Page 99 of Things You Save in a Fire
He raised his eyebrows like I was crazy. “Are you saying you think I need to tell my dad?”
“Have you thought about it?”
The rookie shook his head, like,Nuh-uh. Nope. No way.
I shrugged. “I don’t know that you need to tell him, necessarily.”
He frowned. “But you think I need him to forgive me?”
I shook my head. “No. I think you need to forgive yourself.”
He was quiet, as if that thought had never occurred to him. Then he said, “I wouldn’t even know where to start.”
“It just so happens I could help you with that. My mother has been educating me on the joys and challenges of forgiveness.”
He couldn’t tell if I was joking.
“It’s easier than it sounds,” I said. “It’s more a shift in thinking than anything else. You have to think about the person you’re angry at—in this case, your eight-year-old self—and try to be compassionate with him. Empathy soothes anger, you know,” I said, suddenly feeling very wise. “Then you have to work to find some good things that came out of what happened, even despite all the bad. And then you have to decide to let it go.”
“That’s good advice,” he said.
“I am full of good advice.”
“Doesn’t really change anything about our situation, though, does it?”
“Not at the moment,” I said. “No.”
“You still want this job, and I still need this job.”
I kept doing that: forgetting who he was. I nodded, like,That’s right.“We’re still enemies.”
He frowned at the word choice. “Friendly rivals,” he corrected.
“To-the-death combatants,” I said.
“Sparring partners.”
“Look,” I said, “no matter what we were before, now we’re enemies. We’re competing for the same position.”
“You really love that job, huh?”
“What’s not to love?”
“I don’t know,” he said, looking out the window. “The blood? The guts? The diarrhea?”
“The heroism? The camaraderie? The saving people’s lives?”
“Sure,” he said. “There’s that.”
I looked him over. “I’ve seen worse rookies,” I said.
He gave a nod, like,Maybe.“I’m throwing up less often now,” he said. “But you’re the one they’re going to keep.”
I honked out a laugh. “You’rethe one they’re going to keep.”
He looked at me like I was crazy. “The captain’s not going to choose me.”
“I think he is.”
