What was left behind

Betrayed and alone

A week has passed since the accident. And as a result, for a week our new car was called Venus. Antony and Gregor immediately agreed to Max's proposal. However, the atmosphere in the fire station has changed a lot. At least in my opinion, my colleagues stubbornly tried to deny what happened by acting as if it didn't happen. In fact, for the two replacements who came from outside, we acted like a normal team. The guys laughed and joked around as if nothing had happened, and at the slightest mention of Justin or Shane's absence, they shrugged and clung to the pretense that everything was as it should be.
At first I was ready to believe that this was their way of forcing out of my mind what had happened to Justin, and even more so to Shane, but when after a few days they still hadn't uttered a word, all my faith in that the team is like a family and always sticks together, it started to crack. I was definitely grateful to fate that nothing happened to me, because I knew that no one would even visit me and I was thinking about both the hospital and, in a worse case scenario, the grave. We had to take everything into account. My biggest problem was that all their strange behavior in my presence made me unsure whether I could trust them.

These thoughts were running through my head at every free moment. And I had too many of them, because they didn't manage to deliver a new car to us for a week, so only Venus could go to the calls, and, as Gregor kept saying, who needed such a car. Due to the lack of calls, we were bored to the point of madness in the fire station, and no one seemed to want to change that.
However, even after the changes, I simply couldn't find a place for myself. Justin would probably have found a hundred suggestions on what we could do earlier. But now I spent time alone, only going out to visit him in the hospital.

It was the same today. I was just waiting for Justin. The white walls of the hospital corridor oppressed me, but the thought that hopefully I wouldn't have to come back here to visit him any time soon brought me relief. I had been visiting him every afternoon for the past few days, even sneaking off shift a few times. I tried to make him laugh as best as I could and every day we found a reason to laugh together. Although there was something constantly catching my attention. He seemed strangely withdrawn to me, he even reminded me of me when I didn't want to go along with his crazy ideas, like the amusement park date a few weeks ago. However, I chose to ignore it, blaming his unhappy behavior on the fact that his leg was in a cast. He was extremely lucky that neither the impact nor the fire did any major damage to him. While Shane still didn't wake up and only fell into deeper and deeper sleep, my Justin only got a watermelon-sized lump on his head and broke his leg in two places. He also had a few bruises and major scratches, but he told me secretly that the doctors were optimistic.

I looked up just as he approached me, alternating between jumping and leaning on two crutches. I smiled, standing up to take a backpack from him, which he had already stubbornly slung over one shoulder.

"Here, I'll help you," I said gently, greeting him.

Even though he didn't resist me carrying the backpack for him, I still had the impression that there was the same blank look and fake smile again. After a long walk, we reached his apartment, but even though I noticed the tiredness on his face, he insisted on climbing the stairs to the second floor by himself. Not having the strength to explain to him again that accepting help wouldn't embarrass him, I stayed behind. It was only when he told me in the living room that he would handle everything that I looked at him skeptically and couldn't contain myself any longer when I asked:

"Did something happen to you?"

"What?" he asked me confused, turning his head to look at me in surprise.

"You've been acting strange since the accident," I said more calmly, sitting next to him on the couch.

Almost immediately, however, I felt as if his gaze moved down my face and stopped at the area where my neck ended. I think I instinctively covered the bruise with my hand, afraid he would notice. Even though I applied ice to it regularly, the bruise still remained where my neck painfully met the seatbelt. I was hoping I wouldn't show it to Justin until it healed, but in the silence that fell between us, he noticed. He gently placed his hand on mine and looked into my eyes.