"You know what I mean." I rubbed the back of my neck. "I wake up next to someone, and I can't remember her name. I go home to an empty apartment. I look in the mirror, and I don't recognize myself anymore."
Brian was quiet.
"I watched Rodriguez with his kids the other day," I continued. "Maria brought lunch. The way they looked at each other, man. Twenty years, and it's still there." I shook my head. "I want that. Something real. Someone who actually sees me, not the headline."
"So stop answering texts from women who just want the headline."
"I did. I am."
"And?"
I laughed, but there was no humor in it. "And it turns out, when you strip away all the noise, there's not much left."
Brian considered this. Then he reached over, picked up my phone, and dropped it in the trash can beside the table.
"Hey!"
"You can fish it out later." He gathered the cards and started shuffling. "In the meantime, maybe figure out who you are when you're not performing. Might be a guy worth knowing."
I stared at the trash can. Thought about Natalie's messages sitting there, unread, unanswered.
It felt like the first honest thing I’d done in a long time.
The tones dropped at 7:23 PM.
I was in the kitchen, halfway through a plate of Brian's surprisingly decent pasta, when the alarm cut through the noise. Chair scraped back. Fork dropped. Muscle memory took over.
Around me, the station came alive. Boots on concrete. Gear rattling. The controlled chaos of men who'd done this a thousand times.
"Structure fire, P.S. 156, Woodside," the dispatcher's voice crackled. "Multiple calls. Flames visible."
A school. My stomach dropped.
We rolled out in under ninety seconds. Engine 295 tore through empty streets, sirens cutting the silence, the city blurring past in streaks of streetlight and shadow. I sat in the jump seat, pulling on my SCBA, running through scenarios in my head.
We saw the glow three blocks out.
The building was fully involved by the time we arrived. Flames poured from the first-floor windows, orange and angry against the night sky. Smoke billowed thick and black, carrying the acrid smell of burning plastic, paper, everything.
"Engine 295 on scene," Rodriguez called into the radio. "We have heavy fire showing, first floor, extending to the second. Requesting second alarm."
A man stumbled toward us from the side entrance. He wore a security uniform, his face streaked with soot, coughing so hard his whole body shook.
"Anyone else inside?" Rodriguez grabbed his shoulder, steadying him.
The man shook his head, gasping between words. "Just me. I called 911 as soon as I saw it. Tried to find where it started." He doubled over, hacking into his sleeve. "Smoke got too thick. Couldn't see. Couldn't breathe."
"Get him on oxygen," Rodriguez ordered. "Briggs, check him out. Then we go in."
I guided Harold to the rig, got a mask on his face, and checked his vitals. Sixty-three years old, eleven years watching this building. His hands were shaking.
"You did good," I told him. "Getting out was the right call."
"All those kids," he kept saying. "Thank God the kids weren't there."
I left him with another medic and rejoined the crew.
We moved as we'd trained. Garrett and I pulled the attack line while Brian forced entry through the main doors. Heat hit us like a wall the moment we crossed the threshold.
