heard from you. Is something wrong? Call me, all right?”

That, she thought, struck the right note. Concern, but not nagging. That was a good balance.

But Mrs. Spinelli noticed when they were having lunch.

“The young man hasn’t called you yet.”

Heidi smiled and tried to wave it off.

“There’s probably a fire somewhere,” she said, trying to make a joke of it.

It was a reliable joke to fall back on when you’re dating a fireman.

Except, she was beginning to wonder if they’d been dating at all.

“Well, he’d better call you soon,” said Mrs. Spinelli, and Heidi knew that she was thinking a few choice swearwords in her head.

Mrs. Spinelli had a mouth on her when she got going. Heidi had heard it on one memorable afternoon when the milkman had tried to shortchange her.

Heidi didn’t go out that night. There was nowhere to perform. Well, there was Barney’s, but she needed an evening at home.

It was an indulgence she only allowed herself once a week, usually. But it had been a big week. Twice wasn’t too much.

But the next day, she looked through the crowd again, and didn’t see him.

She left him more voice mails, until they got full and she couldn’t leave more.

Heidi was sure now that something terrible had happened.

Finally, she called the fire station.

It took her a couple of tries before she finally got put through to Rick.

“Rick! Rick, this is Heidi. Remember me?”

“Heidi! Oh sh*t, I should’ve called you, shouldn’t I? Things just got so hectic.”

“Rick, what’s wrong? What happened? I’ve been trying to get a hold of Christian for so long. I…”

“Heidi, he’s in the hospital.”

Heidi felt like the bottom had dropped out from under her feet.

She couldn’t have heard right, could she?

“Hospital?” she squeaked.

“Yes. Man, I’m so sorry I didn’t call you.”

“What happened to him?”

As if she cared about his excuses for not calling her! She should’ve listened to her gut, when it had told her that something was horribly wrong.

Christian hadn’t been blowing hot and cold.

Christian was in the hospital.

“There was a fire. Smoke inhalation. He’s been in a coma for three days.”

Three days! So he’d been in the hospital that evening when he hadn’t turned up for her triumph.

For a moment, Heidi wondered if it had been fate’s joke. Had that been the price she’d had to pay?

No, she was being morbid, of course.

“How bad is it? Which hospital is it? Can I go to see him?”

Rick seemed to hesitate for a moment.

“He’s got somebody with him all the time. I’m sure he’d like it if you went. Look, I’ll meet you there this afternoon. How about that? I can explain what happened, and you can stop freaking out. And I can introduce you to his family.”

Heidi had wondered if she’d end up meeting his family, but this was far from how she had imagined the scene.

“Heidi?”

She snapped back to the present.

“Yes. Yes, please, Rick. As soon as you can. I… Oh, God. Is he in immediate danger?”

“No. The doctors say there’s a good chance he’ll wake up when he’s ready – when his body is ready. They don’t expect any permanent damage if… when that happens. It’s just a waiting thing now. His chances are excellent, Heidi. He’s in excellent shape.”

Heidi let him reassure her a bit before she finally hung up.

As if the bones in her legs had turned into liquid, she just slid to the floor.

Christian was in the hospital.

He was in a coma.

And even if Rick had tried to sound very optimistic, he had said ‘if’.

‘If’ Christian woke up.

Suddenly, the idea that he might not wake up seemed almost too awful to contemplate.

Finding her strength again, from somewhere, Heidi got to her feet and took a deep breath.

She splashed some cold water on her face, and wondered what to do next.

She did what seemed natural. She went across the hall to Mrs. Spinelli, and told her all she knew.

When she cried, Mrs. Spinelli held her, and Heidi took all of that comfort that she offered.

And she was grateful for it.

“It’ll be all right, love,” said Mrs. Spinelli, and Heidi tried hard to believe it.

“It has to be. Mrs. Spinelli, it has to be all right.”

Heidi, for once, canceled on her dogs. She felt awful about doing it, but she couldn’t face even her beloved canine friends at the moment.

It felt like something inside had broken.

Had she known how much he was beginning to mean to her? The attraction had been elemental, but it had become something more, and she hadn’t expected that.

At six, she was waiting outside the hospital, hoping that Rick wouldn’t be late. She should go in and ask what was wrong, but she couldn’t bring herself to do it, somehow.

It was with relief that she saw Rick walking towards her.

“Rick…”

“Hey,” said Rick, and launched right into it without wasting time with niceties.

“There was a fire, a pretty bad one, three days ago.”

She nodded.

“The night of my performance.”

Rick nodded, too.

“Yes. It was in the afternoon. We got the call, from emergency dispatch, and it seemed like routine. The fire was on the second floor. We followed protocol, but we didn’t know that there was a child on the third floor. Nobody told us until we’d declared the building clear. We’d cleared it, floor by floor, but the kid had been left alone and was hiding under the bed.”

Rick paused, obviously reliving something he had no wish to think about.

“We were told by a neighbor. We were trying to get things under control, but the blaze… It was pretty bad. Christian didn’t even think twice. He ran in. The entire place was about to go up. We suspect arson. It felt like there was an accelerant involved. Whatever it was, the smoke… Christian has the training to counter it, and he had his gear, but it was too much. He got to the kid, placed his mask over the kid’s face, and got out. I don’t know how he managed to get out, Heidi. He should’ve collapsed in there. But he almost made it out before he gave in to it. I was about to go in after him when I saw him, and he fell. I ran in, grabbed the kid, and another guy grabbed him. We managed to get them both out.”

Heidi felt like she couldn’t quite believe her ears. Things like this didn’t happen in real life, did they?

But she looked at Rick, and knew that they did.

“How’s the kid?”

A ghost of a smile flickered over Rick’s face.

“Kid is fine. Made it through. Needed a couple of days in the hospital, but other than a sore throat, almost as good as new. Drew us all so many pictures, too. She says she’s going to be a firefighter, too.”

Heidi tried to smile.

Rick saw the effort it took, and patted her hand.

“The doctors say that it’s a matter of time, mostly. Christian is extremely fit, and there doesn’t seem to have been oxygen deprivation bad enough to cause any permanent damage. That in itself is a miracle, Heidi. Now we just need to wait for his body to fix itself, and he’ll wake up. Then we can both kick his ass.”

Heidi chuckled, but it was a weepy, watery sound, absolutely nothing like her usual, full-bodied laugh.

Rick wiped away the tear that trickled down her cheek.