I had three hours of driving ahead of me and I spent most of the time thinking about why I just threw my life away for a small town fire. Everything happens for a reason I decided to tell myself, I’m happy to help. “Dustingberg” reads the sign, “Population 1,500”. I pull into a gas station and go inside to get a Coke. As I am paying, the cashier looks up and asks,
“Everett? Everett Rose?”
“Um yeah,” I say a little freaked out.
“Hi, I’m Luke, I did some work for your parents, they talk about you all the time,” he says stretching out his arm to shake my hand.
“Oh cool,” I say pulling away from his greasy hands.  Luke puts down the Coke he’s ringing up and tells me I’m nothing like how my parents described me. They said I was fun and kind and very driven. After bickering back and forth I finally just walk out.
“Wait, here’s your Coke,” shouts Luke.
“Whatever,” I say and slam the door behind me.
I had only been in this town for 15 minutes and I already wanted to go home.
I pull up to what is left of my parents’ house. Their house wasn’t as badly damaged but Mom lost every family photo album since I was born. I ask my parents when everyone is going to start rebuilding so I can return to New York as soon as possible. That night we go to a town meeting. Seeing my family made me finally feel at home again. After the meeting and finding out we didn’t have nearly enough money to fix any damage, I got a phone call. It was the same cranky women from BuzzFeed telling me the other intern didn’t work out and there’s a job starting tomorrow. I walked out of the meeting and began driving to my parent’s house. Driving through the town was like driving through an apocalypse. Seeing people’s homes and everything they had destroyed completely changed my thoughts on being there. I decided right then that this was more important than any internship.

The next day the family got together to brainstorm money making ideas. Mom threw out the idea that Auntie Sarah could make cookies for a bake sale. While discussing if having a bake sale or car wash would help us, cousin Rebeca burst through the door.
“Where’s your Mama?” asked Dad, “We think we have a money maker.”
“She’s really sick,” said Rebeca motioning us towards her. Everyone jumped up and went over to Auntie Sarah’s house as soon as we could. After visiting, Dad stayed with the doctor and told us later that Auntie was really sick but didn’t go into much detail. “There goes the bake sale idea”, I whispered to Mom.  We go back home (or what’s left of it) While Mom and Dad start cleaning up the ruble, the doorbell rings. I open the door and see just about the last person I wanted to see.
“What are you doing here Luke?” I say backing up and crossing my arms.
“I have an idea, a great one actually!” Says Luke with a bigger smile then the chance of this town surviving.
I nod and look down at my feet, I don’t like this guy so I didn’t understand why he was pretending to like me.
“You’re a writer,” says Luke. “I’ll help you write an article and we can spread the news to help Dustingberg.”
I look up and agree “This doesn’t mean were friends though,” I say “Were just doing this so we can get the town back on its feet.”
Luke nods and walks through the door then sits in the dining room. I begin writing and he starts spitting ideas at me. I have to admit they weren’t as bad as I thought they would be. Finally looking up from our paper I glance at the clock.
“It’s been five hours!” I shout to Luke. Luke laughs and reads the article back to me. It was nothing like I had ever written before, it seemed different and almost more sentimental. I liked it. We posted it online.
The next day I woke up late and slowly open the door that someone’s been knocking on for what seemed like hours. I open the door and once again Luke is here with an unexpected invite. He hands me his laptop.
“1 million likes!” I scream loud enough to break a wine glass.
“The best part is people all over the country have been sending in money to help,” says Luke taking back his Laptop. I jump into his arms and as I pull away, I notice how green his eyes are. He looks down at me and smiles, “We can start rebuilding.” 
  The next day was full of chaos. I had never seen brighter faces in such a dull town. The whole town finished cleaning up and quickly got to work. My mind was blown with how much money my article brought it. Looking at all the madness in the town I started thinking about New York and what my life would have been like if I was at my internship. My whole life I had written about Celebrity Gossip and drama in other people’s lives but when I wrote about something that mattered, I finally got the attention I always wanted.

The next couple months went by slowly but much progress was made. Soon enough Mom and Dad’s house was livable. The town was finally coming back together again and I began to understand why everyone loved it here. It was charming and everyone was family.
  My trip was starting to come to an end. The next day I would be getting in my car and leaving this town behind to follow my dreams again. The houses were almost completed and the whole family was coming over for dinner. I was home alone cooking pasta on the stove and potatoes in the oven while Mom and Dad were quickly going to the store because the rest of the family would be here soon. As I was taking the potatoes out of the oven the doorbell rang so I quickly turned off my music and threw the oven mitt down on the counter next to the stove. I open the door and to my surprise Luke is here. I look down and see a bouquet of yellow roses. How did he know those were my favorite, I think to myself?
“What’s up Luke?” I say as I feel myself blushing.
He stares into my eyes and the world stops spinning. It’s just us. He hands me the flowers and thanks me. He says the town would never have survived without me, but I’m barley listening.
“Even though your leaving tomorrow don’t forget about me because I will never forget you,” he says and starts to turn away as if this was our goodbye. I run back inside to grab shoes but start to smell smoke. I look in the kitchen and it’s in hot orange flames.  “The oven mitt,” I scream while trying to figure out what to do next. Before I know it the main beam in the kitchen has fallen down and is covered in flames. I start screaming for help as I hear Luke`s truck start. It’s getting hotter by the second and the only thing I can think is that I was so close, I was so close to fixing this town and helping my family.  I close my eyes and feel the smoke caving in. When I open my eyes I’m in an ambulance sitting right beside Luke.
A fireman comes up to us and hands us both water.
He looks at me and says,
“The only reason you’re sitting here alive and well is because of that young man to your left,”
I look at Luke and wrap myself around his arm.  Several firefighters come up to us later and inform us that the damage is minimal and could be fixed in two weeks tops. I see my Mom’s car pull up in the driveway and she runs and gives me the biggest hug possible.
“I’m so sorry Mama,” I say with tears in my eyes, “I can’t leave tomorrow I’ll stay until it’s all fixed,” she grabs my hand and tells me that she insists I go and says I can’t put my life on hold any longer.
“I can’t leave like this,” I say looking at the ruble on the ground.
“Don’t you want to get back to living your own life?” She asks.
“I don’t think I’m going to get another job,” I say quietly looking at my feet dangling off the ambulance, “I think I threw away my journalism career.”
“You’ll never know unless you try, everything happens for a reason,” Says Mama rubbing my back. She then walked over to talk to Luke.

The next day I woke up and said goodbye to Dustingberg. I never thought I would be so sad to leave a place I never wanted to go to in the first place. I got in my car but only made it half a mile down the road before Luke stopped me.
“Your Mom forgot to give you this letter that was delivered to her house. She wanted me to give it to you,” said Luke barley being able to speak he was so out of breath.
“Okay thanks,” I say and grab the sweaty letter.
“I also wanted another chance to say goodbye,” He says stepping away from the car and flashes that innocent smile at me.
“Bye Luke,” I say putting the car in forward. “And just so you know, I would never forget about you.”
About 15 minutes later my car comes to a stop.  I look down confused about what just happened because I had never experienced anything like this before. “Fuel Tank Empty” flashes on the dashboard. Perfect, I say to myself, maybe this is a sign that I shouldn’t go back to New York.  I lean back in my seat and open the letter that Luke delivered to me. It was from People magazine. They read my article about the fire and wanted to give me a job, not just an internship but a real job with my own charity page in every magazine. I look up from the letter grinning ear to ear and see a truck about to pass me. I jump out of my car and flag them down.
“Stop!” I yell coughing from the tickle of dust in my throat.

“I ran out of gas,” I yell to the girl who rolled down her window.
“It’s your lucky day,” she says and hops out of her truck.
The girl hands me a gas can and tells me her name is Olivia.
“Where you headed?” says Olivia putting the gas cap back on.
“Back to New York,” I say “I just got a job working at People magazine.”
“Wow, well congratulations and good luck,” Says Olivia waving and walking back to her truck. “Oh and don’t you forget, everything happens for a reason.”
The week after that I started my new job. Being able to write about fundraisers and helping people all over the country brought a whole new level of happiness into my life. As I sit back in my leather chair looking at medals and awards framed on my desk, it’s hard to believe this all happened just because of a small town fire.