Page 32 of Burned By Fire

He passes me a biro from his desk. “You’ve got this.”

“I do,” I say with positivity.

I start with the easy parts of the form. Name, age, ethnicity, chosen career. Then, under the Moving Forward heading, I write the word that has been plaguing my existence.

Hero. I’m not a hero. I’m an ordinary man who wants to find his way back to inner peace.

Before I can stop myself, I fill the page, explaining why I want inner peace and what is wrong with that one little word, hero. When I’m finished, I hand it over as my nerves go into overdrive.

While Clint reads my statement, I sit biting my thumbnail, hoping he doesn’t hate it. I’m hoping I’ve laid myself bare enough to begin to help others.

“This is excellent. We’ll take your picture and then I’ll show you some of our past projects. There are day-to-day admin tasks we need to do, but the fun outweighs the boring stuff, I promise.”

“I can balance fun and paperwork.”

He takes my picture against a wall outside, and once he’s shown me a couple of things I can do to set up my desk, he starts to upload my info to the website.

At lunch, I make dinner reservations for tonight, and the rest of the working day passes easily. I finally feel like my life is moving on, and I can’t wait to share my new start with Ember.

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