“I don’t need to escape my comfort zone to feel better about myself.” His scowl deepened
“Have you seen a therapist? Because I’m sure they’ll tell you the same thing.” I struggled to maintain a gentle tone. I wanted to scream some sense into him. He didn’t understand.
Ethan stood from his chair and stepped further away from me. Was I pushing him too far? “I don’t need a therapist. I need more time. I opened up to you, didn’t I?” he asked.
I raised my hands in frustration. “You do need a therapist. You’re scared to death of anyone seeing your scars, you can’t go into fires anymore, and you refuse to accept that those things are not normal,” I shouted.
“They’re normal for someone who went through what I did,” he shouted back, running his hands through his hair. “I know I’m fucked up, but I’ll fix it in my own time.”
“Will you, Ethan? Because it looks like you’re going to continue hiding from your issues forever. You need to confront them.” My voice progressively grew louder.
“Can the same not be said about you?” he asked, grabbing my left hand and raising it. My ring rested on the same finger as it had before Bruce died. “You can’t move on from your husband who’s been dead for three years. Are you seeing a therapist, or do you need time, too?” he asked.
I jerked my hand back and held it to my chest. His angry touch was like ice in my veins. “I don’t need a therapist anymore,” I whispered. I’d seen one for a while, but I was past that point.
“Neither do I,” he shouted. I stared at him as all the pain he’d held back oozed from him in waves.
“There’s one difference between us,” I told him, taking a step back. “You can’t confront your issue. You won’t touch a fire with a ten-foot pole, and you won’t let anyone see the scars on your body. You won’t tell Taylor to go and shove it, and you refuse to do what’s needed to heal.”
He didn’t let me finish. “What’s the difference?” he asked.
I put out the flames of his anger with my next words. “I confront my issue every week at my husband’s grave. And this week, I told him that I was moving on to a man who had a caring heart. I told him that you needed to heal, but that he’d approve. But the man who I’m looking at right now?” I shook my head and turned, walking toward the door. “He would never approve of you.”
Ethan didn’t move, and I didn’t hear him follow. I wondered if I finally broke him in the way Garrett warned that I could.
Until he decided to take a step toward healing, it was no longer my problem.
Chapter Thirteen
I broke my habit of showing at the fire station late enough to see everyone a few nights after Ethan and my fight. He hadn’t been at his house while I made the finishing touches, and when I left a note that told him it was done, I wasn’t contacted. When I left to make dinner for the firemen the night after his house was done, I showed up an hour earlier than usual. I wanted to make dinner and leave before Ethan showed, so I left Derrick at his daycare longer than usual. The woman watching him was more than happy to keep him a little later.
I finished the spaghetti and meat sauce in record time, and none of the men bothered me in the breakroom as I cooked. When I checked to make sure everyone was still present, Benji and Nehemiah stood together and spoke as Garrett rested atop the firetruck in the way I often saw all the men doing while on duty. Everyone was waiting for me to finish, and I was more than ready to leave.
I took the food from the stove and rushed out of the break room to let everyone know that dinner was ready when the alarm sounded, and everyone jumped to action. “Another house fire,” Nehemiah shouted. “Someone call Scott and Ethan and get them in here.”
“I’m here,” Ethan said, running through the doorway. He stumbled slightly when he saw me, but he brushed past me without a word. He didn’t hesitate as he suited up. I pressed myself into the wall to stay out of everyone’s way as they did their jobs. Garrett was the first in the driver’s seat, and he stared at the screen of the ambulance. He glanced back at me and then at the screen again.
Everyone finished dressing and jumped into the firetruck. Unlike usual, though, they paused. “Damn it,” Ethan shouted. “Get your ass inside, Lena.”
I wanted to hesitate, but something in his voice told me that he was more serious than he’d ever been before. I ran to the truck and grabbed ahold of Ethan’s hand. I refrained from reacting as he pulled me inside. The truck flew into drive, and only the hand on my wrist gave me the ability to stay on my feet. Ethan, in his thick suit, pulled me onto the bench seat beside him. The front of his mask was pulled back, so I had full view of his terrified, brown eyes.
“What is it?” I asked. Was this how he looked before every fire? Was it this obvious?
“Lena,” he said gently. “I have no doubt that everyone was brought out of this fire safely and will be waiting on the other side of the street,” he told me. I wasn’t understanding until I looked around and saw the same fear on everyone else’s faces.
“Where is the fire?” I asked, holding my breath. If my house was burning, I had insurance, and I could start looking for another. All of our important belongings—all
