The Storm Doesn’t Knock (chapter)

The rain hit like it didn’t care who heard.
Not a drizzle. Not a soft soaking. Just a hard, hammering Tennessee storm that turned streets into rivers and roofs into drums.
It was the kind of storm that didn’t ask. Just showed up loud, and stayed.

Caleb was already half-awake when the phone buzzed.
Not a text. A call.
Jonah’s name lit up the screen, glowing through the dark.

He answered on the second ring. “Yeah.”

There was a pause. Then Jonah’s voice — tight, low.
“It’s Langston. They moved him to ICU about an hour ago.”

Caleb didn’t ask questions. Didn’t say sorry.
He just said, “You need a ride?”

Jonah didn’t answer right away.
Then: “Yeah.”

Fifteen minutes later, the truck lights cut through the rain like they had something to prove. Jonah climbed in, already soaked through, hair plastered to his forehead, jaw clenched too tight. Water ran off his cuffs and pooled on the mat. Steam rose faint from his shoulders.

Caleb didn’t say anything. Just turned up the defrost and eased them onto the road.

The drive to Knoxville took longer than usual. Between the storm and the tension, neither of them reached for the radio.

Jonah sat with his hands clasped between his knees, knuckles white.

Caleb glanced once, caught the slight tremble in them. Said nothing.

At one point, Jonah muttered, “He was stable yesterday.”

Caleb nodded once. “Things change.”

The words sounded harsher than he meant them to, but Jonah didn’t flinch.

They pulled into the hospital garage, headlights sweeping wet concrete. Caleb parked without speaking. Jonah opened the door too fast and nearly slipped. Caleb caught his elbow without thinking.

They didn’t speak. But neither shook it off.

Inside, everything smelled like bleach and overwork.
The lights were too bright.
The waiting room too quiet.

Jonah stood near the coffee machine, unmoving, staring at a styrofoam cup that had overflowed without him noticing.

Caleb sat. Didn’t ask him to.

After a while, Jonah walked over and lowered himself into the seat beside him. Not close. But not far either.

“I prayed,” he said.

Caleb looked at him.

“For weeks,” Jonah added. “Laid hands on him. Psalm 41. Psalm 30. Anointed his hands, his forehead. He let me.”

Caleb didn’t speak.

Jonah looked down. “Now he’s hooked up to a machine, and I’m trying to remember what faith felt like when it didn’t feel like a fight.”

Caleb shifted slightly in his seat.
He didn’t speak. But he stayed. And sometimes, that was louder.

“You think God cares if I’m tired of believing for people who don’t get better?” Jonah asked, quieter now.

Caleb answered after a long silence.
“I think he already knows.”

Jonah’s shoulders moved, barely. Like something almost broke loose and didn’t.

He leaned slightly — not a collapse, not a cry for help. Just enough that his shoulder pressed into Caleb’s arm, heavy with the kind of tired words couldn’t fix.

The weight pressed into him, and something in Caleb tightened—not in fear, just memory.

He didn’t shift away. Didn’t say a word.
Just stayed still, like something in him understood what that weight meant.

That was it.
No comfort offered.
But none withheld, either.

When the nurse came out forty minutes later and said Langston was stable, Jonah let out a breath that sounded more like a collapse.

He didn’t speak on the way back to the truck.

Caleb just kept the heater running and let the silence ride with them.

At the first red light, Jonah finally said, “Thanks for coming.”

Caleb kept his eyes on the light. Not everything needed saying.

“Didn’t need an invite.”The rain had slowed now. Just mist on the windshield.
But it felt like the storm had settled somewhere else.

(Chapter from Not the First in the Caleb and Jonah series. Contact me if you’d like to read the full story!)