Page 31 of Sparking Sara

“I can’t tell you that, Denver. Is it wrong for you to sit by a woman’s side who has no one else to sit with her? By the same token, is it okay for you to become emotionally attached to someone you helped rescue?” He looks me straight in the eye. “Are you in love with her?”

“Inlovewith her? Why would you ask that? I don’t even know her.”

“It’s obvious to me that you’re experiencing intense feelings when it comes to this woman. It’s not uncommon for people to think they are in love with someone they’ve never had a relationship with.”

“I’m not in love with her,” I say. “She has a boyfriend. That’s not what this is about.”

“Well, what is it about, then?”

“If you ask Aspen, she’d say that I have the need to save Sara because I couldn’t save our parents.”

He nods as he listens to me. “And what do you think?”

“I don’t know. I mean, I guess she’s not entirely wrong. But I know I can’t save everyone.”

“Tell me about your childhood. Who were you before your parents died? Have you always been the kind of person to control and protect against danger?”

I laugh. “I was the kind of person to serve up danger,” I tell him. “I was wild and reckless.”

“You didn’t want to be a police officer or a firefighter before your parents died? You didn’t dress up as a civil servant on Halloween? You didn’t pretend to put out fires in your dad’s shed out back?”

“No. I wanted to be a rock star.”

“A rock star?”

“I played guitar when I was a kid. I wanted to beRichie Sambora.”

“Who is Richie Sambora?”

“Only one of the most prolific guitar players of his time.”

He gives me a blank stare.

“You know, the guitarist for Bon Jovi.”

“I see. And what happened to that dream?”

“I wasn’t good enough, for one. My sister is the one who got all the musical talent. She’s a prodigy on the piano. But I still play for fun sometimes.”

“What I’m getting from this is that the need to protect people began only after the death of your parents.”

“I guess it did.”

“Since the pattern of protecting people developed after they died, it makes a strong case for their accident being a significant factor in activating this pattern. In effect, your job exposes you to accidents and disasters that put you in a position to have the opportunity to succeed in rescuing people. This is probably in contrast to your perceived failure to save your parents.”

“But there is no way I could have saved my parents. I wasn’t even in the same state at the time.”

“I know that and, logically, you know it, too. But our behavior is not often dictated by actual facts.”

“So I’m crazy.”

“No, Denver, I’d say you’re anything but. What you do on a daily basis is exceptional. Some might even say heroic. But it’s your job to understand what drives you to do what you do. It’s possible that by putting yourself in situations that repeat the trauma of your parents, you are subconsciously attempting to master it.”

“Master what?”

“Saving people,” he says. “Which is something I’m here to tell you can’t be mastered.”

“So what do I do?”

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