I knew in that instant: He recognized me.

He’d just read my name out to three hundred people, so it stood to reason.

But I’d changed a lot—my hair was darker, and shoulder length now, and I’d worn it down when I was younger but now wore it tight back in a braid or a bun every day. I’d gotten contacts. And I had about twice the muscle mass I’d had in high school. Not to mention my dress uniform, its blazer buttoned all the way up with its padded shoulders and little crossover tie.

Something about that combination—his beefy, self-satisfied face, his pompous grin, his self-serving posture, and then, finally, the recognition in his eyes … Let’s just say it altered my emotional landscape. In a flash, my insides shifted from cold shock to burning rage.

There must have been a photographer there, because Heath Thompson was squeezing my hand, holding me in place, smiling offstage, and holding a pose.

Somewhere far off, I heard Big Tom from the crew shout, “Give ’em hell, Cassie!”

And then, just as I was congratulating myself for holding it together—for coping with such grace under the most astonishingly horrific circumstances—I felt something pressing against my butt.

Not just pressing against it, like I’d backed up to the podium or something. Cupping it.

The only thing it could possibly be was Heath Thompson’s other hand.

The fact of it hit, the flashbulb popped, and then that hand gave my butt-cheek a bold, entitled, proprietary squeeze.

And I lost it.

Given everything, it’s a miracle I didn’t literally kill him.

There was nothing else I could possibly have done. I turned and whomped Heath Thompson on the head with my oak-and-metal plaque so hard, I knocked him unconscious and gave him a concussion.

 

* * *

 

I NEVER WANTED to be a firefighter.

There are people who dream their whole lives of becoming firefighters. There are little kids who ogle fire trucks, and wear toy fire hats, and dress up in bunker gear for Halloween.

Boys, mostly.

I was not one of those kids.

In fact, on career day in kindergarten, I famously announced my goal of growing up to be the Tooth Fairy. Which I still think would be a great job.

I never even thought about being a firefighter before it happened.

And it happened essentially by accident.

I was on my way to med school, in fact, planning to be an ER doc. I was a freshman in college looking for a campus job, and I got recruited by a cute guy in my dorm to work as an EMT for the university. It was an easy sell. I needed practice working in medicine, and I also needed a job. Done.

Once I started working as an EMT, I didn’t want to stop—like I didn’t even want to go off shift. I loved everything about it, from the medical training to the sirens to the life-or-death moments.

It wasn’t just the adrenaline. There was something profoundly satisfying about helping people—about stepping into these terrible moments over and over and making things better. The feeling of doing something that actually mattered was addictive. I’d had lots of jobs over the years—dishwasher in a pizza joint, lifeguard, dog sitter—but I’d never had a job like that.

My roommate, in contrast, had a campus job serving fro-yo.

No comparison.

Being an EMT was a whole new world. It was glorious. I stuck people with needles, and pumped chests for CPR, and reset bones. My first week on the job, I helped save a physics professor in cardiac arrest with a defibrillator.

Not bad for ten dollars an hour.

All to say, it just turned out I had a knack for it.

When I wasn’t on shift, I was waiting until I could go back on shift. I worked holidays. I covered for coworkers. I dreamed about lights and sirens.

I did that for two years before my supervisor recommended I get certified as a paramedic and go to work for the city. All firefighters are EMTs—firehouses handle far more medical calls than fires, in fact—but not all are paramedics. It takes a year of extra training to get your paramedic certification, and you have to really love medicine to do it, or be “forced” because the department needs you.

I really loved medicine.

I worked as a paramedic for a year, and then, after graduation, another supervisor talked me into applying to the Fire Academy.

Things just kind of snowballed from there.

Somewhere along the way, I realized this was what I was born to do.

There are lots of qualities that make a good firefighter. It doesn’t hurt to be big and strong, because that makes it easier to handle all the equipment. It’s nice if you’re good-natured and low-key, because it’s the textbook definition of a high-stress job. Wanting to help people is a plus. And if you happen to deal with anxiety by running around in your underwear, or dumping water on people’s heads, or wrapping toilet bowls with Saran Wrap? Even better.

You’ll fit right in.

Oh, and if you can be a guy, be a guy. That’s definitely an advantage.

I was not a guy.

But I was a really good firefighter.

Maybe that sounds cocky, but you just know when you’re good at something, you know?

For one thing, I was the top student in my graduating class at the academy. The number one top student. I knew the Merck Manual backwards and forwards. I could start an IV in my sleep. Plus, I was strong—for a girl, and even for a lot of guys—and I didn’t get offended easily. I was totally comfortable in the firehouse with the guys. I wasn’t shy. I didn’t get scared. I never panicked. I had a single dad who was a high school basketball coach—so I grew up playing hoops constantly, and talking trash, and beating the boys at everything.

All that helped, but what really made me a good firefighter was a funny little personality quirk that I never even knew I had until I started using it. It takes guts to walk into a burning building or staunch an arterial bleed—no question. But it also takes a special kind of brain. Firefighters think differently from other people, and this is especially true of me. Because when everybody else is panicking, when the entire whole world is freaking the heck out—that’s when I get calm.

It’s like some circuit in my brain is reversed.

Everybody in the fire service has this reverse wiring to some extent. When herds of panicked people are running out of a burning building, that’s when we’re calmly strolling in.

But I’ve never met anybody who has it like I have it.

Normal humans see the explosion, or the flames, or the twenty-four-car pileup and think: Run! My brain just thinks: Huh. Cool. Everybody else is sprinting away, wild-eyed and shrieking, because that’s what evolution wants us to do—get the hell out of there. I just slow to a stop and look around.

I must get a tiny squirt of adrenaline—but only just the right amount. Enough to make me beautifully, brilliantly alert. Everything comes into sharp focus and gets quiet, and I can see what’s happening with exquisite clarity. For everyone else, it’s a blur, but for me, it’s details, textures, colors, connections. Insights.

Sometimes I feel like that’s the only time I ever see anything clearly.

Anyway, that’s why I didn’t wind up an ER doc. You don’t want me just after the emergency. You want me during the emergency.

It’s a strange thing to know about yourself, but there it is: I’m at my very best when things are at their very worst.