image [https://i.imgur.com/itado3t.png]

Now that I was cleared to return to work, I was at the station with the rest of the crew, back to business. While I tried to resume my normal routine, throughout my day I was repeatedly interrupted by everyone checking in on me.

“Gotta say, Herrera, you’re made of tougher stuff than I thought,” said Liam as I was inspecting the apparatus. “Me and the guys were taking bets to see if you’d croak— now guess who’s out twenty bucks?”

On the way to a call, Rob later clarified that this never happened. “Liam’s just being an asshole. He’s only saying that to sound like he wasn’t worried. We’re all glad to see you back, ese.”

“That really was some scary shit back there,” DeShawn mentioned when we were in the gym. “Try and take it easy, man. Not too easy, though— you know Chief hates slackers!”

When I was in the middle of mopping the hallway, Heather came up from behind and ruffled my hair. “You’re finally back! Thank God— now the collective IQ of the station can be higher than room temperature again.”

Even Chief Cormorant appreciated my return, flashing a rare smile when he’d caught me passing by. “Good to see you back, Herrera. But you’ll be more careful next time, won’t you?”

In reply, all I did was smile, simply grateful that my absence was missed more than it was enjoyed. I might not have been close to anyone in particular, but I appreciated that they cared at all.

Lastly, there was Garrett. All day, he and I had kept our distance, unable to talk for long because there was always somebody else around. I didn’t take it personally, since I figured he just didn’t know what to say. I certainly wasn’t going to force him.

I wasn’t sure if anyone else had stopped to talk to Garrett about it while I was gone, but the job was simply too fast paced to spend time rehashing what happened on calls. It made me wonder how many of us walked around half-fixed, Frankensteining ourselves back together just to keep it moving, even when we fell apart the second we stood still.

At the very least, I owed Garrett my gratitude, so I waited until everyone else had gone to bed to seek him out. In the rec room, I found him sitting in one of the recliners, watching TV as he stitched over a hole in his shirt. When I came around, his face lit up, all of his focus now on me.

“Hey,” Garrett said, his tone oddly gentle and restrained.

“Hey,” I echoed. I took a seat on the couch next to his chair. “What’re you up to?”

“Oh, just…” He lifted the shirt and showed me the half-closed hole, his thumb sticking out. “Cormorant got on my case about my uniform in front of everyone yesterday. I asked him why I couldn’t just buy a new shirt and he reamed me about ‘work ethic’ and ‘laziness’, so… here I am, even though it looks like shit.”

“Sounds like Cormorant.” I frowned on his behalf. “He’s honestly an asshole to everyone.”

“I’m used to it at this point.” He shrugged. “Just the same old, same old.”

There wasn’t anything I could say that seemed reassuring enough, so I held my tongue. For the next few minutes, we sat in silence as Garrett continued his needlework; then, after we’d traded several awkward glances, he cleared his throat like he had an announcement.

“So… um…” He looked at me a bit nervously. “I was gonna ask how you were feeling since you just got back, but that’s so— I don’t know, casual? It feels stupid. Is that stupid?”

“Nah, man, it’s all good.” I waved my hand. “I’m fine now. You don’t need to worry anymore.”

“Good. Good.” He swallowed tightly. “It was kind of hard not to while you were gone.”

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I rubbed the back of my neck. “I’ve honestly never had that happen on a call before. Just goes to show the importance of keeping an eye on your gear, so hopefully you learned a valuable lesson from that. Don’t be a dumbass like me, got it?”

Though Garrett laughed, it was a weak, forced little half-laugh. I laughed in return, until I realized how stupid we looked, faking our laughter at each other, and stopped.

For what felt like ages, we sat there, staring at the TV but not really watching it. In his lap, Garrett had stopped his sewing completely, but held on to it as if he was going to start back up again any second now. He bunched up the fabric in his fists, making the veins along his knuckles pop out more noticeably. With a deep breath, his gaze laser-focused on my face.

“You know,” he began, “When I was carrying you to the paramedics…”

The world

through a

kaleidoscope.

“You looked really bad, Manny.”

My head, painfully

swollen.

“… Can I be honest with you?”

An agonizing itch.

“I— I really thought that you might actually… die on me.”

Stay

with

me.

“Actually, if you don’t mind,” I interrupted, “I don’t really want to get into it.”

Sheepishly, he blinked. “… Oh. Yeah, I get that. My bad, sorry.”

An awkward tension filled the room. Garrett’s expression became something more retracted than I’d ever seen on him, and I felt guilty for snapping at him. It was hard to process what happened when the memories came flooding back to me at a moment’s notice, which wasn’t his fault. Just recalling the smell of the fire itself brought bile to the back of my throat and a tingling to my skin.

“All I really wanted was to say thanks,” I said, trying to focus on the room around us instead. “Even if ‘thanks’ doesn’t feel like enough.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” he replied earnestly. “It’s part of the job, isn’t it?”

“What, inhaling toxic chemicals?” I scratched my chin. “Now that you mention it, yeah, it is. There’s a reason firefighters have insanely high cancer rates.”

“No, I meant… you know…” That sweet little puppy-dog look brightened his face once more. “Saving people. From danger.”

“Ah, yeah.” I nodded, my pulse racing. “And, uh… well…”

In my pause, Garrett looked at me like time stood still. It only made my heart beat harder, which I couldn’t understand; this wasn’t an embarrassing conversation, this wasn’t an embarrassing thing to say, but I still felt embarrassed all the same. With a deep breath, I returned the intensity of his gaze.

“You saved me,” I said quietly. “So thanks, Garrett. You really made me proud.”

I reached over and gave him a firm pat on the shoulder. Garrett glanced to my hand, then to my face, the TV’s reflection making his green eyes nearly sparkle. I didn’t think he would take it so seriously, but he was genuinely moved, smiling at me so warmly it was like sitting in a ray of sunshine.

Right then, I knew that I held the weight of Garrett’s self image in my hands, and it seemed such a delicate thing. He’d mentioned in passing the kind of household he’d grown up in, the youngest child living in the shadows of siblings with bigger dreams and better grades than he had. In the back of my mind, it occurred to me that he probably hadn’t heard those words in a long, long time.

The longer we looked at each other, the more awkward I felt, not sure of what else there was to say. Swiftly, I stood up from the couch, embarrassed to have been so vulnerable. “I should go get ready for bed. It’s getting pretty late.”

“Oh. You’re right.” His face carried just the slightest disappointment. “Yeah, I bet you’re pretty tired, huh?”

“Definitely,” I replied. “But um, good talk. I’ll see you in the morning?”

“Yeah, well, duh,” he laughed, a little nervous. “Sleep well, Manny.”

As I left through the doorway, I gave him a wave.

Instead of waving back, Garrett simply smiled.