Page 103 of Things You Save in a Fire

Oh God. Now there were tears on my face. Humiliating.

It just made me angrier.

“I know we’re all just human. I don’t expect you to be perfect. But I expect you, at the very least, to be better than that.”

And that’s when I had an idea. Not a perfect idea. Maybe not even a good one. But it was the best I could come up with in the moment.

“So I’m making everybody a deal,” I said, wiping my face again. “Pick your best guy, and let’s go outside right now to run the course. I will beat him. I’ll beat anybody here. I’ll prove myself to all of you—again, forthe thousandth time. And if I don’t win, I’ll quit. I’ll quit right now, this morning, and you’ll never see me again, and all your lady problems will be over.”

The guys were all frowning at me.

“But I will win,” I went on. “And when I do, the asshole stalker in this room needs to make a choice to be a better human being—and cut it the hell out.”

The guys looked around at each other.

“And if he doesn’t—if he manages to run me out of here in the end? At least every single one of us will know that I deserved to be here.”

I was so angry, but the guys just looked sorry. They’d been standing at ease, but then, almost like a school of fish in unison, they all took a few steps closer. Then the captain, of all people, was holding his arms out to me. “You know what you need, Hanwell?”

“Group hug,” the guys all assented, lifting their arms, too.

Were they mocking me? Were they being sarcastic? They looked so earnest, but that couldn’t be right. I smeared the tears off my face with my impatient hands, then pointed at them all, like,Keep back.“Do not hug me. Nobody in this room hugs anybody.”

Then I took a few steps backwards, as if my pointing finger were a gun and I was the villain making my escape.

One by one, I made eye contact with every guy in the room.

That was my goal, I guess. To make sure that no matter what, everyone would know exactly what they’d lost.

The guys were all silent at the notion.

Then the captain said, “Is this really necessary?”

Case jumped in with, “You’re too short to beat anybody on that course, Hanwell.”

“Don’t do this,” Six-Pack said.

“There’s no way you can win,” DeStasio said.

That’s when the captain stepped forward. “Nobody wants you to quit, Hanwell. You don’t have to do this.”

“Apparently, I fucking do,” I said. “Now, pick somebody. And then send him outside.”

I STOOD OUTback in the parking lot, surveying the course, and waited.

A few minutes later, the captain showed up and said, “That was a hell of a speech.”

I held still, eyes on the course.

“It could be somebody on a different shift, you know.”

“It could be,” I said. “But it isn’t.”

“I can’t imagine any of our guys would do that to you.”

“Maybe it was you,” I said, not looking over. “I’m pretty sure you told my old captain that women in the fire service would be the downfall of human civilization.”

The captain leaned forward until he caught my eye. “It wasn’t me, Hanwell. Do you want to know why?”

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