Things You Save in a Fire - Katherine Center Page 0,63

to that party with him, though I had not truly been able to imagine what the consequence would feel like. But I’d persisted. Like a fool.

Now, pressed up against my locker, frozen against it, really, my heart racing, my adrenaline on high alert, I was starting to get it.

This was not good.

Six-Pack frowned at me.

The thing was, though, this actually was not the first time in my life that I had opened a locker and seen the word “slut” inside. The last time, it had been high school, and it had been scratched into the orange paint on the inside of the metal door. This time, it was dark black Sharpie ink. It seemed like such an impossible coincidence. What were the chances of getting harassed like that—even once, much less twice?

Although, maybe the playbook for harassment just isn’t all that varied. Maybe the type of people who do this kind of thing don’t dig deep into creativity.

Seeing that word, scrawled there so angrily, left an afterimage in my eyes that I couldn’t blink away. It shocked the hell out of me, honestly—both in the real moment of my current life, and in a way that felt like a reverberation from high school.

Somehow, it made me angry at Owen. If he hadn’t been so irresistible, and so likable, and if he hadn’t frigging asked, I would never have gone with him to that party in the first place. Today could have been just another plain old regular firefighting day.

It also made me angry at myself. What had I been thinking? How cocky was I—how flat-out stupid—to think that I could just do what I wanted? I knew what world I was living in. I had willfully, stupidly broken the rules, and now I’d have to suffer the consequences.

And last, though not at all least, it made me angry at whoever had done it. Someone had gone to some trouble to figure out my combination and find a time when the locker room was empty. Someone had done something to hurt me. Intentionally. With malice.

That was a horrifying feeling. Somebody out there had come after me.

And I didn’t even know who it was.

I spent that entire day rigid with rage at every living human being on earth, including myself. I glared at patients. I evaluated every guy on our crew suspiciously. My thinking and my emotions were totally jumbled all day, but one thing was clear: I needed to stay as far away from the rookie as possible.

So …

If he came into a room, I went out.

If he asked me a question, I turned away.

It was a way for me to reclaim a sense of strength. I could survive this. I was tougher than this. One piece of graffiti wasn’t going to shut me down.

Then, once the guys had gone to bed, and I could hear the reliable rhythm of their snores, I snuck back down to my locker.

I couldn’t sleep anyway.

I opened it up and peered in. Part of me hoped that maybe if I just checked again, it might be gone.

Nope.

There it was. Slut.

The handwriting was rounded and pointy at the same time. The T almost looked like an X. It looked more like Slux, really. Terrible penmanship. Come on. If you’re going to do it, do it right.

Though it was a clue. Maybe there’d be some way to get a peek at some of our paperwork from the captain’s office—or maybe four graffiti letters wouldn’t be enough to settle it.

I drew in a long, scratchy breath, then let it back out. I just let my head lean forward until it was resting in my hands. I closed my eyes. I felt so tired.

That’s when I heard a sound in the doorway.

I snapped to attention and slammed the door closed in one motion.

It was Owen. Sleepy looking, hair a little mussed, in his undershirt and, I guessed, recently slid-into work pants.

“You okay?” he asked.

“Fine,” I said, leaning back against my locker now, to block it even more.

“What’s going on?”

“Nothing.”

We hadn’t spoken since he’d dropped me off after the party, a hundred years ago, when my whole body was still molten with delight over all the fun we’d had in that coat closet. The last time we’d spoken, every molecule in the air between us had shimmered with possibility.

But everything was different now.

And that made me angriest of all.

“Were you—” He searched for the word. “Praying? Or something?”

I want to state for the record that I knew intellectually that the