Things You Save in a Fire

by Katherine Center

“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.”