We'll Meet Again

Dakota - 1 🖤

"I'm going on a walk, see ya' later," and with that I walked out. Normally I enjoyed being at the firehall but with everyone there for the New Year's party it was a little too much. About a week ago I asked my dad, while at the firehall, if I could go on a walk to clear my head and to my surprise, he said yes. So now when I feel overwhelmed I just walk out. I stepped outside and as soon as I heard the door close I realized I didn't have my keys. I turned back to the door when Theo stepped out holding both his keys and mine along with a water bottle. "Figured you could use some company," he looked at me and I kind of just stared at him until he broke my train of thought by handing me the water he had, "You looked upset so I wanted to see what's wrong." He put his arm around my shoulder and we started walking, I didn't know where to and I didn't really care. The town I lived in was small and our firehall was smack dab in the middle of it. Around the corner was a church along with apartment buildings, houses, and a healthcare facility just a little way down the road. "Hey? Did you hear me?" I finally snapped back to reality and realized he had a full-blown conversation with me while I was zoned out. "Um. No sorry, kinda zoned out." "It's okay, what I was saying was that our 2-month is in a week. Do you want to do anything special?" "I'm okay, I already get to spend time with you," I leaned into his side as we walked then pulled away and stared at him getting lost in his eyes when I tripped on the curb and he reached out to grab me and we both ended up on our butts in a mud puddle. He looked over at me and when our eyes locked we started laughing hysterically. We finally got up and started walking back to the hall when his phone pager went off and instinctively I started running down the alley. I didn't even bother going to the back door and instead just ran around front and as they were opening the garage door I ducked under and grabbed my gear, which I wasn't gonna bother putting on until we got in the truck. We were all crammed together in the back, and I took a second to look around to see who all was going and realized Theo and Sawyer, our best friend, weren't there. "Hey, where are Theo and Sawyer?" Everyone looked at me and then back at each other and finally Luke piped up, "Maybe they got in the tower?" I just nodded and watched out the window as the scenery zoomed past, even though you couldn't see most of it considering it was pitch black outside, then I felt them hit the brakes and I slammed my face into the window and a searing pain went through my face. I pushed myself off the window to reveal a perfect mark where I hit it. I looked over to where Kade was standing, considering there weren't enough seats, two of us ended up having to stand, and he was stumbling to get back up. They all stared at me and I asked, "What are you guys looking at?" Kade broke the silence "Your hair is a mess," I patted the top of my head to matt my hair down as we slowly came to a stop. I started moving to get out of the truck, and that same searing pain came back. I stepped out of the truck and once my heel hit the ground it felt like I got a sledgehammer to the face. I looked around for Theo and Sawyer and while looking around, found my dad "Oh my god! Dakota! What happened?!" I was visibly confused, "What do you mean?" He pointed to my nose, which was the source of all the pain, and I looked down to see blood all over my turnout gear. "Did you hit something?!" At this point Theo and Sawyer had found me, considering how much of a commotion my dad was making, Theo turned and looked at me, "Oh jeez D, are you okay?" My dad walked in front of me, took my face in his hands, and started examining my hopefully not-broken nose "I mean I did hit my face against the window, but I didn't think I broke anything" he walked behind the truck, out of my line of sight, when Theo walked over and started talking. "D, are you sure you're okay?" I just nodded my head and started looking around instead of focusing on anything specific for too long before I started crying. He saw my dad before I did and left and I watched as both my dad and a paramedic came out from behind the truck and walked over to me, she took my face in her hands and started pressing my nose which made me wince and yelp, "So there's good news and bad news." I looked up at her, then my dad, "What's the good news?" She started getting gauze pads out of her first aid kit, "The good news is your nose isn't broken." "And the bad news?" She looks up at me while putting rubbing alcohol on the gauze pads, "The bad news is you still need an x-ray just to be sure nothing's wrong, and you are more than likely concussed." I looked over at my dad as the paramedic started cleaning the blood off my face, I took my gloves off and as she finished cleaning up my blood I took my ponytail out and walked over to Theo and Sawyer. Sawyer saw me first, "Hey, so what'd she say?" I looked up at Theo and tapped him on the shoulder, "Oh uh yeah she said that I still need an x-ray and I am more than likely concussed." Theo turned and just stared at me and after a few seconds I held out my hair tie to him, "Can you braid my hair?" Theo took the hair tie and slowly started braiding my hair and Sawyer went over to talk to Kade and I closed my eyes for just a second I was kind of swaying back and forth trying to steady myself out when I felt his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, D do you want to sit down? You look like you're gonna pass out," "No, no uhm I'm fine I just, I have a headache, I'll be fine." I rubbed the back of my neck and smiled at him, he looked at me and raised an eyebrow "Look I'm fine, I just need an Advil or Tylenol or something and I'll be fine, okay?" He nodded and I leaned into him as he wrapped his arms around me and I just started crying and he started rubbing my back to comfort me, "Hey, hey, you're okay alright? I got you, you're gonna be just fine, sit right here I'm gonna go see if anyone has anything." He sat me down on the truck and I watched him walk out of view and I just waited there for about ten minutes until my dad came over to me "So um, we're gonna pack up and get going, it was a false alarm, once we get back to the hall we can find you some meds and we'll take you to the ER first thing tomorrow morning." I didn't care at that point and immediately got in the truck and held my head in my hands, "Miller, you okay?" Logan was getting up in the truck and fixing his hair. "I'm fine, I wish everyone would just stop asking me that!" He looked dumbfounded when I said that only for me to realize I was yelling at him unintentionally, "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to yell, I'm just sick and tired of everyone asking me that." "It's okay I get it especially when talking to Kade, you know how he is." I nodded and we both started chuckling as everyone else started piling in. When we got back to the firehall I took my gear back to my locker and went to the meeting room to sit down, and my dad walked in right behind me with some Advil. "Hey here you go, drink up" I took the glass and Advil from him and took it as I watched Kade, Sawyer, and Logan walk in and I stood up and steadied myself before walking to the truck room to find Theo.