Things You Save in a Fire

“Just take it and go. Take it and get to the back of the stage. I coached myself through this the way I’d coach myself through every other hard thing in my life. The way I’d add just one more mile to a ten-mile run, or one more set of reps in the gym. I’d navigated a collapsing staircase. I’d held a dying man’s skull together. I’d jumped from a collapsing roof. I could do this.”

Here, Cassie compares the courage it takes to accept an award from Heath Thompson to the courage and stamina required to perform her job. This excerpt shows just how high the standards Cassie sets for herself are, particularly as they relate to her holding back her emotions. It also highlights her limited view of bravery at the beginning of the novel—in which she defines bravery as the ability to push emotions aside in order to do what has to be done.

“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.”

Cassie prides herself on being able to remain calm and focused during a crisis, yet there are several instances later in the novel when difficult circumstances bring out the worst, rather than the best, in her. She must learn throughout the novel that simply pushing away her feelings does not mean she has conquered them and that it takes a different kind of courage to face her trauma rather than ignoring it.

“I wasn’t really a fan of being overcome by emotion. In fact, I’d structured my life around lack of emotion. I’d bult it around routine, and safety, and order. Feelings were a lot of trouble. I avoided them as much as possible.”

Cassie is very transparent about her coping strategies and how she thinks they affect her, yet she has trouble recognizing the impact withholding her emotions has on her life. Her candor about the structure and routine she has built for herself highlights just how much she demonizes emotions and is another way in which her internalized misogyny impacts her well-being.

“Love makes people stupid [...] Women especially [...] It makes them needy and sad and pathetic. And robs them of their independence.”

As a firefighter, Cassie considers herself “one of the guys” and distances herself from other women as much as possible. In this conversation with her mother, she is indirectly criticizing her for—in Cassie’s view—having allowed love to cloud her judgment and lead her to abandon her family.

“Choosing to love—despite all the ways that people let you down, and disappear, and break your heart. Knowing everything we know about how hard life is and choosing to love anyway…That’s not weakness. That’s courage.”

This quote from Diana concisely summarizes the moral of the novel and highlights exactly what Cassie will have to learn in order to be happy in life. Of the primary characters in the book, Diana has had the most experience with love and heartbreak, and this statement explains her choice to marry Wallace even when she knew he was dying. Her rhetoric also targets Cassie directly, as she knows that Cassie cares more about courage than most other things.

“‘It means,’ she said, looking a little triumphant, ‘that you clearly, obviously, any second now, are just about to fall in love.’”

Diana’s prediction comes right after Cassie has declared that she does not believe in love and foreshadows what occurs in the following chapter. It also reflects the genre of contemporary romance, as a character falling in love immediately after stating that love does not exist is a frequent trope, highlighting how much the character has yet to learn about themself.

“It’s breaking the rules. As a girl, you’ve got two choices. You’re either a virgin or a whore. And guess what sleeping with guys you work with makes you?”

This quote references a concept of feminist theory that is known as the “madonna/whore complex” or the “double bind,” in which women’s sexuality is judged regardless of their sexual choices. Though Cassie has internalized many misogynistic ideas, she is also very aware of how they impact her and how men will perceive her because of them.

“It’s important to note that this was not a makeover moment like some teen movie where the homely girl becomes a swan. I wasn’t homely before this moment, and I wouldn’t be homely later, when I clamped myself back into my oxen-harness sports bra and Dickies utility pants. This wasn’t a better version of me I was seeing in the mirror—just a different one.”

This excerpt also highlights a common trope in contemporary romances with Cassie’s reference to the movie makeover. Yet, as Cassie specifically notes that her putting on Josie’s blue dress was not like a makeover, it illustrates how Cassie was not changing herself to be with the rookie. This moment in the text also shows how Cassie is beginning to break out of the rut of refusing to like anything “girly”—a change in her character that allows her to appreciate the value of being vulnerable.

“Do I have to describe what Heath Thompson did to me on the night I turned sixteen? Do I have to lay out all those details?”

Cassie is significantly silent about her assault throughout the novel as she worries about how others will react. Yet her silence here is different, as she is not having a conversation with anyone but the novel’s audience. In this way, Cassie is reclaiming her story with her silence, making it something she does not owe to anybody else and something that she does not have to relive by telling anyone. As her trauma was particularly dehumanizing, keeping the details of her story to herself shows how she has regained autonomy with regard to the incident. She is making it her choice whether to reveal the details.

Firefighters didn’t do vulnerable. Life in the fire service revolved around not being vulnerable. It was about being tough, and brave, and strong. Someone needed saving, so you saved them. Something was on fire, so you put it out. Were you scared? It didn’t matter. Did you have feelings about it? Irrelevant. You did your job, and you did it well, and that was all there was to it. People who wanted to wrestle with complicated emotions became therapists, or poets. People who wanted to keep things simple became firefighters.”

This excerpt comes just before Cassie confesses how she feels about the stalker and cries in front of her crew, something she has rarely done in years and never in front of fellow firefighters. It is one of many other instances where Cassie attempts to justify her hiding her feelings, yet her crew’s sympathy shows her just how wrong her views are. In the following days, she even learns that being vulnerable can help her.

“Here’s what does matter: What this guy is doing is wrong. You can’t do what we do and see the kind of suffering we see every damn day and still want to create more of it in the world, can you? You can’t do what we do for a living and not know the simple difference between right and wrong. That’s what has me so, so pissed. We’re supposed to be the heroes. We’re supposed to be the helpers. The caretakers. The good in the world. What the hell can I believe in, if I can’t believe in you?”

This highlights Cassie’s firm views on right and wrong and her now wavering conviction that firefighters are inherently good people. Though her crew is initially offended by her accusatory tone in this quote, they understand her logic, as most of the men on the crew are good people. This is also one of the few times Cassie curses repeatedly in the firehouse and the only time the men don’t correct her for her “unladylike” language, but the swearing and her direct tone in this excerpt illustrate to her crewmates just how serious she is.

“It filled me with panic. We were running out of time! What was she doing sitting around in the garden and making soup and crocheting blankets with a deadline like this?”

This is one of the few times in the novel Cassie admits to panicking, and it is significant that it occurs because of a personal crisis rather than one she experiences at work. In contrast to Cassie’s panic, this quote also highlights Diana’s quiet strength in her situation and how different the two women’s approaches are to her diagnosis. The urgency Cassie feels, though understandable in the emergencies she experiences as a firefighter, goes against the kind of life Diana wants to live toward its end.

“‘I just wanted to see you,’ she said, squeezing my hand. ‘I just wanted a little taste of how it used to be before…I knew Wallace was dying when I married him. But sometimes I wish I hadn’t known. It’s so hard to feel happy and sad at the same time.’”

This quote shows how vulnerable Diana is feeling, despite Cassie’s assumption in the previous quote that she does not care enough about her situation. It also allows Cassie to fully understand why Diana abandoned her and how it was not a purely selfish decision as she was dealing with her own losses at the time. The final sentence also neatly summarizes an idea that Cassie must learn toward the end of the novel: that she can have multiple conflicting emotions at once rather than tamping down her feelings in order to cope.

“So that’s why I’m telling you. Because I’m never sure, when you push me away, if you really want me to go.”

In several instances, Cassie tells Owen to leave but is surprised when he does. Owen’s voicing of his uncertainty in this quote shows how complex her feelings about being left are and highlights the strength of their emotional connection, as he can tell what she is thinking even when she says the opposite. However, it is also significant that he does not stay when she tells him to leave, as it allows Cassie to trust that he will not do anything to her without her consent—a big contrast with her experience with Heath Thompson.

“It’s amazing how much context matters. I knew Owen. I’d seen him in action. I’d seen him make the right, kindhearted, compassionate choice time and again. The man spent his free time baking cookies, for God’s sake. He brought puppies home in baskets. I trusted him. I cared about him. And the more I kissed him, the more I wanted to kiss him.”

Cassie often compares her first romantic encounters with Owen to the experiences she expected to be romantic with Heath as they both completely changed her views on love and romance. As the context of her assault and her first time having sex with Owen could not be more different, it leads Cassie to recognize that it is not the action that matters but the intent, and she finally realizes that her assault should not define her entire perspective on love as it had nothing to do with it.

“There’s all this toughness about you—but the most impressive thing about that toughness, I think, is that you built it to protect the tenderness.”

Cassie projects a very specific image of herself at the fire station, as she knows it will keep her safe and employed, but Owen sees the parts of herself she is hiding from the other firefighters. He understands even before she does that she is just afraid to show her true self to the people around her for fear of getting hurt again, further illustrating the pair’s emotional bond.

The rookie was leaving, my mother was dying, and the world was full of monsters. Good things didn’t last, people hurt each other every day, and nobody got a happy ending. But that night with him made me see it all in a new way. All the hardships and insults and disappointments in life didn’t make this one blissful moment less important. They made it more. They made it matter. The very fact that it couldn’t last was the reason to hold on to it—however we could.”

This quote illustrates one of the main lessons Cassie must learn in Things You Save in a Fire, which her night with Owen has finally revealed to her. It mirrors many of Diana’s previous statements (such as in Quotes 6 and 14), insisting that love has value regardless of how long it lasts. The direct comparison Cassie makes between her previous understanding of love and her new perspective clearly and concisely shows how much she has grown since the beginning of the novel.

“It was a profound thing to realize. Love could heal me. Not the rookie, not some guy, but love itself—and my impossibly brave choice to practice it.”

A common misconception about the genre of contemporary romance is that it promotes the assumption Cassie makes about love making women weak and dependent on another person. Yet this quote instead illustrates one of the most significant aspects of the genre: that it promotes self-discovery through love. The fact that Cassie attributes this change in her character to her choice to practice love rather than just the love of the rookie is especially significant, as it makes love something that she actively must practice in order to feel.

“Telling the story changed the story for me. Not what had happened—that, I could never change—but how I responded to it.”

Just as with her choice to withhold details about her story in Quote 10, it is Cassie’s active choice to tell the story that matters. Both choices put the focus on Cassie telling the story rather than other people hearing it, revealing how significant it is for her to have full control over her own narrative.

“She’d been so alone all these years, endlessly facing the worst moment of her life and completely abandoned by everyone. Even me. All that changed when I told her story.”

Several times, especially toward the end of the novel, Cassie refers to her 16-year-old self as a separate person from the woman she is at 26. In this quote, doing so highlights just how much Cassie has tried to forget the past rather than actively dealing with it, showing how she abandoned her younger self in the process. By reclaiming her story, Cassie finally gets in touch with the girl she was at 16 and forgives herself for her abandonment.

“Maybe they were just glad the rookie wasn’t dead. Or maybe I’d misjudged them, too, in my way. We really do see what we expect to see.”

This quote comes just after Cassie’s surprise at her crew being happy that she and Owen are together. Early in her time at the Lillian fire department, Cassie notices how much the crew’s expectations of what and who a firefighter was influenced the way that they treated her. This quote shows that Cassie had done just the same, highlighting the theme of The Influence of Expectations.

“I do it because I believe that human connection is the only thing that will save us. I do it because I believe we learn empathy when we listen to other people’s stories and feel their pain with them. I do it because I know for certain that our world has an empathy problem with women, and this is one brave thing I can do to help fix it.”

Cassie’s choice to tell her story, first to DeStasio and then in the Epilogue, is what leads her to understand the importance of empathy. After telling her story to DeStasio, she starts to understand where he was coming from when he threatened her and brought her and the rookie into the burning building. In the same way she felt a connection to DeStasio, she knows that continuing to tell her story will be especially important as women’s stories are frequently dismissed as people don’t often empathize with women, as was quickly made clear to her at the fire station.

“But that’s the life-changing thing about stories. We believe them anyway.”

Not only does this quote refer to Cassie’s telling of her story, but it can also be understood as Center’s broader reason for writing this novel. Just as Cassie tells her story to promote empathy and understanding, Center has written Cassie’s story to do just the same.