Heat of the Heart: A Firefighter's Love Story

The crash

I groan slowly, coming to my whole world quite literally upside down as my hair hangs straight.
I reach for my head and touch my head. Blood is felt, and ringing is heard in my ears.

Glass is everywhere.
I could still move my legs, which I was thankful for.
All I remember is getting T-boned. My buckle is tight around my body.

I hear sirens in the distance.
My car was crushed pretty badly.
My body slowly begins to radiate pain.

The sirens are practically up close. Loud.

"Ma'am, I'm going to help you."
I see him leaning on the ground, his face barely visible to me. My vision is blurry, and my head is screaming.

"Please shut it off," I say, whimpering at the loud noise, that my current situation is overwhelming.

"The sirens?" He asks me.

"Please." I cry as my body begins to feel more pain.

"Shut the off Brody; keep the lights on." He says.

"I'm scared" beginning to feel claustrophobic with the gram of my car pushing inside.
I feel like I'm hyperventilating.

"Hey. I'm right here. I'm not going anywhere. There is no need to be scared. I'm going to get you out of here." He says.
I moved my arm to grab his own.
His hand was on my wrist feeling my pulse.

"I'm going to need you to take a deep breath for me." He says.

Just then, more and more people start crowding my car.

"I'm going to undo my belt," I say as I start to reach for my belt.

"No, you could further injure yourself." He says

More blood trickles down my face. I have no idea where it's even coming from.

He lets go of my hand.
For a moment, whispering to someone else.

I hear someone else on the other side making loud noises.

"Stop stop," I say the loud grinding sounds painful to hear.

"Stop for a second. Adam." says the noise stops.

He speaks in. "I told you that I'm getting you out of here; we can't do that if we can't use the jaws of life. They are just loud. They won't hurt you." He tried reassuring me.

"That's why I want you to stop. It's so loud, that my head is killing me. I'm sure if I undo the belt, I can just crawl out." I say to him:

"What's your name?" He asked me as I tried to focus on what he was saying and not the debilitating pain I was in.

"Marissa," I say.

"Well, Marissa, I'm Emerson. I will be right back; nobody is going to do anything until then." He says he is leaving.
I don't see or hear anything.
I look down at the roof of my car and see blood splattered everywhere.
I began to get scared again.

A few minutes later, his face pops up, and he slides his arm through the opening.

"Put these on." He tells me his voice sounds slightly rushed.
I reach for them and slide them on.

My body is shivering in pain.

The noise is much softer and less intense.

I begin to feel lightheaded. As the opening is expanded. His familiar face slowly fades away.

"Please don't leave me. I'm scared." I say this as he helps me down slowly with one of his guys.

He softly but firmly grabs my hand.
"I'm not going anywhere." He tells me, grabbing my hand as I feel my body being poked and prodded.

I look at all the people currently doing things in unison to save me, hopefully right.

My body felt light.
Am I dying?
"Not if I can help it." One of the EMTs says:

"You have to help that man who hit me." I am dazed.

"Don't worry, he's being taken care of." One of them says:

"Is he okay?" I ask, attempting to get up before being shoved down by Emerson.

"Relax; you need to stop moving." He says to me, his voice stern.

My vision continued to blur as I fought with myself to keep my eyes open.

I felt strange like my body wasn't my own.
The pain was slowly fading, thankfully.
My eyes began to close, and my eyelids were forced open by a bright light shining into them.

I couldn't move, though.
I was completely paralyzed.
"Alright, I think the sedation finally kicked in." A voice says,
"We got it from here, Emerson." A voice says,
"No. I told her I wasn't going anywhere, and I didn't plan on it. Until she wakes up. Besides, nobody wants to wake up alone. She didn't have a phone in the car, so she'd be a Jane Doe. Nobody is rooting for her, but I will. Until she wakes up." He says he is still not letting go of my hand.
My world has turned black.

Beep
Beep
Beep
Beep
I heard rising slowly my body hurting. I look around the room and see Emerson sitting in a chair, typing on his laptop.

Assuming he heard my groans of pain, he called out.

"Nurse!" He shut his laptop and sat it on the counter.

I squinted my eyes at the bright Florissant light above me.
Noting my predicament, he shut off the light immediately.

"How are you feeling, Marissa?" He asked me

"Where am I? A hospital?" I asked, looking at my hospital gown and IV in my arm.

"Yes, you were in an accident." He says this as he walks to the bed.

"Are they okay?" I ask, knowing I'm okay and that I'm alive.

"Let's not worry about them; you have your problems to worry about." He says it softly.

I blink a couple of times.

Before a nurse comes in and asks me my name,
"Marissa Stanly," I say
She was going to tell me the medication she was giving me.

"Do you have any friends or family?" She asked me.

"No," I replied quickly.

"Well, I'm going to send the doctor in to go over everything with you." She says this before walking out.

"Thank you for staying with me, Emerson, but you don't have to stay anymore. I'm assuming you have better things to do than people to save." I say raising a bit more.

"Relax." He says it sternly, pushing me back down.