Later we went outside into the quiet of the parking lot. The night air was cool. The stars were out. It was peaceful in a way that only comes after something truly meaningful has happened.
He reached back and squeezed my hand.
“Told you,” he said softly.
I laughed. “You did.”
“The most handsome date there.”
“And the best one I could ever ask for.”
As I pushed his wheelchair toward the car, I thought about that night seventeen years earlier. About a man who did not hesitate. Who ran toward the smoke instead of away from it. Who signed himself out of a hospital the next morning with a baby to take care of and a life to rebuild from scratch.
He did not just carry me out of that fire.
He carried me all the way to this night. And every night in between.
