Page 73 of Combust (Everyday Heroes 2)
He pauses momentarily and then moves toward me, taking a seat beside me unexpectedly. “Nah. It was just one of those things. A perfect storm of mishaps in an old building.”
“Well, that’s good, right? Not the fire part, obviously.”
“Mm-hmm.”
“Did you wish you were there?”
“I was there. I watched it from afar.” His voice is distant and cold, but his body is warm beside mine. It seems like such a weird dichotomy to me.
“No, I mean, did you wish you were fighting it?” I ask despite Grant’s comments earlier.
“Are you going to push me on this too, Dylan?” He doesn’t look my way, just stares at the hammer in his hand.
“I wasn’t aware I was pushing. I just wondered if being back there made you want to get your firefighting fix.”
His laugh is long and low with a hint of self-deprecation. “My firefighting fix? I think I got plenty of that. I think the question you’re asking is why I’m being such a pussy and not grabbing my turnouts and laying down pipe like a probie running into his first fire. Am I right?”
Proceed with caution, Dylan.
“That isn’t what I said.”
“It may not be what you said, but it’s what you meant.”
I start to skirt around the issue but figure it isn’t going to do either of us any good if I do. So, I dive right in. “You’re right. It is what I meant.”
His body jars beside me. “At least you’re honest when everyone else tries to beat around the fucking bush.”
“So?”
“I wanted to go in. Fires are few and far between in Sunnyville, so it isn’t like there’s a fire every week to test me . . . but when there is, it screws with my head. Every part of me wants to run in and do my job, and then I hear Drew screaming, feel the flames as they try to eat me alive, and I have a full-blown panic attack.”
I’m shocked by his honesty, so I give him some right back. “Having a panic attack would seem like a completely logical reaction, Grady.”
He hangs his head for a beat. “My dad used to say that bravery was being scared to death and suiting up anyway.”
The correlation he’s drawing is instantaneous to me. He doesn’t feel like he’s brave anymore. And yet, I will not refute him. Such a thing will fall on deaf ears, so I try another angle.
“Does this have anything to do with why you insisted I go to the station the other day?”
He crosses his arms on his knees and rests his forehead on them. I give him the time he needs and stare at the many moths flying through the light while I wait. “It was a company meeting. A we’re-not-sure-if-you’d-have-our-backs-in-a-fire meeting.” There’s hurt in his voice, but more importantly, there’s fight left too.
“They don’t blame you, you know,” I say when every part of me knows he thinks they do.
“I know they don’t,” he lies.
“No one does, Grady.”
He grunts as his shoulders heave up and down, but he doesn’t look up, and he doesn’t speak
.
“Is there anything anyone can do to make the transition easier for you? This is what you love, it has to be crippling you not to participate in what you live for.”
“Stop talking about it. There’s a start. Stop whispering behind my back. Stop staring at me like I’m going to fucking break. I’m already broken, Dylan. That’s what they don’t get.”
“Grady . . . there has to be something—”
“How about this? I’ll step into the fire when you decide you’re going to sing your own songs yourself instead of wasting all your talent and ability on people who take you for granted like Jett does.”
