Something Worth Saving Read Free Page B

frequently on the corner, we had a loyal customer base.
    Our shop was located across the street from Firehouse 10, where Jace worked. It wasn’t always there, it used to be located in Pioneer Square until January of 2008. And it was perfect timing. When you have an open flame under apartments, it was kind of nice to know that the firemen were just around the corner. Because of what we did in the shop, chemicals and flames, it was nice to know that if we did catch something on fire, they were so close.
    Speaking of an open flames and candles, that’s how Jace and I got together . . . again.
    I met Jace when I was six – the first day of kindergarten, actually. He stole my red crayon. I remember dates. Always have. To me remembering a date shows significance. The day was important enough that it’s carved in your memory. I don’t remember all dates. Just the ones where my life was changed by a moment.
    I met him on September 7, 1989. I have a thing about remembering dates, too. It’s almost like an obsession to me. You’ll see.
    Offended that he’d stolen my crayon, I ripped the crayon from his hand.
    He took it right back like he owned it and started to draw a picture on the blank white paper in front of him.
    “If you’re going to draw something with my crayon . . . draw something beautiful.”
    I was into flowers and fairies and all that girlie shit. I was sure this little boy with black hair and too-blue eyes wasn’t good at any of that. I had standards even for a six-year-old.
    There was something about the way he looked at me that dumped my six-year-old ass on the floor. He had determination.
    Thick black hair fell into his eyes. Glaring, a glare I still remember today, he swept it from his eyes with the back of his hand. Then he smiled, his head down, intent on his drawing. I watched his flushed cheeks and freckled nose, brow scrunched in frustration.
    A few minutes later he produced a drawing of a stick figure putting out a fire with a hose.
     

    I looked at it for a moment and then regarded him with my own glare. “What’s that? I said something beautiful.”
    “Yeah, I know.” He rolled his eyes, shrugging. “It’s something worth saving.”
    And from then on Jace Kenneth Ryan held my heart in more ways than one.
    Young and innocent, we were the kids who passed love letters and walked home from school together. First kiss, hand holding, partners in dodge ball, all that. He wanted to be a firefighter and talked endlessly about following after his dad and becoming a captain someday. Courageous, insistent, and extremely independent, Jace had more motivation than most, and without a doubt I knew he would succeed. But in his plan was always me. He’d tell me that we’d get married someday and I believed him. I was a kid. I didn’t know any better.
    My future was set until my vagrant lack-of-commitment mother decided to uproot me when I was eleven and my younger sister who was six at the time, forcing us to finish out school in Boise, Idaho.
    I was devastated, as was Jace. We stayed in touch for a while, but with his football once he got into middle school and my mom moving from apartment complex to trailer and then in with another boyfriend, we eventually lost touch.
    Now, you’re probably wondering how we got back together, right?
    When I was eighteen I moved to Portland, intending to start my own life and go to college there. Hated it and moved to Seattle the following year.
    Honestly, my heart belonged to that city. I loved Seattle. Not the traffic and not the rude superficial people crowding the streets, but the city itself.
    I loved the rain and the cloud cover. The buildings, Pike Place, the underground music, and the fact that Starbucks was on every corner.
    When I got to Seattle, part of me thought about tracking Jace down again, but the other part was still licking the wounds left behind by my high school boyfriend, who’d broken my heart. We’ll get to that later. It’s a long