Fuck! My eyes burned from struggling to keep the tears at bay, but I hung to the fleeting sanity left inside to rescue me. Something had to distract me before I swallowed the fucking flames and smoke engulfed us. When I saw she’d not only touched the hat, but cradled it, saying I struggled to remain calm would be an enormous understatement. No one touched my mantle, a rule that even I typically followed.

Immediately, I’d balled my fists to my sides to keep from hitting something. Eris seeing that side of me wasn’t an option, especially when I didn’t want to see this side of me. It was irrational, and I found loathing someone or something easier than dealing with the world.

While all of the emotions drained from her face that usually held such life, it was clear she spoke the truth. She was Noah’s mother, but I couldn’t grasp the reality in the words. Perhaps I didn’t want to accept them. No amount of preparation could have readied me to meet her, if I’d known who she really was. The world had a fucked-up sense of humor. She was the only person I’d been drawn to, the only person I’d loved, and yet, all of this would be coming to an abrupt halt.

Early on, I’d been honest with myself, and eventually swallowed I’d never be the man she needed, not knowing I was the man who ruined her life. All the hours we’d spent together and every minute that passed in each other’s arms all seemed wrong now. Blood stained the memories. She was the one thing in my life I’d thought wasn’t tainted by my past, when in reality, it seemed she was my past. We’d been connected in ways no one could foresee. Our heartache stemmed from the same tragic event, but I was the cause, and she was the affected. Knowing I was the source of her pain was something I couldn’t live with. For a brief pause in time, my misled thoughts considered the idea of being happy with Eris. Yet, that was when I believed I was the hero, I’d unknowingly worn the villain’s face in her story instead.

Holding her in my arms, the earth shifted and what had been a faultless day was now proving to be our Armageddon. This was the first time I knew fighting was pointless. No amount of effort could save us now. Despite the years I’d claimed to not care, that annoying emotion always lay dormant in the back of my mind, even if I denied acknowledging its presence. It kept me from completely derailing. Now that every aspect of it had been destroyed and there was no chance of it returning, the tracks that’d kept me grounded for years were broken and I was a runaway.

“Why, Drex?” she repeated herself in a barely audible voice. Reliving the past was one of my worst fears, and explaining it would mean going back to the darkest day I’d lived. Present day excluded. Unfortunately for us, today I’d taken the stage and won the fucked-up Grammy of my life.

After a cleansing breath, I pulled her to my chest and held her tight, knowing this would be our last moment. I tried to memorize how her hair always smelled like strawberries. The way she’d sneak off every morning we’d spent together and apply makeup she didn’t need was something I knew I’d miss, because it showed how blind to her beauty she was. She made me a better person, and now with everything laid out, I knew I’d been the one to destroy her.

Mulder and I went fishing any chance we got. As sure as the sun was in the sky, we were by the water and I was slinging a line into it, in hopes today would be the day I finally caught “the big one”.

A truck backed down the ramp on the opposite side of the pond. A little boy hung his head and a large portion of his body out of the truck window. I assumed he was guiding the driver. Finally, after the third time of pulling up and repositioning the angle, they got the boat in the correct direction to drop it into the water, using a good deal of team effort.

Once the elderly man and a boy who still had to attend elementary school got out of the cab and rounded the boat, I knew they’d have trouble unloading, so I yelled across the way, “Give me a few, guys. I’ll help ya put that big boy in the water.” I embellished some for the little boy’s behalf, knowing how important fishing trips with my grandfather had been when I was close to his age.

“I’m Drex,” I introduced myself, holding my hand out to shake the boy’s hand and then the elderly man’s, whom I figured was his grandfather.

“I’m Noah and that’s Granddad,” the boy said, adjusting his fishing hat and then quickly shaking my hand. He ran over to meet my puppy, Mulder, not interested in talking to me anymore.

“Jeff,” the man said his name. The love in his voice was unmistakable as he watched Noah and Mulder chase each other.

“Thanks for the help. Drex, is it?” He looked down to me as he hiked his foot onto the tailgate and used his arm to heave himself upward. I nodded my head in response and watched him move faster than I would have thought someone his age could. “That’s some name.” He laughed, loosening a ratchet strap, and so I did the same.

“It is.”

“Your parents hippies or something?” Bending to hold my stomach, I shook my head and then removed the hooks from the bed. “Sounds like a hippy name,” Jeff pointed out, and I saw him smirk. It was only then I realized he was just giving me a hard time.

“Maybe I’m a hippy,” I threw back at him and smiled in his general direction, jumping off the tailgate and lifting the bow of the boat upward as he grabbed the back.

“Good,” he said breathlessly after we set the jon boat into the water. “I am, too.” He smiled, removing his jacket and exposing a tattoo peace sign on his upper left arm, by no accident, I’m sure. He left me to hold the boat into place as he parked the truck.

“You ready to catch some fish, Noah?” he called to his grandson, who was busy splashing in mud puddles with Mulder to care what his grandfather was saying. He reached my side and climbed into the boat, unsnapping the snaps that held the seat’s top down, adjusting them both into position and hopping back onto the concrete ramp.

“Noah?”

“You bet!” he finally answered him and gave Mulder one last scratch behind the ears.

“Thanks for your help,” Jeff said, slapping my back and Noah repeated his action and words as he passed me, getting into the boat.

“Good luck!” I called, pushing the boat’s bow with my foot, and they wished me good luck as the boat drifted into the water. Mulder whimpered watching his new playmate float farther away from us, and Jeff started the motor as soon as the water was deep enough to allow him to do so.

Mulder and I walked back to our usual spot and I cast my line out, humming no particular tune. Today was a perfect day. The sun provided just enough warmth to keep a chill from your skin, and although clouds were present, no rain had fallen from them. I hadn’t checked the weather before leaving today, so I was thankful it wasn’t a bust.

Each time one of us caught a fish, we’d yell across the water to congratulate one another. The clouds were a vast contrast to what they were a mere two hours ago. They’d abruptly gone from a puffy white to a deep grayish black.

“Storm’s coming,” I yelled out to them, doubting they were local, since I hadn’t seen them until today. Thankfully, Jeff listened to my warning and turned the boat in the direction of the ramp as the rain began to spill down on us. Suddenly, the engine sputtered and died. In the same moment, Noah’s rod tipped downward and he excitedly stood to set the hook. Jeff shrugged his shoulders and smiled, standing to help Noah.

“Little bit of rain never hurt anyone,” Jeff called out to me as he stood behind Noah, holding onto the base of his fishing rod to strengthen Noah’s hold, and his head fell backward as he laughed. A loud crack of thunder rumbled through the air, and Mulder was at my feet instantly, tucking his tail beneath him.

The rain pelted down in sheets, and lightning struck in the distance. As fast as possible, I reeled my line in and packed up my things, rushing over to the ramp because I knew they’d need my help loading the boat. Another roar of thunder filled my ears, and I counted the seconds until blue lightning flashed in the sky, not knowing if there was any truth to the whole method. Three seconds separated the two, and panic stretched within my body.

The water that had been calm began to rage and rock their boat, and I prayed to God that Jeff had enough sense to pack oars. I looked into the bed of the truck and saw one lonely oar leaning against the body of the truck.

“Shit!” I murmured and paced the edge of the water, watching Noah’s line break and his grandfather grab a single oar, frantically trying to get the boat to move. One last crash of thunder boomed across the pond, and then the lightning burned across the sky, hitting a tree on the edge where Mulder and I had been.

The tree broke and I knew what was happening, but I was fucking powerless. I couldn’t stop what was unveiling before me, but I had to do something. A guttural scream came from their boat as the tree fell onto Jeff, flipping the boat from the weight of it, and Noah was launched into the water.

Immediately, I dove into the water and fought to tread its rage. I had to find them. “Noah. Jeff!” I screamed when my face emerged and water pushed me downward. Somehow, I found the top again, throwing my hands into the water, hoping to have enough strength to move myself forward to find them. They couldn’t die. I was a fucking doctor!

My eyes burned from the mud that had seeped into the water or merely from the constant dunking under the water. I didn’t know or have time to care. Now, I was not only fighting for their life, I was fighting for my own.

“Noah!” had barely left my lips when water was scorched into my lungs as I propelled myself upward and coughed, kicking my legs as hard as I could to stay afloat.

Momentarily, everything slowed, and my vision blurred. I was losing consciousness, but I rejected the urge. They couldn’t die. Dizziness overtook me, and my head seemed heavier than normal, launching downward, and water splashed my nose. Like most of my body, I thought my fingertips were numb from the water’s temperature, but I felt something unnaturally colder under them. It was the change in temperature, I was sure, that awoke me from blacking out. I really didn’t care what the reason was as long as I was able to fight for them.

It was Noah’s arm! “I got you!” I screamed over the thunder and lightning, pulling his body under my shoulder, and determination rolled through me. I. Would. Save. Him!

As soon as I brought us to the shore, I began compressions. Tears of horror tumbled down my face as I saw his. “Come on!” I begged his lifeless body. “Please,” I cried, losing hope. By the grace of God, Noah coughed and water expelled from him. Immediately, I rolled him onto his side, relief blanketing my fears.

“You’re okay, you hear me?” I demanded him to answer and cradled him into my chest. His little head nodded in agreement. His body shook, and I knew I needed to get him to the hospital.

“I lost my hat,” he complained in a weak voice, and I looked down to his hairline, soaking with blood. A heatwave of panic moved into my body, and I fought to breathe. Blood was something I saw daily, and it never bothered me in the slightest. My love for animals by far outweighed my compassion for other people, or so I had thought. As I held this boy in my arms, I realized it wasn’t that I didn’t care for people. It was I cared too much to lose them.

“Shit,” I whispered, applying pressure with my hand, and the child’s blood seeped around my fingers as his body went limp. Checking his wrists, I found a weak and thready radial pulse, but it was there…and then it completely faded.

“Somebody, please!” I screamed into the storm and began compressions again. After my fifth compression, my linked fingers and palms sank farther than they had before. His ribs broke under my hands—the hands I’d promised would only heal. Nausea rattled my insides, but I had to overcome it. This wasn’t about me.

Headlights topped the hill and spotlighted where we were, I continued to fight for him because his body had given up on him.

“Help him, please,” I begged him in such a dreadful voice, but I knew I wasn’t only asking this man, but God.

The man rushed back to his vehicle to call 911 he informed me when he returned to my side. I continued compressions until the paramedics arrived and they pulled my hands from Noah’s breathless body. I’d lost him.

“Sir.” The officer approached me, but I’d lost myself into the flashing red and blue lights. Each split second of darkness allowed his face to appear behind my eyes. He’d been so full of life only a few hours before. Now he was gone. There was no hope to save Jeff. I had accepted that the moment I dove into the water to save Noah, but I didn’t save him. I tried to save him and failed. What kind of doctor couldn’t save a little boy?

“Sir?” he said again, his voice filling with alarm.

“I tried,” I cried, burying my face into my hands, and Mulder crawled closer to my feet. “I tried to save them,” I repeated myself, noticing the blood covering my hands, and shook with disgust. It wasn’t the blood that bothered me; it was whom the blood belonged to. Someone I couldn’t save.

One of the multiple cops took my statement, and they searched for Jeff’s body, finding him and determining him a D.O.A., which stood for dead on arrival.

“It was one of those freak accidents,” a news reporter spoke in front of a camera, and it took all the restraint I had not to throw the camcorder to the ground, smashing it into little pieces. This was why I’d decided I didn’t like people. They’re fucking inconsiderate. Apparently, I just needed a reminder of how indecent they could really be.

In the middle of a storm, more people left their tracks in the mud than these grounds had ever seen. The saying about misery was abundantly clear in this moment. I hated all of them, every last set of prying eyes that was unnecessarily here. Each heart that had to be blackened, because how else would their present be justified?

Once the last person left, I found my rod and dragged the bottom, searching for his hat. If it were important for him to let it be his last words, I would fulfill his dying wish because I owed him a hell of a lot more.

Slowly, I looked the love of my life in the eyes and watched every bit of light fade from her. I watched as she wilted before me, and I was completely helpless. I couldn’t save her any more than I could save her son. I was a pitiful excuse of a man, and for me to ever think otherwise was proof of exactly that.

Eris didn’t ask any other questions. Actually, she didn’t speak at all. She blankly stared at her son’s hat in her hands. Her eyes never quite met mine again. Quietly, she removed herself from my grasp and walked out of the room. The door creaked as she closed it on her way out of my house.

I knew I should chase after her, but there are certain situations that just simply can’t be fixed. This was one of those irreparable events. Our glass panes had shattered, and no amount of glue or love could mend the damage.