Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,46

up, there in my storage-closet bed at the station, I was gasping for air and nauseated—as if I really had been suffocating.

As soon as I woke, I stood up. Then I staggered to the light switch, flipped it, and stood panting for a long while, right there by the door, blinking, repeating to myself, “Just a dream. Just a dream.”

I didn’t want to go back to bed after that.

I went to the kitchen to get a glass of water.

And guess who was there? The rookie.

I stopped in my tracks at the sight of him. He was cooking.

I checked the wall clock. It was 2:00 A.M.

I started to back out of the room, but he sensed me there and turned.

He looked me over. Then he held a pan out in my direction. “Want an omelet?”

“No thanks,” I said.

I’d been spotted, so might as well get my water. I shuffled to the sink.

He was chopping at a cutting board while butter melted in a pan, and I found myself watching him.

That knife was like a blur. Tap-tap-tap! A shallot was diced. Tap-tap-tap! A tomato was in pieces. He swept them off the cutting board into a bowl and—Tap-tap-tap!—there went a mushroom. It was the speed, and the confidence of his movements. Mesmerizing. And a whole different side of the rookie. A side that was calm, and confident, and frankly, just from this quick glimpse, totally badass.

“I can’t cook,” I said, watching. “I’m terrible.”

“At least you’re not as bad as DeStasio,” he said.

“I am worse. I can’t even toast a bagel.”

That got his attention. He turned to squint at me. “How do you survive?”

I gave him a little smile. “On the kindness of strangers.”

He went back to work.

After a bit, I asked, “Why are you cooking an omelet at two in the morning?”

“Oh,” he said, waving the question off. “The usual. Just wakeful. What about you?”

“Oh,” I said. “The usual.” Then I added, “Nightmares.”

That got his attention. “Nightmares?”

I shrugged. “Yeah. Just a thing with me. My dad says it’s stress relief.”

“What are they about?” the rookie asked. He was sautéing now, flipping the contents with the whole pan, in a rhythm. It was kind of like watching a juggler.

Maybe it was the late hour, or the smell of those sautéing vegetables, or just that it felt harder to not answer than to go ahead and answer—but to my own surprise, I heard myself say, “I’m always either being chased, being strangled, or suffocating. Sometimes all three.”

“Holy shit,” he said, turning to face me.

But I pointed at the veggies. “Don’t burn those.”

He turned back. “How often?”

“I don’t know,” I confessed. Had I ever told anyone about this? “It’s better not to keep count.”

I was kind of enjoying the rookie’s sympathy. It made me feel tough and impressive.

“For your whole life?” he asked then.

I shook my head. “Just since I was sixteen.”

“Why sixteen?”

I could have shrugged, like I didn’t know. Instead, I said, “That was the year my mother left.”

It wasn’t the whole story, but it was more than I’d ever confessed to anybody else.

We were quiet then while he tended to his cooking. In a few minutes, he slid a perfectly cooked, restaurant-worthy omelet onto a plate and handed it to me.

“In case you change your mind,” he said.

I wasn’t hungry, but I took a bite anyway—not expecting anything in particular, other than just a basic egg-dish kind of experience. That’s not what happened. I don’t know what kind of magic he used on those eggs, but the minute that bite of omelet arrived on my tongue, it absolutely overtook my mouth. It infused every taste bud I had with salty, buttery, garlicky, all-consuming pleasure.

“Oh my God,” I said, mouth full, blinking at him in disbelief.

The rookie’s whole face shifted into a smile. He watched me for a second, seeming to enjoy how much I was enjoying it.

“You can cook,” I said, taking another bite.

“Yeah,” he said.

“Like, you can really cook.”

“That’s what I did before I came here,” he said. “I’ve been a chef at a little place in the North End for six years.”

“But, I mean…” I didn’t even know what I meant. I couldn’t think. I took another bite. “Oh my God. You should go on a cooking competition show and win a billion dollars.”

“I’ll get right on that,” he said.

Later, remembering this moment with the rookie, I would wonder what on earth he was doing fainting at the sight of blood in a firehouse when he could have been off absolutely