She’d tell me about her favorite students fromwhen she taught second grade. She’d light up as she talked about them, a different kind of brightness than I’d seen anywhere else. Marcus, who couldn’t sit still but drew the most beautiful pictures—elaborate landscapes with dragons and castles and a little stick figure she eventually realized was supposed to be her.
Sofia, who cried every day the first week and then became the class leader, organizing the other kids like a tiny general. Jayden, who struggled with reading until something clicked in February and suddenly couldn’t stop, who’d stay inside during recess just to finish one more chapter.
She talked about them like they were her own kids. Like she still knew what they were doing, how they were growing, whether Jayden had kept reading and Sofia had stayed bossy and Marcus had kept drawing his dragons. Her face went soft with the memory, soft and sad at the same time, and I understood why she'd quit.
Not because she didn't love it. Because she loved it too much to do it while she was broken inside. Because standing in front of a classroom full of seven-year-olds, all that hope and possibility, would have reminded her every single day of the future she'd lost. The kids she and Mateo were supposed to have. The life that had been taken from her.
I didn't say any of that. Just listened. Just let her talk until she was done, and then asked another question, because I'd learned that sometimes the bestthing you can do for someone is give them permission to open up.
When I could finally speak, I told her about my worst calls. The funny ones, not the hard ones.
Like the story of the guy who got his head stuck in a wrought-iron fence trying to retrieve a frisbee. We'd had to cut him out with the jaws of life while he apologized over and over, insisting he'd done it before with no problems, that the fence must have shrunk somehow. His wife had stood on the sidewalk filming the whole thing, already planning to post it online.
Or one of the women who called 911 because her cat was stuck on the roof. We'd rolled out, set up the ladder, started climbing, and the cat had looked directly at us, yawned, jumped down to the porch railing, and strolled inside through the open window like nothing had happened. The woman had offered us cookies. We'd accepted.
Also, about the time that Liam accidentally sprayed Owen with the hose during a training drill. Full blast, point-blank range. Owen had stood there for a solid three seconds, water streaming down his face, too shocked to react. Then he'd taken off after Liam, and Liam had run, and the two of them had chased each other around the station for twenty minutes while the rest of us placed bets on who would catch who first.
She laughed at my stories. Really did it, the kind that made her whole body shake and her eyes squeeze shut, and her hand come up to cover hermouth like she was trying to hold in. The kind of laugh that transformed her face, chased away the shadows, made her look like someone who had never learned what it meant to lose people you really love.
I found myself saving up moments from my shifts. The weird calls, the almost absurd ones that made even the veterans shake their heads and sayWell, that's a new one. I'd file them away in my mind, rehearse how I'd tell them, imagine the way her face would change when she heard them.
I was always thinking about jokes to make her laugh, or what I could offer in exchange for that sound.
My apartment had never felt so alive.
I lived there for six months. Six months of silence and routine and the particular emptiness of a space occupied by someone who was just passing through, who'd never bothered to make it a home. I had furniture but no photographs. Dishes but nothing on the walls. Everything functional, nothing personal.
Now there were her books stacked on the coffee table. Her jacket draped over the back of a chair. Her shampoo in my shower, something that smelled like vanilla and honey, and every morning I breathed it in and pretended I didn't notice.
Then there was laughter within these walls, constant conversation, the delicious smell of cooking, the sound of someone else’s footsteps, and the strange, terrifying comfort of not being alone.
I'd forgotten what that felt like. Or maybe I'd never really known.
"You look different."
Liam’s voice cut through my thoughts. I looked up from the equipment I’d been checking, the same gear I’d been hovering over for ten minutes without really seeing it. The apparatus bay was quiet, late-afternoon light slanting through the open doors, dust motes suspended in the air.
"What?"
"Different." He leaned against the engine, arms crossed, that sharp gaze fixed on my face. Liam had this way he stared at you like he could see straight through whatever story you were telling yourself. It made him a good firefighter but an exhausting friend. “Lighter, maybe. More distracted, definitely. Sleeping better, Cap? Or is someone keeping you up?”
"I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I kept my tone even, eyes back on the equipment.
"Sure you don't." He didn't smile, but I could hear it in his voice. That knowing tone he got when he'd figured something out and was just waiting for you to catch up. "That’s why you’ve checked that regulator three times and didn’t notice the strap was twisted."
I looked down. He was right. The strap was looped wrong, tangled in a way that would have costprecious seconds on a call. A rookie mistake—the kind I hadn’t made in fifteen years. One that could cost a life.
While I untangled it, I kept avoiding his eyes.
"I'm fine."
"You keep saying that." He pushed off from the engine, took a step closer. "You know what I've noticed about people who keep saying they're fine? They're usually the opposite of fine."
"Thank you for that wisdom. Very profound.” My voice stayed flat.
“I’m a profound guy. Ask anyone.” He shrugged, like it was an established fact.
I didn't answer. Just moved on to the next piece of equipment, checking connections I'd already checked, testing pressure I'd already tested. Busywork. The kind of thing you did when you needed your hands to move so your mind could stay still.
