The Fighter

Chapter 45

2 weeks later,
I've avoided Kyle for two weeks. I haven't answered his calls or his texts. He knows that I need space, which is why he hasn't showed up at my house yet. I need to talk to him, I need my best friend back. And, I know I shouldn't have left him hanging for so long, but I needed to figure things out.
I got up on Sunday morning, and went to the station. I knew that Kyle would be there, and he was. I walked over to him in the truck bay. "Can I talk to you outside?" I asked quietly. Everyone knows that something weird is going on between us, but no one knows exactly what. "Yeah, let's go." He nodded and led the way out the door. "Mick, I'm sorry about what I said/did.-" "Ky, no. I'm sorry I shouldn't have ran out. I should've stayed and talked, but you have this really sucky talent of catching me when I'm already overwhelmed." I cut him off. "I know. I thought about that afterward. I had to tell you how I feel, it's the only thing I've ever kept from you and it was killing me." "How long have you felt this way?" "For as long as I've known you." "Kyle, you're my best friend, you're like my brother. I love you, but not like that. I'm so sorry, that I don't feel the same.I don't want to lose you." I sighed and tried to explain myself.  "Mickie, I know you don't feel the same, and that's okay. Above all else, you are my best friend, and you will never lose me. There is nothing that you could ever do to lose me. I promise." He smiled.
"There is nothing that you could ever do to lose me either. I promise. Thank you." I hugged him and smiled. "You might want to leave though." He said quietly as we walked back inside. "Why?" I was confused, then we walked into the meeting area.
I looked up and saw him. He looked just like Greg. He was tall like him, and his hair grew the same way. I froze as soon as I saw him. Greg's older brother Peter Jr. "P.J. You remember Mickie?" Papa was introducing him to everyone. "Yeah, I remember Mickie." He smiled and shook my hand. "Yeah, hi Peter." I smiled and snapped out of it. "Call me Pete or P.J. Peter is my dad." He laughed. "Okay." "I told you, you should've left." Ky mumbled and I elbowed him in the stomach. "Ow, you've got boney elbows." Ky rubbed his stomach. "Good. Don't you have to go help your uncle?" I looked at him and asked. "Yeah, I'm on my way out. have fun." He laughed and left. "Well, it's good to see you again P.J. But, I have to go do truck inspection, so I'll probably see you a little later." I smiled again and walked back into the truck bay.
I made myself busy, doing truck inspection and then pulling down the hoses they hung to dry and folding them. Usually, everyone kind of heads out of here around 11-11:30am on Sunday's. So, when everyone was gone, I started washing trucks. It was nice to be by myself for a while.
"Hey. I didn't know that you were still here. I thought you left a while ago." P.J. Walked over to me. "Yeah, I've been doing some small things around here. I thought that you had left with the rest of them." I put my brush into the soapy bucket and then started scrubbing the truck. "You need help?" He asked. "Yeah, grab a brush." I pointed to the other brush in the corner. He went over picked it up and came back over. "You spend a lot of time here don't you?" He asked scrubbing the back of the truck. "Usually, this is the one place that has always been a constant place in my life." I sighed. "Greg, said that you'd come here when you needed to think, or let off some steam" "Yeah, it's my "happy" place. Which is ironic, because this place has seen so much of my pain." I shrugged switched to the smaller brush. "I get it. That's like our firehouse in Virginia." He watched me scrub the pump panel.
"What do you know about Greg and I?" I asked turned to him. "Everything. You and him were together. He knew you really well, and he said that you knew him more than he knew himself. I know that he loved you, and I know that you loved him. I could tell the first time that I had ever met you, at the funeral." He seemed caught off guard at first then he answered me. "I knew you knew. I just knew it." "You have questions don't you?" "So many." "I'll answer as many as I can. I just don't want to do it here." He sighed. "Well, let's finish this truck and we'll go for a ride." I suggested and he nodded.
When we were done, we got in my truck and I took us to the quiet place, that I once took Greg. I parked the truck and turned to him. He looked over and met my gaze. His eyes were different. They were hazel, while Greg's were a beautiful dark brown. "Was he here the night before he..... Did it?" I asked first, the one thing that has everyone thinking that I'm crazy. "Yes, he came back here a couple days before,and he didn't want anyone to know just yet, but he had to come back down later that night because he wasn't cleared out of some tickets just yet. He said that he had seen you, and that he couldn't wait to be back with you again. But, he couldn't escape some trouble and he over reacted and didn't see anyway out of it. He thought that he was never going to see you again." He explained. I felt the tears in my eyes. "And that's why he did it. Because he had one bad day worse than all the rest and his demons got the best of him." "Yes, one day they just got to him too much." "Damn it Greg." I rubbed my face. "He told me that when he was up here, before he decided to come back, that he found out some things that really bothered him." "I bet, I know what they were. The bruises on my arms, from my ex boyfriend who I jumped back into a relationship with after he left and I couldn't take it." "Yeah, and that this wasn't the first time, that this guy left marks on you." "No, it wasn't. Back when we were dating, we had been drinking. I pissed him off and he grabbed me by the hair, so I pushed him out of the first story window in his living room. And, while I was trying to leave he threw me into the wall." I told him.
"Yeah, and he said his name is John, and he's your department." "He is. We've made peace, we can be less than friends, but we will never be together again." "He was mad after he found out that he left marks on you after he left. He blamed himself, and he blamed Kyle for not protecting you. Kyle is your best friend right?" He asked. "Yes, and Kyle hated the idea of us back together. He said that if he hurt me again that he'd hurt him. Well two months went by and things were good between John and I, then one night we got called out and Kyle and I had to bail. His PTSD kicked in and he wanted me to talk to him, so we met back at the station later and we talked. Then I went back to John's and he'd been drinking. He was pissed at me for talking with Kyle. I didn't want Ky to know. And things had been so good, that he wasn't prepared for it."