Page 140 of Burn

I’m confused, emotional, frustrated . . . and she’s feeling the same.

TODAY I HAVE to clean out Evan’s locker. The ring is in there like Corbin said it would be. I’ve been putting it off cleaning his locker, but it has to be done and nobody else will do it.

Following any line-of-duty death, an investigation is started. I had a lot of paperwork to fill out, and reliving every moment of that day wasn’t something I enjoyed doing. No firefighter does. Sure, we want to know what went wrong and how we could do it differently, but it’s different when it’s someone close to you and not some nameless face you were trying to save.

The autopsy report came back amongst the paperwork. Evan died from third-degree burns covering 80 percent of his body. In the hospital, I have no idea how he’d manage to make it there alive; he wasn’t even recognizable at that point.

There was no way to tell the burns were the real cause of death because he also had a piece of shrapnel impaled in his side that ruptured his spleen. That was there at the first explosion.

Who’s to say Evan wouldn’t have died hours after the fire, even if the second explosion wouldn’t have happened, but it didn’t make me feel any better. I still felt responsible.

Inside the locker room, I sit and stare at his locker and the ring. Guys shuffle in and out, never bothering me. I think they know I don’t want to be disturbed. I have a permanent look of “fuck off” plastered on my face these days.

One by one I pull away photographs showing his happiness. Ones of him with me and our brothers, our parents, a few of Jacey.

I drop the photo of him and me at Christmas two years ago with Kellan beside us and sit down on the bench, my head in my hands.

I can hear the boys coming again, so I quickly grab the rest of Evan’s belongings and jam them all in the box.

Corbin comes in, all five foot four of him. I’m pretty sure he’s the shortest firefighter I’ve ever seen.

I still don’t like Corbin, but he says something to me right then that makes me think otherwise.

As he sits across from me on the bench, his shakes his head, looking down. “I know we’ve had our own share of bullshit together. I know you and Evan did too . . . and I’m not even sure when it started, but . . .” He swallows, choking back what seems to be tears. I have none left. I’m not sure I can cry anymore. “Evan was the type of firefighter we all wished we could be. I’ve never met a guy more put together than he was, professionally.” He looks right at me now, our eyes meeting, understanding. “I’m sorry. I know that doesn’t make this any better and I can’t imagine what you’re going through but know that he thought the world of you. You two may not have gotten along the greatest, but you know as well as I do he would have done anything for you.”

I nod. One that sayssure. I’m not sure what to think. Mostly because I know it’s true in some ways. Standing from my place, I put my hand on his shoulder. In another time, I would have shrugged off his words as nothing, but today they offer me a little relief. “I’m sorry too.”

It’s not much in comparison to what he gave me, but it’s what I can give for now.

Flash Point

Lowest temperature at which a material will emit vapor combustible in air mixture. Higher than flame point of same material.

It’s never easy seeing someone you love pull away, and it’s worse when you understand why, I think, because you want so badly to help them and you know you can’t.

Nothing you say will make it any easier for them.

Every day seems to go by faster than the next, but it makes no difference to Caleb, or even Jacey.

For Jacey, time has stopped since Evan died, as had her life.

In the weeks since Evan’s funeral, something has obviously changed in Caleb. Instead of being this guy who teased me and made me laugh, looking for an angle to get a rise out of me, now he’s lost, giving me long stares or ignoring me completely. I miss him showing up at the hotel and begging to fuck me on my desk, even though our hookups at the hotel are off limits now.

The past few days he’s been tired. Sometimes it’s less noticeable, but I still see it in his all-too-sad eyes and his regretful posture.

Two weeks after the funeral, Caleb got back on the truck.

A firefighter puts his mask on to show the rest of the world what he can do. Save people. But when he emerges from the fire and removes the mask, he reveals a rare intimacy. He’s just like everyone else. He’s human. And that’s a hard thing for them and everyone else around them to understand sometimes. Me included.

In the moments when he let me in, I learned from Caleb that the boys on the Ladder 10 dealt with Evan’s death in different fashions, each one finding his own way.

If they could make sense of it, they could find a way to deal with it. Some cried. Some laughed and made jokes, speaking of a time when they were happy. Finn questioned it. Owen ignored it. And Caleb? He shut down.

In some ways, those boys thought they were invincible. Then, when Evan died, they slowly accepted that they weren’t and could die.

One of the hardest parts for me was seeing what Caleb was going through, because it was there, right in front of me.

I hated it mostly because here was Caleb, the man I would give everything to, my heart, my soul, my love, and he was ignoring me. I understood why, but at the same time, it didn’t make the hurt any easier.

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