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People have begun to leave flowers, candles, notes, cards, all as a memorial to the firefighter who was killed in the engine bombing last week. Twenty-nine year old first responder, Evan Buckley was pinned under a ladder truck, suffering fatal in-
The television clicks off and Eddie looks at his hands in his lap.
“I was watching that,” he says, not looking up as Hen sits next to him.
“You shouldn’t be.”
“Why not?” He asks sarcastically. “I love reliving that…nightmare.”
“The more you watch it, the more it’s going to hurt.”
“Not like I don’t deserve it,” Eddie mutters.
She shifts, her elbow on her knee as she looks at him. “What are you talking about?”
“I should have been there with him,” he manages, pursing his lips. He wasn’t there and now, he was alone again.
Hen shakes her head. “Eddie, it was not your fault.”
“Six months,” he says. He could feel the resentment rising in him- resentment toward himself, toward the kid who set the bomb, toward- “Six months of me telling him that he wasn’t alone, that I’d always be there when he needed me. And the one- the one time I wasn’t, he...”
“We all make promises we can’t-“
“Don’t,” he snaps, shaking his head. “You’d be doing the same thing if it was your wife.”
Hen is quiet for a moment. It’s a crushing weight on him and he can’t stand it. “You’re right… I know you and Buck were close.”
“He was going to propose.”
“What? To who?” Eddie looks at her and her eyes widen. “You?”
He reaches into his pocket and shows her the small black box. “It was in his locker…”
“I didn’t know you two were dating.”
He sits forward and traces the lines on his palms while she examines the ring. “It was his idea, hiding it. He was worried if we... made a big deal about it, about us... he thought he’d lose me. That the pressure would be too much for him.”
“That’s not an easy thing to hide.”
It’s Eddie’s turn to shake his head. “Chris knew but, um... no. No, it was the easiest thing in the world. Because it was him. And he was mine. Besides him and Chris... nothing else mattered. If I had- If I had lost everything else, but I had my boys... god, I’d be the happiest man alive.
He takes a ragged breath. “They keep- they keep dying on me, Hen.” He looks up at her and she softens. He has to look away again, he sees the way her heart breaks for him. “I can’t- I can’t do it anymore. First, it was Shannon; I had just gotten her back. And now, B- I can’t do it without him, I can’t... he was my everything.”
He hates how his voice breaks at the end of the sentence, he hates how he’s drowning in nothing but loneliness, he hates how he misses him with his whole being, how he can’t be with Christopher, even if they’re sitting right next to each other. Because, somehow, it reminds him too much of what he’s lost. And he hates how it’s always his fault.
He gasps for breath and pulls at his hair. “He- god, I keep- I keep pushing them away and then- It’s all my fault.”
“No, no, it’s not,” Hen says softly, putting her hand on his shoulder. “Eddie, look at me. Take a deep breath.”
“I wasn’t- I wasn’t enough for her and she-she wanted a divorce and then... And Bu-“ He bites his lip to keep from crying more. It doesn’t work and he shakes his head again. “I wanted to-to tell you all and he...he got mad, we were arguing. That’s why we were on different trucks and then...”
“Eddie, you couldn’t have stopped this.” There were tears in her eyes now too.
“I could have been there.” He pushes her away and stands, pacing for a moment. “I should have been there.”
He drops back onto the couch and covers his face. Eddie wishes, with every fiber of his being, that he was still here with him. That he could see those bright blue eyes and the excited grin and he would know that he was safe. Eddie wishes that he could wrap himself up in his arms, listening to his boyfriend’s heart beat.
But every time he thinks of the warmth and happiness he used to feel, the chill and sadness of reality presses harder.
“He shouldn’t have been alone,” he whispers, and if she hadn’t been as close as she was now, Hen would have missed it.
“Eddie...”
She pulls him close, wrapping her arms around him. And they sit like that for a while, her arms around him, while his head rests on her shoulder.