But he just was.
My best guess was something about his eyes—how smiley and kind looking they were. I remember reading an article years ago about a study done on the shape of people’s eyes that found people with smiley eyes wound up happier overall. Statistically.
Maybe that was it.
I could have stared at him all day. But of course I didn’t. He had a lot more needles to stick me with before we were done.
I reached out to wake him. I meant to push on his shoulder, but my hand decided to cup his jaw instead. At the touch, his eyes blinked open and I yanked my hand away.
“What happened?” he asked, frowning and starting to sit up.
“You fainted. Take it slow.” I helped back him up to the chair.
“That’s embarrassing.”
I sat back in my chair. “I won’t tell anybody.”
“Thank you.”
“You should practice on an orange,” I said. “It’s about the same surface tension as skin.”
“It’s not the skin I have trouble with,” he said.
“Not a big fan of blood, huh?” I asked.
“Not really.”
“You’ll get used to it. After a year, blood will seem as harmless as fruit punch.”
“That’s a disturbing thought.”
“You’re just going to need to do a lot of blood draws. You need to do so many, it becomes like brushing your teeth.”
“Hard to imagine, but okay.”
“You can get your sea legs with me, and then we’ll sic you on the rest of the crew.”
“Thanks, Cassie.”
I think it was the first time I’d ever heard him—or anyone at the station—say my first name. I didn’t even realize he knew it. Everybody just called me Hanwell.
I held my breath for a second, then forced myself to let it out. Then I held my arm out to him. “Okay,” I said, “let’s go again.”
“Now?” he asked.
“Right now,” I said, giving adon’t try to fight itnod. “Make it happen, buddy. That blood’s not going to draw itself.”
Fifteen
THE ROOKIE SAWsome dark stuff with us that first month. We got a call for a grandpa who’d choked on a piece of steak (fatality), a tree fallen on a house (no one home), and a kid with his head stuck between the steps of a playground slide (close call). We got called to the scene of an abused woman who’d finally had enough and went after her husband with a shotgun (mutilation—not pretty).
It wasn’t long before the rookie had acquired what we called “the stare of life,” that shell-shocked look new firefighters get before they’ve figured out how to manage, compartmentalize, and deal with all the horrific tragedy.
Not that you ever entirely figure it out. It’s a learning curve.
You eventually get to the point where it doesn’t bother you. As much. You put it on a different screen in your mind that’s separate from your real life somehow. But it takes a while, and in the meantime, all you can do is cope.
The more stressed the rookie got, the more we joked around with him. For his own good.
