Tears from Heaven

Gillian sighed with frustration as she slowed her car to a stop. Craning her neck, she frowned at the emergency vehicles lining the highway, blocking traffic in both directions. She shook her head as, impatient, she pulled out her phone. It was futile - there weren't any messages.

None.

Punching in a number, Gillian closed her eyes when her call went to voicemail – he obviously was still too angry to talk. Throwing the cell in the passenger seat with more force than strictly necessary, she glanced outside again, her impatience at the delay increasing. She had been a paramedic for a while, and she knew these things could take quite some time. When she saw a patrolman walking the line of cars, she rolled down her window.

“Excuse me,” Gillian said, struggling to remain polite by reminding herself the cop wasn’t responsible for whatever was happening. “Can you tell me what is going on and how long it is going to take?”

Leaning down and touching his fingers politely to the brim of his hat in greeting, the young officer stared into the car at her. “There has been an accident, ma’am. A motorcycle ran off the road into the ditch.”

Gillian’s blood froze at the simple explanation. “A m...motorcycle,” she stuttered. “Who...?”

“We don’t have an identity on the body yet,” he answered, tossing a distracted look at a loudly-honking car behind him. “Excuse me, ma’am.”

Her mind stunned by the word body, Gillian barely paid attention as he stalked away. The light drizzle that had started to fall dotted her windshield, effectively stealing her visibility before she automatically turned on the wipers. They moved rhythmically back and forth, briefly pulling the scene into focus before the rain blocked it out again.

She had only one thought repeatedly playing out in her head.
 
One image.
 
The taillights of a familiar bike disappearing down the street in front of her house, the rider hunched further over the handlebars than normal, the tires weaving abnormally in his rush to get away.
 
No.
 
It couldn’t be.

It just...couldn’t be.

He wasn’t…

It was just a coincidence. 

It had to be.

Gillian didn’t think as she opened her door and stepped out on the road. Her eyes never wavered from the collection of emergency vehicles as she walked dazedly toward the scene without bothering to shut her car door behind her. Strangely, no one paid any attention to her as she wound her way swiftly around an ambulance. Its lights almost blinded her as they flashed relentlessly in the darkness, alternately revealing the pallor of her face and hiding it in shadows. The strobe effect felt strangely in synch with the accelerated pattern of her pulse.
 
Gillian’s legs seemed to move separately from the rest of body, forcing her insistently forward, even as one part of her – a helpless, scared part – wanted to stay back, hover like a coward on the edges until someone else brought her news, someone whose insides wouldn’t be torn apart as they sought out the truth.
 
Yet that part of her too couldn’t just wait. Whether it was strength or fear driving her, she had to know, had to see for herself.
 
It couldn’t be.
 
Following the sounds of shouting to the center of the scene, Gillian blinked her eyes against the rain that began to fall more steadily now. She made out the top of the embankment on the side of the road, marked with dark skid marks and muddy trails. The twisted guardrail was obviously beyond repair, the jagged edges pointing with gnarled fingers over the precipice towards black oblivion.

“Greg, we had a date for six. It’s almost seven.” Gillian’s irritation was born from a combination of a long day at the hospital and her boyfriend’s inconsiderate behavior.

He shrugged as he flashed his easy, cajoling grin. “I lost track of time, Gill. I’m sorry.”

She sighed, stubbornly unwilling to let it slide. “How hard is it to use your phone?” she asked harshly.

“It was a little loud at the bar,” he replied carelessly, incensing her further. “I couldn’t hear anything anyway.”

In the chaos, everyone was focused on their jobs, and they didn’t pause to stop her. Gillian took one measured step at a time, the angles shifting as she got closer. More of the rail came into view. She was jostled from the side by a man in a fireman’s uniform, but the contact didn’t knock her from her path. Her eyes locked on the yawning chasm, she kept moving until her shoes touched the grass.

“You should call me when you’re going to be late,” she finally said.

“I apologized, Gill. What more do you want?” His own agitation was visibly increasing.

“I want you to stop thinking about yourself all the time. Be a man.” The words she didn’t mean came tumbling out before she knew what she was saying, but the last was accusingly emphatic.

“Sounds like you want me to be someone I’m not.”

Spotlights were trained on the wreckage far down below. Definitely a bike, but, from where Gillian was, it could have been any model. It was doubtful she could identify it even up close as mangled as it was. She continued to search the dimness, not frantically as she wanted, but deliberately and methodically, as if every detail might give her the information she sought.
 
Even though it couldn’t be.
 
Frustrated, she realized she was too far away.
 
There were too many people blocking her view.
 
Suddenly, a silhouetted figure moved, revealing the body lying on the ground. As a nurse, she shouldn’t have flinched at the presence of death, but she wasn’t looking at a patient now. She wasn’t insulated by sterile rooms and anonymity.

At this distance, the body seemed bizarrely crumpled – no way to tell how tall it was, its shape, even its gender – but, then, as someone readjusted a light, Gillian bit back a moan of pain.
 
Had she recognized the jacket?
 
With that thought, any slight desire she might have harbored to stay away disappeared as if it had never existed. Now, she had to get down there.
 
Somehow registering the path the emergency teams had forged was to the side of the rail, Gillian, making her way to it, periodically hit the useless metal running along the side of the road with the palm of her hand. The last one cut a gash into her skin, leaving her blood on a sharp, protruding screw. The steadily increasing downpour soon washed the crimson drops away.
 
As Gillian turned towards the obviously slippery trail, small rivers already forming in the divots, someone finally tried to stop her, but she shook the restraining hand off. There was a shout, but she had no idea what the voice said. When her inappropriately-shod feet sank into the mud, she stumbled, her arms flailing out for balance. Before she found it, she was pushing inexorably forward, the goal more important than the descent.

Please don’t let it be.

She wasn’t a quarter of a way there before she fell, her foot catching on a rock, sending her flying to the ground. Landing on her stomach as another stone gouged deeply into her forearm, the air was knocked out of her as she continued to slide down the incline, only able to stop as she instinctually dug her feet into the soft earth. Her hands almost buried to the wrists, she gasped for a breath as she immediately tried to right herself, scrambling for purchase on the shifting ground.
 
Getting to her knees, Gillian grasped an exposed root and leveraged herself up, rubbing her caked hands on the legs of her jeans. The act was ineffectual as her clothes were as filthy as the rest of her. Pushing drenched strands of hair out of her eyes, she left streaks of mud on her already dirty cheeks. It was of little consequence to her as she continued down the slope, ignoring the demanding pains in her ankle and her arm.
 
By the time Gillian made it to the bottom, the wind had picked up, throwing biting drops of rain into her face and stinging the exposed skin of her arms.
 
She should have been cold.
 
She probably was.

Don’t let it be.

Staring at the group of figures huddled over the body they were now loading on to some sort of gurney, Gillian limped towards them. She spared a glance towards the wreckage, but, as she had suspected, there was no way of identifying the bike – not in its condition and not with the water pooling all around it.
 
It was as useless to her as it was to its lifeless rider.
 
Stepping between two of the anonymous medics, so bundled up against the elements that their faces were completely hidden, Gillian lifted a hand, her mind refusing to do more than recite a denial like it was a prayer. The men had been in the process of removing the body, but, somehow  – maybe because they sensed her desperation – they automatically stopped in response to her silent plea.
 
With trembling fingers, Gillian raised the covering, trying not to recoil at the sight she exposed, but finding it almost impossible.
 
Unrecognizable – that’s how the report would no doubt read.
 
It would list broken limbs.
 
Head wounds.
 
Loss of blood.
 
Hair too matted to get a color.
 
Face too burned for identification.
 
The nausea building in her stomach, acid rising in her throat, Gillian forced herself to continue searching, looking for a sign even as she mentally begged she wouldn’t find it. She hunted for the necklace she had given him, knowing it could have simply been lost. Examining the remains of the clothes, she attempted to remember the exact style of jeans he had been wearing.
 
And she tried simply to feel if it was him, if the hollowness inside her heart was from dread or recognition.
 
In the end, it was a small shred of shirt left protected inside of his jacket, the color still preserved. 
Wiping the water running down her face away with a shaky hand, Gillian ripped the material away, lifting it up, turning it in the dim light.
 
It was red. Solid red.
 
He’d been wearing plaid. Shades of blue.
 
Staggering backwards, she clutched the torn fabric in her palm, moving far enough away that the medics could finish their job and start the laborious trek up the hill to the ambulance.
 
Standing there, her hair plastered to her head and clothes clinging to her body, Gillian wanted to feel relief at her discovery, but something wouldn’t let her.
 
Instead, she just froze.
 
It took Gillian another half an hour before she could get back in her car. After she answered a barrage of questions, revealing almost automatically her fears about the accident victim, one of the patrolmen asked if she was all right to drive. He didn’t seem convinced when she merely nodded, but he didn’t stop her.
 
Fingers clutching the wheel, Gillian barely even turned her head as she drove cautiously through the downpour. By the time she arrived at her street, she was exhausted from the prolonged state of anxiety, but her body was too keyed up to realize it. Her brain not even functioning, she pulled into her parking spot. Without hurrying, even though she was once again getting soaked, she got out, carefully locking her door behind her.
 
It took several steps towards her front door before she saw the man hovering restlessly on the porch. It was then, out of the corner of her eye, she found his bike parked carefully under the garage canopy for protection.
 
Stopping abruptly, Gillian simply stared, unable to move any further as her muscles finally deserted her. Her mind rebelled too, replaying image after image, starting with their ridiculous fight earlier to his hasty departure to the cop telling her about the accident.
 
One after another, over and over again.
 
Some part of Gillian, even after finding the shirt, still hadn’t been sure it hadn’t been him in that ditch. Not until she saw him standing there, his hands shoved in his jeans pockets as he paced back and forth.

She didn’t move or speak until he finally turned around and saw her. His eyes widening, he opened his mouth, and she read the one word. Gill.

Then he was out in the rain with her, running to her side as he was immediately drenched. Those observant eyes quickly took in everything. The remaining mud, the cut on her arm, her hair. The expression of almost disbelief on her face as she watched his approach. Like he was a ghost.

“Gill, what…?”

His cry was frantic, but he didn’t get any further than those two words as Gillian, suddenly released from her paralysis at the sound of his voice, lunged forward, closing the two steps still remaining between them. Their bodies moving towards each other, they collided painfully. Gillian’s injured ankle twisted, threatening to buckle, but he caught her as he pulled her tightly against him.

She felt his hand in her hair, twisting the soiled strands gently but firmly around his fingers, and she dug her nails into his back, reveling in the feel of unscarred flesh. Burying her face against his shoulder, her teeth unconsciously nipping at the material of his shirt – blue plaid – she let a few sobs rack her body, but the tears of relief and almost heartbreaking joy building behind her eyes wouldn’t fall.