Page 1 of Dear Firefighter Hero
1
LOUISA
It's been over a year since the fire, and still, only bits and pieces of my memory of that night have come back to me. I don’t want to remember that moment in my life, but the scars from skin grafts on my legs and arm will always be a constant reminder of what I lived through, what I survived.
I do my best to push down the memories so I don’t have to relive them again and again. But there are still moments when they come back, and I can’t escape them—the heat of the flames licking my skin, the sound of a voice calling for me through deafening noises of the building burning around me—the ice blue eyes of my hero that found me trapped under the collapsed beam.
“Louisa?”
I look up into the curious but concerned eyes of my newest counselor, Crystal. “Yes?”
“Where did you go just now?”
I pull at the cuff of my sweater, wanting to make sure it’s still covering the scars. Her gaze drops to my hands, and I know that she didn't miss a thing. She's more in tuned and sees through my bullshit than her predecessors.
“Have you been writing in your anxiety journal?” she asks.
No.
“Yes.”
“Really?” She quirks up one eyebrow. “And how’s that going?”
“Good. I’m getting a lot weighing on me off my chest.”
“Such as?”
“My counselor is making me write in a stupid anxiety journal.”
The corner of Crystal’s mouth ticks up in amusement. She doesn’t seem to get defensive when I push back. The previous two were so much easier to wind up, but Crystal is a tough nut to crack.
“Can I hear some of it?”
“Some of what?”
“Something you wrote in your anxiety journal.”
I shake my head. “I didn’t bring it with me.”
"Do you think you didn't bring it with you because you left the journal I gave you here last week?"
Busted.
“That’s entirely possible.”
“Louisa,” she says, setting down her notepad and pen and lean towards me. “I’m just trying to help you navigate your way through a very traumatic moment in your life. You survived a fire where some people died."
At her words, I suddenly feel a tightness around my throat, like an invisible hand squeezing my neck. I didn't know the other people, but that doesn't mean I don't feel guilty that the firefighter found me in time and not them. Maybe that’s why I have these scars. They’re the price I must pay to get to live.
“You feel guilt for surviving. That is a natural reaction to have, but I’m going to be blunt with you because I know that you can handle what I’m about to say.”
I stare at her unblinkingly and brace for whatever she's about to say.
“You are not special.”
“What?”
“You heard me. There isn’t a special reason you were saved over someone else. You aren’t more deserving to be here than one of the people that died tragically that night. You were lucky.”
