Things You Save in a Fire

Murphy tells Cassie that she would be a distraction to Owen’s parents, and she unwillingly goes home. She writes an accurate report of the incident and sends it to the captain, and at two in the morning, she sneaks back to the hospital. A nurse catches her in the ICU but allows her five minutes with Owen, and during this time, she confesses her love to him. Cassie continues to stay away but cannot rest. She forces herself to see Diana and Josie, as she now knows isolating herself won’t help. They theorize about why DeStasio went into the fire. A week later, Diana makes Cassie drive her to a doctor’s appointment, even though Diana knows getting a check-up won’t do anything for her. To everyone’s surprise, her latest scan shows that there has been no growth at all in her tumor, which is incredibly rare and which Diana attributes to her meditation. In the car back home, Diana says the doctor’s prescription for painkillers is useless as she knows the likelihood of getting addicted to them. This remark leads Cassie to consider that DeStasio might have become addicted to painkillers—a common problem for firefighters like him, who deal with chronic pain from on-the-job injuries. This insight changes her view of DeStasio, and she decides to visit him. Diana tells her that this will be a great chance to practice forgiveness.

DeStasio doesn’t answer his door, but through his window, Cassie sees that he has overdosed and is unconscious. Cassie administers an emergency IV of Narcan, an antidote for opiates, which wakes him up immediately. She sees a note with his handwriting that confirms he is the stalker, along with another that suggests the overdose was a suicide attempt. Even though she saved his life, DeStasio still blames Cassie for all his problems, saying she changed everything about the station and refusing to look at her or acknowledge his role in terrorizing her. Cassie tells him about the graffiti in her locker and the entire story that led up to it. She tells him about her mother leaving and about what Heath Thompson did to her—something she has never told anyone before. Cassie waits to feel regret about sharing this with DeStasio of all people, but she doesn’t, and he quietly apologizes. He admits that it was his dead son he saw in the fire and that he had to go even though he knew his son wasn’t actually there. Cassie tries to empathize with him, but DeStasio is still bitter and tells her to leave again. She tells him she knows about his painkiller addiction. Cassie thinks about how she could tell the captain and exonerate herself but knows she is not there for that. Cassie tells DeStasio she forgives him and herself—which he does not accept—and that she is taking him to rehab.

Though she knows visiting DeStasio didn’t accomplish much—other than saving his life—Cassie is still proud of herself for rising above her anger and doing the right thing. Telling her story was the bravest thing she’s ever done, and she acknowledges that she has been avoiding her 16-year-old-self until now. When she comes downstairs the next morning, Cassie finds her whole crew doing chores around Diana’s house and the captain drinking coffee with her mother. Murphy tells her that this is their form of apology, as he has pieced together that DeStasio was her stalker. Owen, who has just woken up from his coma and been moved out of the ICU, helped him figure it out. Murphy told him that there would be an investigation, but Owen quit in protest of her suspension. Neither he nor Cassie reveals to the captain that he was going to quit regardless. After the rookie had confirmed that DeStasio was lying in his report, DeStasio called the captain from rehab and confessed to everything, noting that Cassie had saved his life twice. DeStasio forfeited his job and pension because he did not want to be the villain Cassie accused him of being. Neither Cassie nor Murphy knows if the crew can fully atone for their behavior toward her, but they try by rushing her to see Owen in the hospital with their lights and sirens on.

On the way to the hospital, Cassie explains how she knew DeStasio was responsible for everything, and the guys start to tease her about being in love with Owen. At the hospital, Murphy tells Owen’s anxious mother everything about what actually happened in the fire and how Cassie saved Owen’s life, and Colleen hugs her. One of his sisters recognizes Cassie from the anniversary party, so Owen tells everyone about what happened that night and admits that he’s in love with Cassie. Everyone is surprisingly happy for them. The rookie takes an applesauce lid he has fashioned into a ring and gives it to Cassie, telling her that when he thought he might die, he knew the first thing he would do if he lived would be to ask her to marry him. Cassie says yes, and the captain ushers everybody out of the room to give them privacy. Owen suggests they should get married that day. Cassie thinks it would be too many good things for one day, but Owen promises that she will have so much to look forward to in their future.

Cassie never goes back to Texas, and she and the rookie get married in Rockport a year later, with both Captain Harris and Captain Murphy officiating. At the wedding, Diana apologizes to Ted, who has always assumed she had cheated on him. DeStasio comes to the wedding and volunteers at a women’s shelter to atone for some of his wrongdoing, and Cassie almost begins to like him. Diana knew that her tumor had grown again before the wedding but didn’t tell Cassie. The day before she dies, she tells Cassie that she knows she is pregnant with a girl and will be a great mother even though she won’t live up to the standards she sets for herself. She leaves her house to Cassie, and Cassie and Owen raise their two children there, turning Diana’s old pottery studio into a restaurant where Owen can cook.

Cassie forgives herself and everyone for what they have done and what they have been through, stressing the importance of post-traumatic growth. Cassie has started volunteering with a nonprofit group for survivors of sexual assault—this is the first time in the novel that she addresses specifically that she was assaulted. Once a month, she tells her story to strangers, which terrifies her, but she believes that connection with others is the only thing that can prevent people from doing harm intentionally. When she comes home, Owen is always there for her.

She never forgives Heath Thompson, but she forgives herself for what happened, even though she knows she was not the one to blame. Heath goes to jail for tax fraud and is tried for several sex crimes, and, on top of that, he is utterly humiliated on the internet. Though he only went to jail for the fraud, one of the women who he had assaulted ran for his city council seat and won. Cassie doesn’t hear about this until years later, and she wonders if she would have joined in the lawsuits against him if she had known but also understands why women don’t always speak out about their abuse. Yet just after she hears this, Cassie quickly moves on and focuses on all the good things in her life rather than revenge.