More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
For every woman who has ever had to be brave. And for the folks in the world who make a choice to be helpers.
“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.”
“It means,” she said, looking a little triumphant, “that you clearly, obviously, any second now, are just about to fall in love.”
The rookie saw me coming and held the door open. As I closed the gap, he shook his head in admiration. “You’re my hero.” “Did it go in?” I whispered as I passed. “Nothing but net,” he said. I high-fived him without even breaking stride, and I never looked back.
“Tell me you don’t have a puppy in your arms.” “I don’t have a puppy in my arms,” he said from behind me, pleased with his own restraint.
“Good, because—” “I’ve got him in a basket.”
“You want me to call you Owen?” I asked, like it was the craziest idea ever. “Yeah, actually,” he said. “I kind of do.”
That’s what we do, isn’t it? 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.
Now he was making me smile. “Mooning?” “Pretty much.” “Since when?” He met my eyes. “Since the first day.”
He smiled bigger, all teasing. “Firefighter Hanwell, are you proposing that we snuggle?”
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.
That’s what firefighters do. They show up. They offer relief. They look after each other. They help.
It’s not the easy moments that define who we are. It’s the hard ones.
“Shut your yaps,” Tiny said. “It was an epic secret love. Nobody called it.”
“Poor Loverboy,” the guys all chimed in. “Oh God. Please tell me you’re not going to start calling him Loverboy.” “Too late,” the guys said, and roughed each other up some more.
