"Friends can fix cabinets."
"He brought you coffee at school."
"How do you know about that?"
"Mrs. Rivera told her daughter, who's in my grade." Zoe rolled her eyes. "By lunch, everyone knew. The whole school's talking about how that hot firefighter from the calendar is bringing Ms. Cummins coffee."
My face went hot. "He's not—we're just?—"
"Mom." Zoe sat up, something serious crossing her face. "I'm not stupid. I know you like him."
"Zoe—"
"I'm just saying." She picked at the corner of her textbook. "He's different from the other guys."
The other guys. There had been exactly two dates in the eight years since David left. Both disasters. Both ended with me crying in my car, convinced I'd never be enough for anyone.
"Different how?"
Zoe shrugged, trying to look casual and failing. "He actually listens when I talk. Like, really listens. Not just waiting for me to stop so he can say something."
I watched her. My fierce, guarded daughter who'd learned too young that fathers could leave. Who'd built walls almost as high as mine.
"When you were preparing lesson plans last week," she wouldn't meet my eyes. "I asked him about the firehouse, the rescues, and whether he ever gets scared."
"What did he say?"
"He said yes. All the time." Zoe finally looked up. "He said fear keeps you sharp. That the guys who stop being scared are the ones who get sloppy."
Something loosened in my chest. Shane could have lied. Could have performed bravery, the way men so often did. But he'd told my daughter the truth that courage wasn't the absence of fear; it was showing up anyway.
"I like that answer," I said quietly.
"Yeah." Zoe went back to her homework, but I caught the ghost of a smile. "Me too."
That night, after Zoe went to bed, I made a mistake.
I Googled him again.
Not the surface search I'd done after the hospital. This time I went deeper. I clicked through pages of results, and let the algorithm pull me into a spiral I couldn't escape.
Shane Briggs at a charity gala, black tie, arm around a woman in a red dress that probably cost more than my monthly rent. Shane Briggs at a restaurant opening, models on either side, flash bulbs exploding. Shane Briggs on the cover of a magazine calledNYC's Most Eligible, the headline screaming about his "revolving door of beauties."
Comments under articles were:
I saw him at Marquee last year. Left with a different girl than he came with.
My friend hooked up with him at a firehouse benefit. Said he was gone before sunrise.
Typical hot firefighter. Enjoy the ride, ladies, but don't expect him to call.
My stomach turned.
This was it. What I'd been waiting for.
The truth behind the charm, the evidence that men like Shane Briggs didn't end up with women like me. I was a novelty. A project. The struggling single mom, he could help out of the goodness of his heart, before returning to his real life of charity events, models, and women who had time to wear red dresses and go to restaurant openings.
You're a good story, I thought.The exhausted teacher he rescued. He'll tell people about you at parties. "This one time, I helped this single mom. She was so grateful."
