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It’s embarrassing to admit that I still feel a sense of hopefulness when checking the caller ID, that somehow it’s a call from him ; that somehow the doctors got it wrong, that he isn’t gone, and that we didn’t bury him six months ago.

A dry, humorless laugh escapes me when I see Arthur Sander’s name at the top of my screen. The irony that I’m up here to catch a goddamn break from everything at home yet the reminders of both why I came and what’s waiting for me back there punching me right in the face this morning.

“Chief,” I say into the phone as a greeting.

The station, the chief of the fire department, and the crew all feel like something from another life—one too good for reality; one so far off and removed from where I am now that it feels like it was all a dream.

“Hasting,” he echoes in the same gruff voice he always uses, the sound of my last name hauling me back to the life I left behind. Aside from a few phone calls with my mom and my sister, I haven’t heard from anyone back home since I left, let alone anyone from my old job. “Glad I caught you.”

Before I can reply, my mind goes to the worst-possible scenario, the only reason the Chief would be calling me right now.

My mom. Emerson.

“Tell me who died,” I demand as I feel my whole body tighten, trying—and failing—to keep calm, my voice louder than I’ve heard it in months. He has no other reason to call me, not since I set my letter of resignation down on his desk before driving up here in the snow back in December.

“Relax, Jack. Everyone’s fine here. That’s not why I’m calling you.

” I close my eyes as a wave of relief washes over me.

I unclench my fingers holding my phone to my ear, the dull pain bringing me back to reality.

But the relief doesn’t last long. “I just wanted to check up on you. We’re—” He pauses, taking a second to find the right words. “We’re all worried about you, son.”

Everyone needs to take their worry and shove it up their ass.

“No need. I don’t work for you anymore,” I snap. The words rush out of me, and it feels refreshing to say something other than “I’m fine”.

Anger is easy—in a cathartic, fucked up sort of way.

It’s everything else that’s hard.

“Watch it,” Chief Sanders warns, his no-nonsense personality evident even through the phone. It’s the same words and warning he gave me the week before I left, when I refused to go see the therapist the station brought in after losing one of our own.

Chief literally dragged me into the therapist’s office across from the station and stood outside the door for the whole session while I had to sit there and listen to the therapist’s fuckshit analogy about grief being like a fire—all while holding back the urge to flip the fucking coffee table in his stupid office.

Did he think because I was a firefighter, I could only speak about fire like a goddamn caveman?

Did he forget that the whole reason I was even in his office was because my best friend died in a fucking fire?

Did he even think to acknowledge the candle burning on his desk made my nails dig so far into my palms that I drew blood?

My chest tightens at the memory, my head feeling like it’s going to explode as my anger burns through me, all while my grief threatens to pin me to the ground.

“It’s been almost six months.” Chief Sanders' voice brings me back to the present. “It’s time to quit hiding from your feelings and come home to confront what you lost.”

I shake my head even though he can’t see me, my thumb and index finger pressing into my closed eyes, pushing until I see spots.

How the fuck did he expect me to heal in the same place—the same places —where I used to see my best friend every single day?

Did everyone really think I was going to walk into the apartment we shared or the station we worked at together and not feel my lungs constrict with every breath as if my body is actively punishing me for playing a part in how he died? How I couldn’t save him?

There is no “dealing” with this.

I’m positive that dealing with it will kill me.

“Jack, it’s time to come home. Your job is waiting for you, your crew and your mom and sister too.” Chief Sanders has always been like a father to me, the only father figure I’ve had since my dad left, but it doesn’t make what he says any easier to hear.

“I quit, Chief. I’m not coming back.” The words come out harsh, and there’s something about them that feels like a lie.

“You’ve been on leave, Jack. Your letter of resignation never made it past my desk.”

I shake my head, my hand coming to my forehead.

There’s no part of me that is surprised that the chief put me on leave rather than just letting me quit, but it still pisses me off.

“I’m not going back there,” I grit out, anger lining the words to cover up how scared I am of where there is.

Like I said, anger is easy.

“You don’t have to go out in the field. Not until you’re ready,” he answers carefully. “One of the fire investigators is on paternity leave. We need someone to cover for him while he’s out. And that someone is you.”