Later that night, Daniel and I went to the road where everything had happened.
Officer Hayes drove us there, saying only that some wounds need truth before they can begin to breathe.
The road was quiet beneath the moon. No flames. No sirens. No screaming metal. Just trees, gravel, and the long shadow of a memory I had spent half my life trying not to touch.
Daniel stood beside my wheelchair, his hands in his pockets.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered.
I looked at him, confused.
“For what?”
“For not being able to save them too.”
That broke something open in me.
For years, I had believed I was the only one carrying that night. But Daniel had carried it too—quietly, painfully, without asking anyone to see the weight on his shoulders.
I reached for his hand.
“You saved who you could,” I said. “And because of you, I lived.”