Page 11 of Burning for the Mountain Man

"Because it is what the job is."

"The job is an excuse, Autumn." He picks up his reading glasses from the floor. Folds them carefully. Puts them in his shirt pocket. "The job is how you keep moving so you never have to decide if somewhere is worth staying."

My throat closes. The twelve-year-old girl carrying stuffed animals to the neighbor's driveway flashes through my head. The six apartments I never furnished. The father who retired to an empty place in Sacramento because the job was all he had left.

"You don't get to psychoanalyze me because we slept together."

"No. I don't." He moves toward the door. Stops with his hand on the frame. The same doorframe where he almost kissed me four days ago, back when this was still a question instead of an answer. "But I'm also not gonna stand here and pretend November third doesn't matter. Because it does. And you know it does."

The door closes behind him. Quiet. Controlled. No slam.

His boots hit the exterior stairs. Each step getting fainter until they reach the engine bay floor. Then his truck starts in the parking lot. Headlights sweep across the apartment ceiling as he pulls out.

The apartment is silent.

His toothbrush is still in the bathroom. The reading glasses are gone. The fuel moisture reports are scattered across the floor, pages bent where he stood on them.

My phone buzzes.

Owen:

hello? did the fire chief eat you?

Setting the phone face down, I sit on the edge of the bed. The duffel is at my feet. Half packed because it's always half packed. Six years of living out of a bag, six districts, six goodbyes.

Every time, I almost stay.

And every time, I tell myself that leaving is the job. That roots are for people who didn't watch their house burn. That loving a place means losing it, and losing it is the only thing I'm not trained to survive.

Nash's pillow still has the dent from his head. His shirt from yesterday is draped over the bathroom doorknob because he changed here this morning. Through the thin wall, the engine bay is empty. Quiet. No wrench on metal, no Bobby's laughter, no radio chatter.

The rotation email glows on my tablet.

Hawthorne District. November third. Report date November fifth. Briefing October twenty-eighth.

Six weeks. Standard Q4. Pack the duffel, drive to the next town, write the next report.

The tears come without warning. Hot, furious. My hand presses against my mouth, holding in the sound because the walls are thin and I'm alone, but being alone in a station that still smells like Nash Deveraux is worse than being alone in every furnished apartment I never had.

My father did this. Chose the job until the job was all that remained. My mother packed a car and drove to Phoenix, and he let her go because he didn't know how to give her a reason to stay.

Am I the one leaving, or am I the one being left? The answer depends on which side of the doorframe you're standing on, and Nash is already gone.

Owen:

Autumn. seriously. call me.

Picking up the phone, I type with shaking fingers.

Me:

I'm fine

Owen:

you are the worst liar in the family and there's only two of us

Me: