Things You Save in a Fire

Murphy calls Cassie into his office the next morning, but to her surprise, he does not reveal that he saw her at the party. Instead, he is furious that Cassie applied for grants for equipment the station desperately needed. He is mad that a new person would come in and try to make changes to their long-standing station, even though he had sarcastically told Cassie on her first day that they could get new things if she somehow found the money for it. Cassie is frustrated by this exchange, but she is relieved that at least Murphy did not find out about her date with the rookie. When she opens her locker, though, she finds the word “slut” written inside it in permanent marker. She remembers the same thing happening to her in high school and is angry at herself, Owen, and the person who did this. She avoids the rookie the rest of the day and only sneaks down to her locker again once everyone else is asleep. As she checks to see if the graffiti is still there, Owen finds her. She yells at him to leave but is still surprised when he does. Cassie cannot scrub off the graffiti no matter what she tries, so she covers it with a calendar from her old department, which makes her homesick.