When I found the man collapsed in the alley, I almost kept walking.
That truth still makes my chest tighten.
I was tired. My shift had just ended. I wanted nothing more than to go home, kick off my boots, and sit in the quiet that only comes after the kids are asleep. But the memory rose up before I could take another step—the image I have never been able to bury, no matter how many years pass.
People walking past my husband while he was dying.
They glanced. They slowed. And then they kept going.
Bast had been sitting outside a sandwich shop, uniform crisp, lunch balanced on his knee. He texted me right before it happened, joking that he’d finally remembered the Dijon mustard I always asked for.
A minute later, his heart stopped.
Witnesses said he slumped forward slowly, like he was just tired. Someone stepped around him. Someone else pulled out a phone and filmed while his fingers scraped the pavement, reaching for help that never came.
Fifteen years on the force. Fifteen years of breaking down doors, giving CPR in rain-soaked streets, talking people off ledges—sometimes literally. Bast saved strangers for a living.
And when it was his turn to need someone, no one did a thing.
By the time I got the call, it was already over. Half his sandwich still wrapped. The mustard unopened.
I remember asking the paramedic, my voice barely my own, “Did anyone help him?”
He shook his head. “No, ma’am. Someone called from a car. Another person recorded it.”
That night I made myself a promise I didn’t know if I could keep: I would never be the person who walked away.
Still, promises feel small when you’re standing in front of your children, trying to explain why their father isn’t coming home. How do you tell kids the world saw their dad hurting and chose inconvenience over compassion?
It took a year before I could say Bast’s name without breaking. Two more before I walked into the academy at thirty-six—widowed, three kids deep, heart cracked clean down the middle.
Most nights I studied on the couch, cold coffee in one hand, Bast’s badge in the other. When I graduated, I carried my own.
Sometimes, late at night, I still whisper into the quiet, Are you proud of me?
In the silence, I pretend he says yes.
That Thursday evening, the crowd was the first thing I noticed.
I was cruising past the alley behind the bakery—the one that always smelled like burned coffee and old sugar—when I felt it. That strange hush. No shouting. No urgency. Just people standing, watching something they didn’t want responsibility for.
Not again, something in me whispered.
I parked and stepped out, gravel crunching under my boots. The closer I got, the heavier the air felt. I recognized that stillness. It’s the kind that settles in right before bad news, when people are afraid of being the first to act.
I wondered if it felt the same the day Bast died.
The crowd parted just enough for me to see him.
He was slumped against the brick wall, legs sprawled awkwardly, chin pressed to his chest. A deep scrape streaked one side of his face. His breathing was shallow. His shirt soaked through with sweat and blood.
But it wasn’t the injuries keeping people back.
It was the fact that he had no arms.
“God, he smells,” someone muttered.
“Probably high,” another said.
“Why is he even here?” a teenager asked.
A woman snapped, “Stay away. He’s gross. It’s sick our city allows people like this.”
I didn’t hesitate. I pushed through and dropped to my knees beside him.
“Sir,” I said gently. “I’m Officer Reese. You’re going to be okay.”
His lips parted. A faint breath escaped.
“Someone call 911,” I shouted.
I found his pulse—weak, but there. When I tilted his head, his eyes fluttered open just long enough to see my badge.
“Stay with me,” I whispered. “Don’t quit now.”
I started compressions. Counted the way I’d been trained. The pavement bit through my knees. Sweat slid down my spine.
I didn’t stop. I wouldn’t.
When the sirens finally cut through the air, I felt like I could breathe again.
The paramedics took over with practiced calm. “Good work, Officer,” one said. They loaded him up and pulled away, leaving me kneeling in the gravel long after the crowd dispersed.
That night, sleep never came. I packed lunches, helped with homework, sang softly while brushing Aria’s hair—all on autopilot.
The next morning, a car horn shattered the quiet.
A red Mercedes gleamed in my driveway.
And stepping out of it was the man from the alley—hair neat, suit tailored, confidence steady despite the absence of arms.
“My name is Cyrus,” he said gently. “You saved me.”
He told me his story. The hit-and-run. The hour on the sidewalk. The strangers who filmed. The wife he lost years earlier to a seizure while people laughed and watched.
We were two people shaped by the same kind of cruelty.
We stayed in touch. Slowly. Carefully.
The kids warmed to him in stages. Adam first. Then Aria. Alex last—but when Alex handed him silverware without a word, something shifted.
Cyrus never tried to replace Bast. He didn’t need to.
One night on the porch, he rested the end of his arm in my open palm, tentative as hope.
“You gave me a reason to keep going,” he said.
“You gave it back to us too,” I answered.
When he asked if he could try to make me happy, I didn’t hesitate.
“Yes,” I said.
And for the first time since Bast died, the word felt like truth—not betrayal.