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She sees me…
Pfft…
What the fuck did that even mean?
Eddie looked out the window, arms crossed over his chest, trying to contain the anger slowly growing inside, festering ever since he heard those words.
The conversation kept replaying in his head in a painful loop, until the words didn’t even make sense anymore. What the fuck did she even see that he didn’t see too? Who the hell even was she?
It pissed him off. Just because she was a death— sorry, end of life doula, whatever the hell that meant, it didn’t mean she knew Buck. Just because she was obsessed with death and professionally curious about the lightning strike, it didn’t mean she understood what it had done to Buck, what it was like.
She knew nothing. She wasn’t there.
He was. He knew.
That same thunderbolt that had stopped Buck’s heart had gone through his body too. That same electricity that killed him could’ve killed the both of them.
She didn’t see the most important person in her life not counting her son dangling off a ladder what felt like a million feet in the air. She didn’t fight the excruciating pain of a fall just to run up said ladder with zero protection just to get to him.
She didn’t have to fucking count every single one of those one hundred and ninety seven seconds she was forced to spend on this earth without Buck.
She didn’t touch his limp, lifeless body. She didn’t see the red, spidery evidence of his death drawn all over his chest.
She didn’t restart his heart with her bare hands.
She didn’t spend days feeling like all color and light had been drained out of this world just because he wouldn’t wake up. She didn’t cry every night, wondering how the fuck she was supposed to keep going without Buck.
She didn’t feel the overwhelming relief once he came back. She didn’t feel like the world started spinning again, like life started making sense again.
She didn’t spend weeks by Buck’s side, existing between life and death, trying to make sense of it all.
She had no fucking clue. How could she see anything?
No one saw Buck the way he did. No one in this world. No one had what they had, that connection that needed no words, that bond that went beyond simple friendship, that… that love, aching in his chest every time he looked at Buck.
No one saw Buck the way he did, no, but some days he wondered if Buck even saw him at all. Some days he wondered if he was invisible, transparent.
Was he really that good at hiding what he felt? How could he not know? How could Buck think this stranger saw him and he didn’t?
He scoffed, rolling his eyes.
“What is it?” Buck asked from the driver’s seat.
“Nothing, don’t worry about it,” he replied, still looking out the window of Buck’s jeep. “Just remembered a joke…”