I hung up and hurried through the dark, quiet building and out the front door. Sure enough, a cab was pulling away and Mina was standing on the dark sidewalk. She was wearing jeans and a flowered top with a dark hoodie zipped up over it, her hair tied loosely up near the top of her head, wayward strands framing her face. She didn’t have any makeup on and she looked like she’d rather be in bed. I felt a rush of joy just looking at her, mixed with a pulse of lust that reminded me I didn’t want to just be her friend. I wanted to kiss her. I also wanted to get my hands up under that sweatshirt. I reminded myself to keep my cool.
“What’s going on?” I asked her, my voice rough. “You shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night.”
She sighed. She looked worried, though her gaze went up and down me the way it always did, taking in every line of me. If nothing else, Mina always liked to look at me, and I didn’t even think she knew she was doing it. “I wasn’t going to bother you,” she said. “I’ve been trying to keep away from you.”
“I noticed.” Though we’d talked on the phone and through text, for the last few days Mina had seemed distant, as if she had something on her mind. I had no idea what.
“I couldn’t sleep,” she said. “Can we talk? I have something to give you.”
I frowned, but I held out my hand, unwilling to go any longer without touching her in some way. “Come on.”
She took my hand, her palm warm against mine, and I led her toward the headquarters building. When we were inside I put my finger to my lips, explaining that my coworker was grabbing a between-calls nap. Then, in whispers, I showed her around. The kitchen, the medical supplies, the computer room, the living room.
I couldn’t say why I took the time to show Mina around like that. Part of me wanted her to see where I worked for some reason. Another part of me wanted to put off whatever she came here to say, because I had the feeling it wasn’t good.
“Holden, this is amazing,” Mina said when we ended up in the living room. She looked around, her big, dark eyes beautiful in the shadows, her hair tousled around her face. “What you do every day is amazing.”
“It isn’t,” I said, looking at our humble living room. “We’re a bunch of slobs who are tired most of the time.”
“No, I think—”
The door to the bunk room cracked open and Daniela poked her sleepy head out. “What’s going on? Who’s talking?” She saw Mina. “Oh.”
“Daniela, this is Mina,” I said. “Sorry we woke you. We were trying to be quiet.”
“I had to pee anyway,” Dani said, “but I’m going back to sleep now.” She looked at Mina. “I work with Holden and I’m his roommate, by the way. But don’t worry, I bat for the other team. I’m glad you forgave him, because even though he was an ass in high school, he’s slightly less of an ass now.”
“Um, okay,” Mina said. “Is it a problem, me being here?”
Dani shrugged. “It’s completely against the rules, but what do I know? I was asleep and didn’t see anything. Just be quiet, whatever you get up to. I don’t want to listen to moaning.”
“Dani,” I said.
She grinned in her Dani way. “If you’re going to do anything involving bodily fluids, please sanitize afterward. Good night. I’ll see you when we get the next call.” Her head vanished and she closed the door.
“Ignore her,” I said to Mina. “But we should let her sleep. Let’s go to the garage.”
We went outside and I showed her the ambulance, the driver’s seat with the siren button, and I opened the back to let her look inside. I was still stalling for time. Maybe Mina was, too, because she didn’t seem in a hurry to get to whatever had brought her here.
Finally the air got too heavy and we couldn’t think of any more small talk to make. Mina reached into the pocket of her hoodie and brought out my watch, which she held out to me. “I came to bring you this back,” she said.
I looked at it but didn’t reach for it. “I didn’t ask for it.”
“I know, but I should never have taken it in the first place. It was Caleb’s, wasn’t it?”
I looked at the expression on her face, the fact that she was here in the middle of the night, and I knew. “You found out,” I said.
Mina bit her lip. “Technically Tess Googled it, not me. But I saw what she found. Your brother’s obituary.” She paused. “I’m so sorry.”
All of the anger and bitterness I buried deep about Caleb threatened to well up. “About what?” I asked. “You didn’t do anything wrong. He died, that’s all. He overdosed. You probably could have guessed the end of the story.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, her voice soft.
That soft voice nearly did me in. No one talked softly about Caleb. They either judged him or they pretended he had never existed at all. My parents had judged him while he was alive, and now that he was dead it was like he’d never happened. He’d had no real friends, no serious girlfriends. I felt like the only person who really remembered my brother, the good and the bad, was me.
“I know he was an addict, and sometimes he was a jerk,” I said. “I know he got himself killed. I know everyone thinks what happened was his own fault.”
“He was sick, Holden,” Mina said.
I shook my head, because no one gave Caleb that kind of leeway, that kind of understanding. Only me. “He’s the reason I’m an EMT. I started taking first aid classes when his addiction got bad. I wanted to be able to do CPR if I had to. I kept taking more classes, and I decided, What the hell? I may as well become an EMT. Maybe I can save his life someday. Though of course that didn’t happen. He went out one night and didn’t tell me where he was going. By the time I found him, he’d already overdosed. I didn’t have the chance to do a fucking thing.” I blinked hard, swallowing. “Every patient I have is Caleb. Every single one. It’s why I work so many extra hours. I can’t just go home and relax when another Caleb is out there, needing someone, needing help. If I can help everyone who calls in on my watch, then I can help Caleb somehow like I couldn’t when he was alive. I can’t explain it.”
Mina’s dark eyes were fixed on me. She didn’t look away, didn’t even flinch in discomfort. She just watched and listened. “I understand,” she said. “I do. I haven’t been through what you have, but I understand.”
“Keep the watch,” I said.
She shook her head. “I can’t. You were wearing it when you came to my apartment that night. You usually wear it all the time, don’t you? I took your brother’s watch off you because I was being petty and mad. Please take it back.”
I looked at the watch in her hand—the worn, dark brown leather band, the silver face. She was right—I’d worn that watch every day since Caleb’s death. I couldn’t have said why. It wasn’t even something that had been particularly special to him. It was just a watch he’d bought somewhere and worn all the time, and he’d had it on him when he died, and when the funeral home asked if I wanted it or I wanted it buried on Caleb, I’d said I would take it. I suppose I’d seen it as a small part of my brother, and for some reason the idea of that watch being buried in the ground forever was unbearable to me.