“Of course,” I reply. “I said I’d think about it.”
She studies my face, like she’s looking for something — regret, maybe, or reassurance.
She finds neither.
Her jaw tightens slightly. “Okay. Let’s get started.”
The classroom is chaos in the way only a room full of eight-year-olds can be.
Still, I somehow manage to talk them through fire alarms, stop-drop-and-roll, crawling low under smoke.
I demonstrate my gear. I let them touch the helmet, ask questions, laugh when they ask if fires can smell fear.
Daisy watches me like I’m performing Shakespeare on Broadway.
Abby watches me like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.
At one point, we demonstrate checking a door for heat, and Abby steps forward to help. Our shoulders brush. Her breath stutters, barely audible.
“You don’t have to be so close,” she murmurs.
I glance down at her, just as quiet. “You volunteered.”
Her lips press together. “I didn’t know it came with such close proximity.”
The word does things to me it shouldn’t.
“Still okay?” I ask.
She nods. “I’m fine.”
She is not fine.
Neither am I.
Daisy waits until the room starts to empty. She proudly hands me a notebook, beaming.
“Guess what?”
“What’s that, pumpkin?” I ask, kneeling to her eye-level and wincing at my words.
Her mama’s not going to appreciate that endearment I threw in at the end. But I couldn’t help myself.
“This is my hero project,” she says. “I’m writing about you.”
She plops onto the stool and opens the folder with dramatic flair, pulling out a page of messy handwriting and a drawing of a stick figure firefighter with flames everywhere and a little girl with a daisy on her head.
“This is you,” she tells me proudly. “And this is me. And this is Mom, but I didn’t have time to draw her hair right.”
I lean closer, my gut clenching. “It’s perfect.”
Daisy glows. “I wrote that you’re brave and you saved me and you made me not scared.”
My throat tightens. I look away quickly, and clear my throat before emotion can get the better of me.
Daisy continues, reading her sentences aloud. Some are misspelled. Some are missing punctuation. Every single one is sincere enough to split my heart open.
My chest tightens in a way that scares me.
