Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

“And don’t talk too much, either. Remember: What women think of as sharing, men see as complaining.”

That’s how life is. Things happen. Lives get broken. Some people never can put themselves back together.

Of course, our parents get an extra dose of importance in our minds. When we’re little, they’re everything—the gods and goddesses that rule our worlds. It takes a lot of growing up, and a lot of disappointment, to accept that they’re just normal, bumbling, mistaken humans, like everybody else.

“Choosing to love—despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway … That’s not weakness. That’s courage.”

“The truth is that love doesn’t exist.”

“Sounds like you just threw down a challenge to the universe, lady.” I narrowed my eyes. “What does that mean?” “It means,” she said, looking a little triumphant, “that you clearly, obviously, any second now, are just about to fall in love.”

“Forgiveness is about a mind-set of letting go.” She thought for a second, then said, “It’s about acknowledging to yourself that someone hurt you, and accepting that.”

“Then it’s about accepting that the person who hurt you is flawed, like all people are, and letting that guide you to a better, more nuanced understanding of what happened. Flawed, I thought. Okay. Check. “And then there’s a third part,” she went on, “probably the hardest, that involves trying to look at the aftermath of what happened and find ways that you benefited, not just ways you were harmed.”

That’s the thing I always love best about the human race: how we pick ourselves back up over and over and just keep on going.

“Can I tell you something?” “Okay.” “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“And there’s one more thing.” I lifted my head, stepped back a little to see his face. He took a deep breath, like he wasn’t even sure where he was headed. Then he said, “I am in love

“It’s bad. And that kiss that night—it only made things worse. That’s why I’m quitting—partly, anyway. It’s that bad. It’s made things kind of unbearable for me at the station. I suspect you’ve known all along. It must have made you so angry. You’re there to do a job—and you’ve got this house full of guys who underestimate you like every minute of the day—and the last thing you need is some rookie mooning over you.” Now he was making me smile. “Mooning?” “Pretty much.” “Since when?” He met my eyes. “Since the first day.” “The first day?” I asked. “The first day at the station?” He nodded.

“I was doing okay,” he said. “I was really working on it.” “Working on what?” “Um,” he said. “On not letting myself talk to you except when absolutely necessary. Not touching you unless forced by the captain. Not following you around. Not asking for advice. Not, you know, staring at you longingly—or even stealing glances the way I might’ve if I were the only person at stake. And just basically trying not to even think about you.” He gave a little shrug. “Failing most of the time on that one, but genuinely trying.”

“But then—that kiss. It kind of broke everything. It made me wonder if maybe I wasn’t totally alone in all that stuff.” Um, no. He was not totally alone. But I held still. He went on. “So that’s why I’m telling you. Because I’m never sure, when you push me away, if you really want me to go.” I took a step closer, and then another, until my body was right up against his, like it had just been—except this time, rather than curling down against his chest, I reached up, stretched against him, and brought my face close to his. A very different vibe. Then I looked straight into his eyes. “I don’t want you to go,” I said.

“If I took you upstairs, could we keep doing what we’re doing?” He gave me a wry smile. “I am very grateful to be doing what we’re doing.” “But,” I added, wanting to be clear, “not go any further.” “Just kiss, you mean?” I nodded. “You’re asking if I’m willing to go up to your room and kiss you?” I nodded again. “For a good long while.” He kissed me again. “I am definitely willing to do that.”

“Could we go upstairs and sleep together—actually sleep?” He smiled bigger, all teasing. “Firefighter Hanwell, are you proposing that we snuggle?” I gave a barely-there smile of my own. “I guess that’s one way to describe it.” “I’ll take anything. I’d sleep on a bed of nails to be next to you.” I turned and started pulling him toward the house. “That’s actually perfect, because my bed is made of nails.” “Sold,” he said. “I’m in.”

“This is a big deal for me.” “For me, too.” “But you’ve been in a girl’s bedroom before.” He shook his head. “Not in the bedroom of a superhero.” “I’m not a superhero.” “You’re pretty damn close.” “I’m the opposite, in a lot of ways.” “It’s possible that you don’t fully know how awesome you are.” “That’s distinctly possible.” He met my eyes. “But I do.”

“I think about you all the time,” he confessed then. “In between shifts, all I’m doing is waiting to see you again. Then, during shifts, I can’t concentrate. I’m supposed to be filling out time logs, but all I can see is that one wisp of hair you can’t seem to keep in your ponytail holder.”

“I think you are so beautiful,” he went on slowly, deliberately, “that it’s blinding. But it’s not just that. When I look at you, I just see all the things I admire. It’s all the badass stuff about you, sure, like the way you’re so calm when all hell’s breaking loose, and the way you can toss a three-point shot backwards without even looking and make it with nothing but net, and don’t get me started on the one-arm pull-ups. It’s how you never panic and nothing scares you. But it’s also that your first career goal was to be the Tooth Fairy. And that you hum to yourself when you’re washing the dishes. And that when you laugh really, really hard, you run out of breath and start squeaking like a mouse.” “I don’t squeak like a mouse.” “There’s all this toughness about you—but the most impressive thing about that toughness, I think, is that you built it to protect the tenderness.”

“It’s not true that nothing scares me,” I said then. “You scare me.” He let out a laugh. “I am far too lovesick to scare anybody.” I had to clarify something. “Are you lovesick?” I asked. He met my eyes. “Horribly.” “About me?” I asked, just making sure. He gave me a look like I was adorable and ridiculous and lovable, all at once. Then he nodded and got serious again. “Every single minute of every single day.”

“It’s not you that scares me,” I said. “It’s the things I feel about you.” “The things I feel about you scare me, too,” he said, looking very serious. “We’ll ju...

Yes, the world is full of unspeakable cruelty. But the answer wasn’t to never feel hope, or bliss, or love—but to savor every fleeting, precious second of those feelings when they came. The answer wasn’t to never love anyone. It was to love like crazy whenever you could.

I took a deep breath. “I love him,” I told the captain. He frowned at me. “Who?” “The rookie!” “Everybody loves the rookie,” he said. “No,” I stared at him, like, I. Love. Him. But the captain wasn’t having it. “Come on, Hanwell. Keep it together. Now’s not the time to develop a crush on the rookie.” I stood up straighter. “It’s not a crush,” I said. And then, knowing exactly how ridiculous these words would sound to the captain and every single other person in the room, including the guys on our crew, and even myself, I said, as steadily as I could, “When I say I love him, I mean I am in love with him.”

“When I say I’m in love with him,” I went on, my voice shaking, “I mean that he’s the person I want to marry and spend my life with. He’s the person who makes everything else matter. But I never told him that. I was afraid of losing my job. Or of losing the guys’ respect. I know what you all think, that love is weakness—because I thought it, too, and I never questioned it. But I’ll tell you something, as of today I know for sure that it’s the opposite. I would have lifted that entire building off the ground to get the rookie out of there today, and I will do the same to get into that ICU right now.”

It’s not the easy moments that define who we are. It’s the hard ones.

The rookie tugged me a little closer. “Come here.” The room quieted as I stepped closer. “I’ve got something for you,” the rookie said. Then he reached toward the tray where his breakfast still sat and he picked up a little silver ring. Made of tinfoil. I stared at it. “I made it from the applesauce top,” he said, meeting my eyes. “It might be a little sticky.” I held very still. “What’s this for?” He held it up. “I promised myself that if I lived, the very first thing I’d do was ask you to marry me.” “Guess he likes you back, Hanwell,” someone shouted. “Will you marry me?” the rookie asked, holding up the tinfoil ring, his gaze pinned on mine. I nodded before I could find the words. “I will.” And then he was tugging me closer, and then sliding that homemade ring on my finger, and then he kissed my hand in a way that inspired the captain to start hustling everybody out of the room.

“I don’t want to hurt you,” I said. “But you do want to kiss me.” “I really, truly do.” “Be careful, then,” he said. So I kissed him. Carefully. Supporting my weight on one arm, and resting the palm of my other hand against the contour of his unshaven neck. I could feel his pulse, simple and steady, and I let myself feel so grateful—so unabashedly grateful—that it was there. When I pulled back to take in the sight of him, he said, “Don’t stop.”

“The captain says I have to go easy on you.” “Don’t go easy on me.” “I should probably let you rest.” “Don’t let me rest.” “I should probably go.” “Definitely don’t go,” he said.

I do it because I believe that human connection is the only thing that will save us. I do it because I believe we learn empathy when we listen to other people’s stories and feel their pain with them. I do it because I know for certain that our world has an empathy problem with women, and this is one brave thing I can do to help fix it.

I guess it really proves the old saying: “The best revenge is marrying a kindhearted guy with a washboard stomach who brings you coffee in bed every morning.” Wait—is that the saying? Maybe it’s “The best revenge is spending your life in a cottage by the ocean with a world-champion kisser who takes the phrase ‘with my body, I thee worship’ literally.” That might not be it either. How about “The best revenge is flying kites on the beach with your chubby toddlers.” Or “The best revenge is dancing to oldies in the kitchen with your goofy friends.” Or maybe “The best revenge is to love like crazy.” Gosh, what is that darned saying? “The best revenge is…” “The best revenge is…” Oh, well … I forget.