Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,104

spark of anger burn through me. It had been him. All along.

I held it up. “Is this private, too?”

He studied my face. He could tell I knew. “Get out of my house,” DeStasio said.

“I just saved you. Do you have any idea how lucky you are that I showed up when I did? Another hour and there’d have been no bringing you back.”

“I didn’t want to be saved.”

“Too fucking bad.”

DeStasio looked over at the wall and kept his eyes there.

“You don’t want to be saved? You think you can just take a pass on all your consequences? You almost killed us all. The rookie’s still in the ICU—in a coma.”

“I’ve seen the texts.”

“And then you lied about it. You lied about me, and everybody believed you. The guys believed you. The rookie’s parents believed you, and now I can’t even get into the hospital to see how he’s doing. The captain believed you, and now I’m suspended, and my career’s probably over, and they’ve told me to get a lawyer. But we both know the truth, don’t we?”

“Get out of my house, or I’m calling the cops. You want an arrest on your record, too?”

“Call the cops! I’ve got nothing to lose! What’ll you tell them? ‘A mean lady just saved my useless life’?”

DeStasio closed his eyes.

I waved the envelope for the captain at him. “Is this your confession?”

“You wish.”

“But that’s not all. It wasn’t just one bad day. You’ve been stalking me for weeks. Messing with my locker. Slashing my tires.” I pointed at the T on the envelope. “This is terrible stalking. Your handwriting’s totally obvious. I could have done a better job of stalking me than you did. This is Stalking 101! Cut the letters out of newspaper headlines!” I said it like, Duh.

DeStasio wouldn’t look at me.

I leaned closer. “You stood outside my dying mother’s house and threw a brick through her window.”

“I didn’t know she was dying.”

“What is wrong with you, man?” I shook my head. “Firefighters are supposed to be the good guys.”

DeStasio was quiet for so long, I was starting to think he was about to share something honest about what he’d been going through the past years. Instead, he went with anger and blame. “The department is the only thing I have,” he said. “And you took it from me.”

“I wasn’t trying to take it from you,” I said.

“But you did.”

So he wanted to make it all my fault. “Why couldn’t we share it?”

“Just by coming here, you changed things. The station I loved disappeared.”

I gave him a look. “That’s a bit extreme, don’t you think?”

“You walked in, all ladylike—”

Now I was offended. “I am hardly ladylike.”

“And you changed everything.”

“Um,” I said, counting off on my fingers, “the building was still there, the people were still there. Even the porn was still there.”

He pointed at me. “But it was hidden. We never had to hide the porn before.”

“That’s what drove you to the dark side, man? Because you had to hide your porn?”

“Not just that!” he said. “I’ve been here thirty-eight years. I’ve been at this station—day in and day out—longer than you’ve been alive.”

“So you’ve said,” I said. “Many times.”

“I was proud to go there. I was proud to be part of that brotherhood.”

I sighed. “Why can’t the brotherhood have a sister?”

“Because it can’t.”

“Think you might need to check some of that sexism, buddy.”

“It’s not the same with a woman around,” he insisted.

I sighed again.

As weird as it sounds, I actually did know what he meant.

A station that had women working at it could not possibly be a guy-fest in that old-school way. It did have to be something different. It could still be great—I’d seen that in Austin. Better, even. Stronger, as everybody contributed their own personal and gender-based gifts. But he wasn’t wrong. It would be different. “I hear you,” I said. “I probably slightly altered the vibe of the station.”

My empathy just pissed him off. “Damn right, you altered it! And I want it back the way it was!”

Now he sounded like a child. My empathy disappeared. “There are lots of things I want that I can’t have,” I said, making my voice infuriatingly calm. “But I don’t go around terrorizing people and lying.”

“Not yet,” he said. “Give yourself time.”

“Maybe. Maybe when I’m your age I’ll be a bitter old liar. But I hope not. I’m going to fight like hell not to let that happen.”

“Good luck.”

“Maybe you need to find something new to add to your life,