#kinhart

“Usually our decision would have been sent to you by mail, but in this specific context we decided to do it with you first, an official letter will be sent to your home address which will just put what is being said today in writings,” says chief Simmons.

Tommy nods at his words. He knows what’s coming. He’s known since he received his summons to this hearing. The first hearing was two days ago, where he was questioned about why he stole a chopper from his station, why he disobeyed direct orders by the US military, by his captain. And why, it was the second time this had happened in a year.

The fact that he even had a hearing was the biggest surprise of it all. When he agreed to respond to Evan’s call for help, he was sure that he would be fired on the spot once back. The fact that the LAFD decided to go through a hearing process instead was not expected. But since Howie survived, or, well, interim Captain Han now, he supposes that it all could have been a lot worse.

Still, the LAFD would not give him a medal this time.

“I will preface our decision by saying that you are lucky, Firefighter Kinard, that the military decided not to engage in legal pursuit because of the sensitivity of the events that transpired. That being said, this body can not not punish you for the decisions that were made and the clear breach of trust between you and the organization that is the LAFD. It has been decided that you will be suspended effective immediately for the next six months without pay. At the end of this time, you will be cleared, or not, by a mandated psychologist and will go through recertification. You will be permitted to volunteer as a firefighter during your suspension but will be forbidden to be on the payroll, be it as a permanent or floater, in the state of California until six months and one day starting this instant. Do you have anything to add, firefighter Kinard?”

It’s worse, and at the same time better than he hoped. As his name is being called, Tommy rises to his feet at attention.

“I have nothing to add, Chief Simmons,” he says clearly, getting a nod back from the man, and his gavel resonates in the room as it hits its base.

Tommy leaves the room without another word, barely breathing until he’s out and closes the door behind him.

He’s not sure how he evaded being fired twice, or going to jail this time, but maybe somebody out there is looking out for him. When Bobby’s face flashes in his head, he winces and avoids the thought by walking toward the exit of the LAFD’s headquarter where his hearings were held. It takes him less than a minute to get outside into the parking lot.

He sees Evan on the side of the building with Athena, they’re talking quietly to each-other. They’re less than twenty feet away. He could join them and say hi. He could offer his condolences again; he knows they’d both be too polite to send him away immediately.

But he knows that neither of them needs him. Not anymore. He still doesn’t understand why Athena asked him to be a pallbearer for Bobby, but it was an honor he didn’t deserve, and he’s pretty sure they all knew it. Maybe it was a punishment for not being able to do more for the man. He will never know. Not when he turns away from them and quickly walks to his truck and jumps inside.

He doesn’t look at either of them when he leaves the parking lot and starts the quick trip back home. He’s pretty sure that they did not see him leave, but even if they did, it wouldn’t mean much. It wouldn’t break the four weeks of silence since the funeral, since he was able to speak to Evan last, offering condolences and running away afterward, skipping the wake altogether.

It takes him little time to reach his house, and even less to undress and toss his jacket on his couch, pulling hard at his shirt, feeling suddenly too constricted inside of it. Pushing at his pants to drop them in the middle of the room and finally, he breathes, just in his underwear, his clothes thrown half on his couch and half around his living room. He’ll have time to pick them up later. Six months of time, actually.

He has been living in Los Angeles since being discharged from the military so many years ago and then joining the fire academy not even a month back stateside. He hasn’t stopped working for more than three months since then, and each time because of injuries that were serious enough to keep him away and need reeducation; injuries that, even if they kept him away from work, still kept him busy.

What do you even do with six months of free time?

He spends the first week cleaning his house. Not that it needed a lot of work, he’s always kept it tidy, his dad would be proud of him for it. Not that it matters anymore, he hasn’t had a guest since he and Evan broke up seven months ago. On the way to his car to go grocery shopping, he grabs his phone on his living room table and checks it quickly. As usual, no new messages appear.

Not that he is expecting any, really.

He had a few messages from Lucy and Milton after his suspension, even from his captain, calling the decision bullshit and political. He thanked them for their anger in his name and gets a few updates here and there from Lucy mainly of what happens at the station, of what mess the latest probie is creating, but he doesn’t answer, and he hasn’t received new updates in over two days now.

It’s not the news he wants to read about. He knows Evan and Athena both got their own hearings, and he knows that neither of them got suspended. His snooping on their social media showed both of them in uniform and at work. He’s happy for them. They both had lost enough that day without having to risk their jobs as well. He only wishes that Evan had told him about it, even if just to gloat about him not being punished again. He doesn’t even care if they’re talking about his own suspension; just hearing from Evan would be nice.

But nice has not really been part of his life for a long time now.

He starts the second week of his six-month suspension by cleaning his roof and almost kills himself when he trips. He’s lying on his roof, panting, his heart pumping hard from the sudden burst of adrenaline when he lost his footing so close to the edge, and he wonders who would have even called 911 if something had happened. Who would realize that something even had happened to him? And once his body was cold on a table, who would even be asked to come for it?

He has twenty-three weeks left of suspension, and he’s already thinking about his death. Life is good.

His phone has been completely silent for five days when his third week starts. And his scruff is slowly but surely entering the first stage of a beard. He once spent seven weeks in a row in the desert, so he’s still far from the longest beard he ever had, but he’s been shaving pretty regularly since he started to work in Los Angeles, fire regulations and all. Not shaving is at once freeing but also a sign that his life has completely derailed. Each time he catches his reflection in his mirror, in a window, on his continuously black-screen phone, he’s reminded of all the choices that brought him here.

Unshaved, at home, alone.

He’s rubbing his beard absentmindedly, enjoying the fact that the hair went from coarse while growing to softer now, when he taps on his phone, unlocking it quickly to click on the same icon. The app opens on Evan’s page, showing that it didn’t even have time to recharge and reset to the home page since his last check. He hasn’t seen any new posts, not since the picture of an empty house appeared. Evan has moved again.

Without him, again.

He’s careful not to double-click on anything; he doesn’t need anyone else but himself to be aware of his stalking. Scrolling slowly on the page, looking at the same pictures again, and again.

He turns off his screen and sees his reflection before dropping the phone on his chest. He hasn’t worn a shirt in three days now, not since his last grocery trip. It’s June in Los Angeles anyway, so it’s not like his sudden lack of motivation about getting dressed means anything. Right?

People call New York the city that never sleeps, but Los Angeles is just as sleepless, if not more in Tommy’s opinion. The city doesn’t care about your situation, you may be at the lowest point of your life, but the lights will still be on, the people will still party, and you’ll still struggle to find any place quiet enough to actually feel alone. Being in such a big city though at least let you feel lonely pretty easily.

Millions of people milling around, hundreds of apps able to connect to them, Tommy has never felt as lonely as he does at 3pm in Costco. He walks in front of his usual snacks, the ones that were actually recommended by Eddie Diaz all these months ago when they hung out and sparred together. They were pretty good, but fuck Eddie Diaz now, and he hasn’t hit the gym in weeks anyway, he doesn’t need the extra snacks anymore.

He goes home with some chicken salad, some eggs and bacon. It will be enough to last him the whole week with his current appetite. He hasn’t weighed himself lately, but he knows he's lost mass. Not that he needs it anyway. He'd barely started his fourth week of suspension, and he’ll have time to get back into shape, anyway. Losing some pounds wouldn’t hurt him much. Probably.

He’s on his phone again. He’s glad that Instagram doesn’t act like LinkedIn, not that he uses it, but he heard about it, how it shows when you visit a profile. If it did, Evan would see his name way too many times and might actually send Athena after him. He’s scrolling down pictures he has seen so many times now. While they were dating, since they broke up. He could probably write down in which order they appear without looking at his phone now. His eyes also jump at the likes and comments, not that they have time to change when he looks at them so often. Most of the time he stops around the same point. Evan has hundreds of posts, and he can only look at the man’s face for so long without wanting to punch himself for letting him go. Also, for falling for him, and for having had the idiocy to try to ask for a second chance when he knew already that he didn’t deserve one.

But today his thumb just keeps going. As he reaches posts he has seen less often, even though he did see them all, he sees pictures of trips, of places. He remembers the few talks they had about their pasts, apparently not the parts of their pasts they should have focused on sadly, but he remembers Evan talking about his traveling, about leaving college to avoid his parents’ wrath and just leaving. Exploring. A 19-year-old pretty boy with a Jeep and a need to find himself. And to find himself far from a family that wouldn’t let him breathe.

Something Tommy can sympathize with. He left as well. Ran from his dad, from his hometown, even from the US altogether when he enrolled and was sent to deserts.

Leaving, it’s something he’s been good at for a while. His father, himself, the 118, Evan.

He let his feet drop from his couch’s armrest to the floor and sits there, his thumb still mindlessly scrolling down, seeing Evan with blond hair, which makes him smile, he’s pretty sure he had the same necklace back then as well, he sees him at a ranch, his thumb goes faster when he sees him in an uniform he recognize and doesn’t want to think about again. Tommy can only handle thinking about his army days for six minutes per day, and it’s already been four. He sees him wearing a safety helmet and a belt hanging low on his hips. Small job after small job, city after city.

He turns his screen off and stands. If not wearing clothes at home is good for anything, it’s that his laundry has been done for days, dry, and no clothes have been dirtied since. He grabs everything that gets close to his hands, underwear by the dozen, socks, shirts, pilling them in the suitcase he keeps under his bed.

Leaving. He’s always been good at it, and since he can’t use his talent as a pilot, maybe he should use one that wouldn’t get him suspended again.

It takes him a lot less time than he expected to fill two suitcases, to empty his bathroom of anything useful for a trip whose length he’s not sure of.

He drags the suitcases to his living room, where he left his phone, turning the screen on again to open his texts and tells his captain that he’s leaving Los Angeles for a while.

He has nineteen weeks left of suspension anyway, so it’s not like he would be expected to turn in the next day. And if he leaves California, he could maybe even find a temporary station somewhere. Not that he actually needs a job right now. Even with six months unpaid, he has enough of a safety net to provide for the double, still, it’s been weeks now since he’s been busy and his hands are itching for something to do that is not scrolling through his ex’s Instagram posts.

Even if once again he owes Evan for taking a decision that could, if not change his life, at the very least change his next four months and three weeks.

Emptying his fridge isn’t hard. He hasn’t eaten properly in a few weeks now, something that people would probably not even realize since one, he’s still a pretty big guy, and two, he’s avoided anyone and everyone. He eats half of it at his kitchen table, as usual avoiding the main table in the living room, the one that looks like date nights every time he glances at it. The second half is put in a cooler for the start of his trip.

Closing the door behind him after he put his two suitcases and cooler in his truck feels anticlimactic. The door is completely silent, thanks to years of careful maintenance. It just closes without a noise, without anyone noticing. Fitting, he guesses.

He locks it, and if he sees himself locking the memories that go with the city behind that door, it’s just between him and his brain.

Once in his car, he drops his keys in the glove compartment; he knows he won’t need them for weeks now.

He doesn’t remember the last time LA’s traffic was so fluid. Maybe it’s a sign that he’s making the right decision, at least he hopes so when he turns on the highway and starts his trip.

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And here we go guys ! My asks are opened, my DM as well, come join me to have feels for three sad boys that should be happy together !

Hope you liked it and it wasn't too bad - I don't have any beta reader so any mistake is my own and I'm sorry for it

I'm so thankful for all the ones that sent anons, messages and just interact with this silly ideas in the past few days

There is no “You’re leaving Los Angeles” sign, but he can almost feel it when he reaches the city limits. Like the air is suddenly fresher, which could just be because of the car air freshener that Evan made him buy and convert to. Still, with the window down, the air really does feel better. His lungs can expand more, not by much, but he’ll take half an inch. He left only an hour ago after all.

The I-10 is fairly empty for 3pm, which he appreciates. He’s not sure he’d go through with leaving if he got immediately stuck in traffic for hours. He would probably just go home, ashamed and even more desperate to be anywhere else. But once again things line up well, he doesn’t spend much time reflecting on it, appreciating the end results while music plays and fills his truck.

The Spotify account Evan put together for him and that he decided to keep afterward as a continued link to the man just let his latest playlist play. Evan would probably call it “Sad Boy Hour” or something like that, but his mood has been pretty sad lately anyway. For all that he found the city too loud for the silence in his head, driving is one of those activities that he could never do in complete silence. Be it CDs, or even tapes in his first cars, to USBs made by his nephew as a cheap Christmas gift to now this account that his ex-boyfriend made. But in the three square meters that his truck gives him, it feels good to actually take control of the silence, completely. To let it happen or to make it disappear.

Maybe it’s all about that, control. Control of the noise, of his surroundings, of everything happening around him. In his car, he can do it all. His and cars have been tight for years after all, so it’s not surprising that he would feel at home inside one. His father taught him a lot in the sixteen years he spent with him, seven of which were spent with only the two of them. Very few lessons were positive. But between being taught when to shut up and how a man should act, he was taught how to take care of cars. A talent he sometimes struggles to keep using when so many motors are now filled with more computer parts than actual oil and lubricant.

Story of his life, learning something just so it can mean nothing in the end.

But computers have their uses, he guesses, when a sudden alert appears on his car’s screen telling him of an accident on the I-10 just behind the interchange, and already he can see cars slowing down in front of him. It doesn’t take him long to decide to just exit there and get on the I-15. No new alerts appear, so he should be alright for a while.

And he is.

At some point he leaves the I-15 for the 40 when he realizes he is slowly making his way toward Las Vegas, a city he doesn’t really want to be reminded of now.

He drives for three hours without any issues bigger than a truck forgetting that it’s not alone on the road and avoiding a log truck. He saw that movie, thank you very much.

As fluid as the road is so far, and his truck swallow the miles, the time does move as well, and it’s already getting close to 8 p.m., soon hotels might not take kindly to a new guest, unless he tries his luck to one of those roadside ones, but he didn’t avoid the log truck just to get murder in room 13 of a random interstate hotel.

He pinches out the screen of the truck’s computer to zoom out on the map there, checking the towns not too far from where he is now. He can’t even remember the names on the signs he just passed. Was it dissociation or just the fact that wherever he is, it is not the important part of his journey? He doesn’t know; he doesn’t care.

It takes him a few seconds to find a decent-size town not too far from there: ‘Needles’. He snorts at the name. It could be fitting. After all, he just left home without a direction in head; maybe that’s what he needs now, a compass of some sort. He looks at the hotel icons on the screen before tapping one to get the GPS to guide him there. There should be no shady clerks or serial killer room neighbors at a regular Best Western hotel. Or so he hopes.

The woman manning the desk is nice and polite, only asking him how long he plans to stay; one night; and his credit card. And no one has their heads poking from any room when he reaches his floor and goes to his, so that’s a win as well. He doesn’t plan on leaving the room until he leaves anyway.

The room is simple: a king-size bed in the middle, in front of a flat screen, and an all-white bathroom. At least there is a fake plant on the room’s table to add some pizazz, or whatever.

The water pressure in the bathroom is underwhelming, but the soap smells good, and it means he doesn’t need to use the ones he put in his little toiletry bag.

He’s still wet when he lies down on the blanket on the bed, but who cares? It’s not his bed, and he’s probably not the only one to do it. He looks at the popcorn ceiling, his mind just running away from his grasp. It’s still early enough that the world hasn’t fully quietened. He can hear doors closing from further in the hall, and some light traffic coming through the closed windows.

He left.

He turns on his side and closes his eyes. The towel is a poor blanket, but neither that nor the AC humming keeps him from falling asleep. He rarely has issues falling asleep anymore anyway, not when his life has become so quiet.

It’s raining when he wakes up, because of course it is. And his neck is sore from sleeping without a pillow. The day is starting just right.

He grabs his phone from the table. Still no messages. But he doesn’t really expect one anymore anyway.

It’s 6 a.m. He’s not sure what time it was when he fell asleep, but he doesn’t feel too tired now, and he’s yet to decide where to go. Going back to bed until 11 would just push back any decision making and give him less time for it. He puts his phone back on the table and goes to the bathroom.

The water pressure is still as poor as the previous night when he showers. He could have skipped it. He hadn’t done much since the previous one but for one, he isn’t the one paying for the water, and two, it’s always nice to start the day feeling clean, and cleansed.

He only took one of the suitcases with him for the night when he went up to his room yesterday and now quickly realizes that somehow that one only has underwear and pants. True, he hadn’t really paid attention while filling them before leaving, but he had hope that somehow something of each type of closing would end up in each suitcase. No luck. He only changes his underwear, ignoring the ones that Evan bought him as a “naughty gift” on their one-month anniversary and that his hands grabbed somehow. His clothes from the previous day were clean anyway, so he isn’t too uncomfortable wearing them again.

It doesn’t take him long before he’s in the hall again and gives the card for his room back to the same clerk. Poor girl must have either been there all night or left late and came back early.

“Where can I get breakfast?”

“There is a 24-hour diner just a few blocks from there, before the I-40.”

He nods his thanks and almost turns around before he sees the leaflet stands. He had never paid any attention to them before. His trips always had a specific goal to them before, but this one doesn’t. He turns fully toward them. His eyes jumping quickly over the ones for helicopter tours of the area. He doesn’t need any reminders of what he’s lost, even just temporarily. In the middle, he sees a pamphlet for hikes around the Grand Canyon.

He picks it up and turns back toward the exit. He’s 40 years old, and he’s never been there even though he always thought he would. It always seemed like something every American should do. Maybe ‘Needles’ does know where he’s supposed to go next.

He drops the pamphlet on the passenger seat after putting his suitcase back on the back seats. He puts ‘Grand Canyon’ in the GPS and starts the truck. It feels good to have some kind of goal now, even if it’s just a point on a map; it’s more than he has had in some time now.

The diner has a window for takeout, which he makes quick use of, getting a breakfast burrito and a chocolate frappe. It didn’t even surprise him when he realized while looking at their menu board that he hadn’t eaten since the previous day’s lunch. He’s been quite irregular in his eating habits lately. Tommy thanks the old woman who gave him his order and leaves her a tip, which gets him a small smile.

He makes quick work of the burrito, its warmth spreading inside him nicely, and wishes he'd got a second one. But the GPS shows him more than a four-hour drive before he reaches the Grand Canyon, so he’ll have time to get another one on the way. The frappe is just sweet enough when he starts it. Somehow it reminds him of the monstrosity of black coffee that Evan got for him a year ago on their date 2.0. Evan did get him the sweetest thing on the menu afterward when he realized what Tommy really liked. The memory isn’t painful this morning. Sometimes it just brings back the joy he felt back then; the memory of it, and the bitterness of its loss doesn’t always show up. Maybe the morning isn’t all that bad after all.

He’s been driving for barely half an hour outside of Needles when he sees the “Welcome to Arizona” sign. It feels like an accomplishment in itself, the fact that he stuck to his decision to leave until now. And the fact that he doesn’t feel like turning back when he passes the sign. Nothing falls on him; his truck is still working just as well. And the rain still falls. Life is just the same as before he crossed the state limit, and it feels nice.

The rain picks up once he reaches Kingman. His frappe has been finished for some time already, and the music barely covers the sound of the rain. The city isn’t large, and its streets are covered in water, but at least it’s still early enough that the road is still empty enough. Crossing the city takes him little time, even with the number of red lights he goes through.

The road isn’t any better once he’s out of there. As usual with places close to deserts, the evacuation system of the water isn’t that good. There is probably half an inch on the road already, and it’s definitely not going anywhere anytime soon. But he’s flown through hurricanes before, and a little rain isn’t something that would stop him. The car’s computer is silent while he drives, so at least he can maintain his speed without fear of suddenly reaching an accident. No one is around still, but it is 9 a.m. in the middle of the week and people probably have better things to do than drive in the middle of the desert.

Even though the rain makes it impossible for him to even see if the area he’s in the middle of is actually the desert.

He’s never been too into meteorology, not any more than he had to for his job, but he’s pretty sure rain isn’t supposed to intensify like this outside of a tornado or something. And yet it does. His wipers are already on their fastest setting, and they barely do the work. He doesn’t have any interest in having the music blasting inside the car to cover the noise, so he cuts it altogether. He glances at the screen of his car’s computer to see if there are any towns around for a stop.

He may have flown in hurricanes, but at least in the air he doesn’t have semis or trees. Down there, on the road, this amount of water is starting to trigger his flight response.

In the last few months, this instinct to flee has been going awry. Appearing again and again, making his life the mess it is, while trying to preserve it instead, and falling each time.

For once though, it may be right.

The truck keeps devouring mile after mile while the rain keep pounding the windshield, the world beyond it is covered by a gray curtain that barely opens. Waves of rain hitting without pause the world around him. His truck’s clock keeps him aware of the time he’s spent under that downpour, and the longer it goes on, the more it feels like it will never stop. There are still no towns appearing close to him on the map. He’s glancing again at the screen when the sound of his phone blares in the car. The text notification fills the space through the Bluetooth speakers and makes him jump, his elbow hitting his door and before he can react his window slides down and water rushes through the opening and slaps him in the face.

“What the-!” he barely has time to say before more water rushes in and briefly invades his mouth.

In an attempt to avoid any more, he tries to slide to the right while shaking his head. His hands which tightened around the steering wheel, have it turn to the right as well and the sudden movement makes the wheels turn abruptly to the right, and as it swerves towards the guardrails, he feels his truck almost float, its grip on the pavement lost to the rain.

“Fuck!” he shouts as the truck just stops responding.

He tries to correct his stance, turning the steering back to its original and regular position, which makes the car swerve back left violently. His driving instructor would have insulted him for the mistake. He lets go of the pedal; the wheels aren’t responding anyway, as the trucks moves without his says so. His knuckles are white from the way he’s holding the steering wheel, keeping it as straight as he can to follow the movements the wheels force on it to prevent the truck from ending up perpendicular to the road, lose its equilibrium and potentially roll over.

It takes only seconds for the truck to slow down enough for the wheels to adhere to the road again; the truck lurching forward under its own momentum; it feels a lot longer. It feels like he could have had an entire flight during that time, these seconds stretching like hours to his perception, but as soon as the pickup stop feeling like it’s floating on water, how many feet further from his initial position, his feet slam on the brakes and the truck stops diagonally in the middle of its lane.

Water is still getting inside the car through the window, slapping him in the face repeatedly, and his breathing is going fast, too fast.

He can’t even hear the rain anymore, not with how loud his breathing is getting, with the way his heart is echoing inside his chest. It takes him probably too long to raise his hand and to push the right button to close the window and finally separate him from the weather again. He raises his head from the steering wheel, where he had let it drop once he was finally immobile. His head just drops onto the headrest.

There is still nobody around. Nobody who would have seen anything if the truck had rolled over or hit the guardrail. A few weeks ago he could have fell from his roof, and sure a bad fall could have hurt him or even kill him but as scary as it felt, he knew back then that statistically he would have survived it, and even if he was alone when it happened, people still were around, he was at still in the middle of the city after all.

But here?

As alone as he was in Los Angeles, millions of people were still around, still close enough to hear him scream “help” if needed.

Out there, no one would have seen anything until they came across his destroyed truck. A three-ton truck that would have absolutely killed him if it had rolled over more than once and got crushed under its own weight.

His breathing is getting shorter as images of his own lifeless body invade his mind.

Loneliness has been his companion for decades, and as much as Evan had chased it away with his presence, it’s something he’s been used to for so long. After the breakup, it came back tenfold, or so it felt, but at least it was something he knew. But as it came back, it brought a sister with it, a darker entity that sometimes whispered things in his ear that he wouldn’t have repeated to a work therapist in fear of losing his license to fly.

Words that made him look at the mountains a bit too much when he had to do a rescue there for lost hikers with Lucy. That made him calculate the number of bottles in his medicine cabinet and how full they were. A voice that on that roof a few weeks ago made him wonder what would happen if he just rolled over and let himself fall. He’s always been a cynic, something that somehow didn’t make Evan run the other way but instead made him want to cuddle with him and make him laugh. This morbid sister of his loneliness though, that was something he got used to too quickly. Something he didn’t fight against.

But sitting here, feeling panic come and go in his chest, his lungs barely keeping air in, he knows that it’s not something he wants to keep around. He made loneliness his friend; he had to, or his father’s rule over their house would have driven him mad. But it doesn’t mean he has to welcome everything that can attach itself to it.

He forces air into his lungs, locking them for a second just to try to restart them, to ground himself in the present. In life.

It’s not funny, but it kinda is, he thinks when tears gather at the side of his eyes, when almost dying convince you that staying alive is what you want, that waking up isn’t just something you do because your body tells you to, but because you want to.

And as his breathing finally evens out, his eyes focus on the curtain of rain outside his truck, it feels like a shadow somehow left him to join the grayness outside.

He jumps when the notification’s reminder rings inside the truck to tell him that he has a recent unopened text. The incident took a lot of energy out of him, and he wishes now that he had stayed in bed until 10 a.m. instead of getting up when he opened his eyes. Still, he pulls on the glove compartment to grab his phone and check his messages.

It was fucking spam. Of course, it was.

He throws the phone back inside the compartment and slams it shut and focuses back toward the steering wheel. The truck is still running, and he slowly rights it back to face forward.

He’s still alone on the road when he slowly pushes on the accelerator and starts moving again. At least that way nobody will judge him for the speed he’s driving at, but to be honest, even if they did? Fuck them.

The sky clears thirty minutes later. It is not gradual. It just stops when he reaches Crookton. And he can already see the sun peeking through the clouds. Still, he maintains his low-ish speed. The sky might be clearing, but the road is still covered in water, and he refuses to do a repeat performance of earlier.

It’s midday when he finally reaches and stops in front of the ‘Grand Canyon National Park’ sign

There is no evidence of any rain there, and reaching that point feels like an accomplishment. Not just because he didn’t die on the way, but because he actually accomplished something: the first goal of this trip he suddenly decided on. He pulls his phone from the glove box and goes out of his car to get closer to the sign to take a picture of it to commemorate. And in a sudden burst of maybe defiance, defiance to his loneliness, defiance to the status quo he let himself sink into, he decides to post the picture on his Instagram account that he revived when he dated Evan and kept using to snoop on him and the 118.

But now he can finally use it for himself, he has something to show for once. He takes a few seconds to post it. He doesn’t add any hashtags; he doesn’t want to share it with the world like that; he just wants to show it to himself, a living proof that he could change his path.

He’s reminded that he only had one burrito today when his stomach grumbles. His lips stretch a little. Some food would be nice. Maybe a milkshake too.

He goes back to his car. His phone is already pinging with an alert, when he looks it reads ‘S@l_Deluca liked your post’.

His seat and body are finally dry when he reaches Tusayan an hour later and pays the fee to enter the National Park area. His phone pinged a few more times. He’s not sure if he’s happy or sad that none of them are Evan. Still, the “have fun” comment from Howie’s account feels nice. And if he hopes that his sudden trip is brought up around Evan, well, he’s still hung up on him anyway, so who can blame him?

There is a Wendy’s on the right side of the road and in front, a restaurant with Saloon in its name. He turns left. When in Rome and all that. The waitress who welcomes him should have been retired a few years ago, but she has a big smile on her face and guides him to an empty booth quickly. He orders a burger and a soda, and it’s the most he’s eaten in one go in at least three weeks.

He feels almost drowsy afterward and leaves a nice tip before leaving the place. There are a few hotels nearby from what he can see on his truck’s map, so he picks one at random. He’s in a room less than an hour later, for two nights this time. His two suitcases are lying on the second bed in the room. It doesn’t take him long to rearrange both of them so he doesn’t have to keep wearing the same clothes in case he picks the wrong suitcase again.

The water pressure is better this time around, not by much, but enough that it helps soothe the soreness in his neck he picked up after the hydroplaning. He’s not totally relaxed when he steps out of the shower, but he’s clean, and that’s a start.

He leaves his room in fresh clothes and ignores the helicopter pamphlets stacked in the lobby’s stand to go to an exhausted looking clerk, he’s the only one available.

“Excuse me?” he asks the man.

“Yes, sir?”

“It’s the first time I’m around here. In your opinion, where should I start?”

He knows he could Google it, maybe even ask his truck, but as much as he likes to drape loneliness as a comfy blanket, maybe talking to a human being for more than asking for food could be good.

“There is ‘Mather Point’. It’s directly north of here. Depending on where you drove from, you came across it. They have a visitor center and should be able to provide with any information or have activities for you.”

Tommy thanks him with a smile and leaves the hotel for his truck, where he puts ‘Mather Point’ in the GPS. The drive there is only twenty minutes, and he takes almost as much to find an empty space in the different parking lots around it. The road between ‘Needles’ and here might have been almost empty most of the time, but now he is in a touristy place and it is never truly empty. Especially not during the summer.

He stays in his car for a few minutes, looking at the various cars around him. Some people are walking around, but the space around them is empty, the sky is clear, and it doesn’t feel as oppressing as it did in the city. He leaves his truck with a sigh, trying to get rid of any discomfort he feels, and starts the quick walk toward the visitor center.

It’s packed with people, families, friends, walking around, talking, and ignoring him. He walks to the closest information panel inside with a map of the area. It shows the hiking trails around this point and the various points of interest. A few pamphlets are available for specific activities. His eyes don’t even stop at the helicopter tours. He would have loved one, would have loved to be the pilot around here, to see nature in its most primal state under him, but the loss is still raw even a month after his suspension. But his eyes catch a pamphlet about stargazing, and if he can’t be in the sky, looking at it might be the second best thing.

He sees ‘Mather Point’ on the map and the way it stands just before a hiking trail. It should be a good start. He’s not wearing hiking gear, but his boots are comfy and have seen their fair share of walking. His jeans might be a bit too constrictive to walk too much, but he doesn’t plan on going too far anyway. He has a date with the sky after all.

He goes to the Park Store and buys an insulated water bottle to fill at the filling station. He still feels full from his lunch and skips the small cafe in front of the center, starting the quick trek toward ‘Mather Point’.

The space isn’t too crowded, people might already be walking around or avoid these hours, the sun is hitting hard at this time of day, but whatever the reason, it takes him little time to stand in front of the railing and his breath come shorts.

He’s always known that the Grand Canyon was big; it is a known fact to any American. One of their biggest natural landmarks, he had seen pictures before. But it doesn’t do it any justice. The immensity of it would be jarring if he weren’t used to it from flying in the sky and its own immensity. The Canyon goes on and on. Dwarfing everything else around. The platform he’s standing on feels like a joke next to it. He grabs the railing and feels the wind blow on his face, his curls and beard rippling from it.

He pulls his phone and takes a picture of it. He doesn’t post it, he knows the picture doesn’t do justice to the place, and sharing it wouldn’t help people feel the same as he does now.

He stays there longer than he expected to, his eyes drinking in the sight, the way the sky and the earth meet, the immensity of both and their balance.

Coming here feels like the right choice, the first one he took in a long time. He ignores the memory of a quick kiss in a half-lit kitchen flashing in his head.

It’s harder than it should be to turn around and start the short hike he planned on, but it feels great to put a foot in front of the other and move forward.

He goes west toward the geology museum he saw on the map back at the center. It doesn’t take long to walk there, the Canyon to his right, open and free. The silence here is natural, the noise of the people around barely registers with how limitless the space feels here. With no walls to echo the voices around, no ceiling to lock them in. The noise just disappears in the wild as soon as it appears.

The museum isn’t large, and the clerk at the front desk looks bored when he enters to get his ticket. He’s never really been into museums, but he learned not too long ago that some of them could be fun, and learning with them could be a good experience and not just to write a paper about. Ok, so before the previous year he hadn’t been in a museum in over twenty years, sue him.

The tour is quick; the stones are pretty, and there are a few interesting tidbits on the presenting cards next to them that he knows Evan would get a kick out of. The smile is bittersweet, and he can almost see his giraffe of an ex-boyfriend bend over one of the display stands to get as close as he could without being arrested. In another life, this trip could have been done together. He sighs and lets go of the fantasy before turning toward the exit and leaving the exhibit to go into the small museum shop. His suitcases are pretty full already, but a small trinket to remember his stop here wouldn’t take much space, and at worst he could buy a third suitcase just for souvenirs.

He buys a bunch of postcards and a few magnets; he’s sure Lucy and Milton would appreciate the thought. Once bought, he just leaves the museum altogether and starts back on the Rim Trail toward the south. Walking until his stomach starts to grumble one hour later. The burger finally fully digested, and the physical exercise making his body crave more. He turns around and starts on the way back to the visitor center and the parking lot.

He goes back to the saloon restaurant near his hotel and gets the biggest piece of meat he thinks he can eat at this point and a side of fries. He devours it all in minutes, barely looking up from his plate. The sudden exercise after weeks of apathy and lunging at home hit his body hard, craving energy back to function to what his body perceives as getting back on its usual physical regimen.

The fatigue hits him after the shower. The heat of the water lulls his body into a state of relaxation he hasn’t had in a while, and the food in his belly makes him just want to nap. He opens the free bed to slide under the blanket. His hair is still wet, but it should be dry when he wakes up from his nap, and then he’ll go back for the stargazing at the center.

He opens his eyes at 8 a.m. the next day. His eyes bulge slightly when he grabs his phone on the nightstand to check the time and realizes he almost did a full tour of the clock in his sleep. He does feel more rested than he has in a while.

“Well, fuck, guess I was tired, uh,” he whispers to himself with a snort.

The adrenaline of the previous hydroplaning, the sudden influx of food and exercise on the same day must have been too much for him. Too much after five weeks of standstill. Well, he booked the room for two days anyway, and tonight will be just as nice as it would have been the previous night.

He gets ready quickly and gets a quick breakfast in the hotel’s restaurant. Something filling enough to keep him standing for hours, but light enough that he shouldn’t be as drowsy as he felt the previous day after a burger and some meat. If he had any gym buddies left, they would probably laugh themselves silly at him not being able to support that many calories.

The day goes quickly. He goes back to the trail for a hike, this time in comfier clothes and with a few chocolate bars in his pocket. He gets a sandwich at the cafe near the visitor center and hangs out on the trail. Looking at the Canyon anytime he can, just taking it in.

He watches the sun go down over the canyon at Mather Point’. He’s not alone, but the company isn’t too much when they’re all here for the same things and enjoy them. Most people have their phones out to film and take pictures, but he’s seen enough sunrises and sunsets to know that no pictures or videos can do them any justice. He eats his sandwich and watches the sky fill with streaks of red, of orange and yellow. Not a cloud to hide them from his eyes. Before long, the sky darkens once the sun finally sinks into the horizon; the night isn’t there yet, but it will come soon enough.

As the stars start to appear, the temperature drops around him and he sees a few women putting some light jackets on. He feels the hair on his arms rise in goosebumps, but it isn’t uncomfortable, and a quick trip to the cafe for a hot chocolate makes it just perfect.

The process is slow, the fiery globes filling the sky one after the other as the natural light disappears and the artificial one stays mostly subdued. Still, the lights from the visitor center are very present, so he stands up and walks further on the trail. A few people are already walking on it, probably to avoid the center’s light as well.

He finds a spot where a few dozen people are sitting on blankets on the ground and stops there, a few feet away from anyone, and drops to the ground. His jeans can be cleaned later; dirt never bothered him before anyway.

He sips his drink and looks up. There are a few telescopes around for free, but he doesn’t care about getting a closer look at Ursa Major or trying to see the craters on the moon. He’s here for the sky as a whole.

And the sky answers his expectations in full, and then some.

He doesn’t know the names of every constellation he can finally see in full as he lies down on a rock. It’s uneven and digs in the middle of his spine; it isn’t comfortable one bit, but his body can handle it for the time being. He’s seen clear, unpolluted skies on TV before, thinking it would be nice to see them in real life. And it is, but nice doesn’t cover it.

If he thought the immensity of the Canyon was humbling even after knowing the one in the sky, the one he sees from space is staggering.

He has flown at night before, not just over oceans to rescue boats but in his regular shifts. Flying over a light-saturated Los Angeles regularly, with too many lights to see most stars outside of the brightest ones. But here? He can see them. He can see what look like galaxies to his untrained eyes; he can see so much his eyes can’t focus on one thing and they jump from star to star.

He would give anything to be in the sky as well in this instant. To be a hundred feet closer to the stars, to feel part of them. But he is grounded here, forced to remain on earth. Looking up, it almost feels like the sky is watching him, judging him for not being able to join it, and his throat tightens when he feels the phantom touch of a cyclic stick in his hand and reflexively tries to grab on empty air.

Tommy stays there until he’s the last one around and stays an hour more. Enjoying the silence of the outdoors at night, with just a few sounds from nature in its most basic state.

His back and spine thank him when he finally stands after so long on that stone, and he starts the slow walk toward the visitor center and its artificial lights to get to his parked truck.

He’s leaving in the morning, but he knows one day he will fly here, that one day he’ll be joining the stars even just temporarily and instead of being blanketed by the night sky, he’ll be part of it.

In the morning he’s back in his truck, his two suitcases on the back seat again while he plays around with the map on his truck’s computer. He slides the screen to the right, following the eastward road he picked when he left Los Angeles four days ago. There is nothing of interest for a few seconds, small town after small town, none of them calling to him, none of them worth being away from home for. Slowly, the screen leaves Arizona behind, and New Mexico appears. He isn’t very familiar with it, so he pinches the screen to zoom back in on the road for a bigger view. Still, no-name towns appear one after the other until his eyes catch a name.

Well, for a pilot, maybe a quick trip to a place known for flying objects should be par for the course, he muses when he taps on the ‘Roswell’ name and sets the GPS to guide him there. Eight hours. His seat is dry, and he has unsynced his phone from the car. He should be okay, he thinks, tapping the music app and slowly pressing on the accelerator to leave his parking space.