“Yes, Hayes.”
“Your hose stance is solid. Best I’ve seen from a probie.”
I blink. “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me. It’s an observation.” She looks at me with those steady eyes. “You know why Cap put you with me?”
“Because you’re the best.”
“Because I’ll tell you the truth. If you’re good, I’ll tell you. If you’re not, I’ll tell you. And right now you’re green and you’re eager and you’re better than I expected.” She pauses. “Don’t let that go to your head. Green and eager gets people hurt if it doesn’t turn into steady and disciplined. That’s what we’re building.”
“I understand.”
“Good. Gear up. We’re running the tower drill at two.”
I gear up. I run the tower drill. My legs burn and my arms shake and I climb forty feet of ladder in full gear and at the top I slow down and confirm the placement and then commit, and Hayes clicks the stopwatch and writes the number down and this time she nods.
Just a nod. Small. Brief. Hayes.
It’s perfect.
* * *
I walk home the next morning at seven. Twenty-four hours. My body is wrecked in the best possible way, tired from using every muscle I have for something that matters. My clothes are filthy. My knees are bruised purple from the crawl drills. My hair smells like sweat and hose water.
Mom takes one look at me and her face goes through several stages of concern.
"Baby. Are you okay?"
"I'm great. I'm so great."
"You look like you got hit by a car."
"I look like a firefighter."
She stares at me. Then her face softens and she shakes her head and points at the kitchen.
"Sit. Eat. There's chicken."
I eat chicken. I eat so much chicken. Dad comes in from the yard and sees me inhaling food at the table and sits across from me and asks how it was and I tell him everything. The drills. The equipment. Torres's cooking. Walsh's dry humor. Hayes's nod at the top of the tower. I tell him about crawling through the training room and holding the hose and sitting at the long table at lunch and feeling, for the first time, like I was in the right place.
"Station 11 sounds good," he says.
"Station 11 is everything."
He nods. Doesn't push. Doesn't ask how I got there instead of Station 24. If he suspects something, he's keeping it to himself, and that's Dad. He lets you tell your story at your own speed.
I'm asleep by eight, face down on my bed, still in the clothes I changed into. Between Sunday night at Teague's and a twenty-four-hour shift on four hours of sleep, my body isn't asking anymore. It's telling.
Mom wakes me at two. I eat again, standing up in the kitchen with my eyes half-closed, and she doesn't ask questions because she can read the difference between hurt-tired and good-tired and I am the second one down to my bones.
I sleep again until five. Shower. Change. Tell Mom I'm going out.
"You just got home."
I'm already pulling on my boots.
"You just worked a shift."
