Lucky Break
Chapter Four - Aftermath
Leo did not walk straight home.
This was deliberate.
Straight lines felt like a commitment he wasn’t ready to make. Instead, he took a series of mild detours—nothing dramatic, just enough to keep himself moving without arriving anywhere too quickly. He crossed streets at odd angles. Paused at corners for no reason. Let his feet decide and then quietly overruled them.
His body was still running on borrowed chemicals. Adrenaline lingered in the joints, in the soft places behind the eyes. Every sound arrived fractionally louder than it should have. Every movement in his peripheral vision demanded to be checked.
The world had not apologised.
That, more than the near miss itself, unsettled him.
He stopped at a small park and sat on a bench that looked as though it had been designed by someone who had never intended to sit down for long. The wood was cold. The metal supports pressed uncomfortably into his thighs. Leo welcomed it. Discomfort, it turned out, was grounding.
Across the path, a man threw a tennis ball for a dog who returned it enthusiastically and then refused to give it back. The man negotiated. The dog did not.
Life continued.
Leo leaned forward, elbows on knees, hands clasped. They were still shaking, faintly, like an echo that hadn’t yet decided to stop. He watched them until they steadied.
This was the part he didn’t have a model for.
In the past, when something almost went wrong, it had always resolved itself into a story. A funny one. A lucky escape. Something he could tell later, framed by the understanding that nothing had really been at stake.
Today felt different.
Today had teeth.
He tried to replay the moment, but his memory kept skidding. The horn. The blur of blue. The bucket. He could not, no matter how he tried, insert himself as the hero of it. He had not acted cleverly. He had not anticipated anything. He had simply been there.
And then not dead.
Leo stood abruptly, the bench protesting behind him, and started walking again. Sitting still invited reflection. Reflection invited questions. Questions had a habit, lately, of leading somewhere uncomfortable.
He made it home without incident, which irritated him more than it reassured him.
The flat greeted him with the same neutral silence as before. The overhead light in the living room was still out. The microphone still dead. The mug still sat in the kitchen sink, YOU GOT THIS facing outward like a verdict.
Leo took off his jacket and hung it up carefully. Shoes by the door. Keys in the bowl. He was aware of doing everything deliberately now, as if haste might provoke the room.
He moved through the flat switching lights on and off, testing them. Some worked. Some didn’t. No pattern he could detect. He resisted the urge to start assigning meaning to this too.
By early evening, hunger arrived—not gently, but insistently. Leo opened the fridge again, hopeful in a way he resented. Nothing had improved. He made toast and ate it standing up, watching the street through the window.
Toast was fine.
Reliable, even.
He hated that Kevin was right about that.
Night arrived quietly. The city softened, sounds blurring into one another. Leo showered, letting the water run hotter than usual, until his skin protested. He stood there longer than necessary, breathing steam, replaying the sound of the horn until it dulled.
He went to bed early and lay awake.
Sleep did not come.
Every time he closed his eyes, his body flinched, bracing for an impact that never arrived. His mind filled the silence with hypotheticals. If the driver hadn’t swerved. If the bucket hadn’t appeared. If he’d stepped half a second earlier.
If.
At some point—he couldn’t say when—he became aware that he was no longer alone.
Not in the dramatic way. There was no noise, no shift in the air. Just the sudden, unmistakable sense of being observed by someone who already knew how this conversation would go.
“Don’t,” Leo said into the darkness. “If you’re here to say ‘I told you so,’ don’t.”
A familiar weight settled on the edge of the bed.
Kevin sat there, elbows on his knees, hands clasped loosely, looking tired in a way that suggested time zones rather than emotion. He wore a jumper that smelled faintly of smoke and pine.
“I was on holiday,” Kevin said.
Leo laughed once, harsh and incredulous. “You’ve mentioned.”
“I mean properly,” Kevin continued. “I had my phone off. I was mid-soup.”
“And yet,” Leo said, sitting up, heart thudding again, “there was a bucket.”
Kevin winced. “Yes. About that.”
“So you were watching.”
Kevin tilted his head. “I was… peripherally aware.”
“Peripherally aware that I was about to be turned into road furniture.”
“Yes.”
“And you decided to intervene.”
Kevin sighed. “I decided to limit damage.”
Leo swung his legs over the side of the bed. “You said April. You didn’t say no safety net whatsoever.”
“I said I was stepping back,” Kevin replied. “Not that I’d enjoy watching you die.”
“Comforting.”
“That was a freebie,” Kevin said, voice firmer now. “You need to understand that.”
Leo’s jaw tightened. “So next time—?”
“There is no next time like that,” Kevin said. “Not unless you make it one.”
Silence stretched between them.
Leo stared at the floor. “I shouted your name.”
“Yes,” Kevin said flatly. “You did.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know.”
“You still showed up.”
Kevin didn’t answer immediately.
“That was… unprofessional,” he said at last.
Leo snorted despite himself. “That’s what we’re calling it?”
“I had paperwork,” Kevin said. “Forms. Do you have any idea how long it takes to get clearance to nudge a pigeon?”
“A pigeon?”
Kevin waved a hand. “Details. The point is—you are not entitled to that kind of intervention anymore.”
Leo nodded slowly. The word entitled lodged unpleasantly.
“So what am I supposed to do?” he asked. “Just… be careful?”
“Yes.”
“That’s it?”
Kevin looked at him steadily. “That’s everything.”
Leo leaned back against the headboard. His chest felt tight again, but differently now. Less panic. More… responsibility.
Kevin stood. “I shouldn’t stay.”
“Of course not,” Leo said. “You’ve got soup.”
Kevin paused at the edge of the room. “You did well today.”
Leo looked up sharply. “I nearly died.”
“And you noticed,” Kevin said. “That’s new.”
With that, he faded—not abruptly, but decisively, like someone leaving a room because the meeting was over.
Leo lay back down, staring at the ceiling.
Outside, a car passed. Somewhere, a siren wailed and then cut off.
Leo breathed.
Slowly.
Carefully.
The world did not bend.
And for the first time, he understood that it wasn’t supposed to.
This is an ongoing series about a man who never knew how lucky he was. Or why. If you like it, please subscribe and share this with others!