“I was kind of that way too,” Janine said, smiling. “We’re tender hearted people, I guess.”

“So, when I was a police officer, I prided myself on taking care of the people of my community. Even the ones who did wrong, I treated with respect. I tried to never hurt anybody. Of course, I had to tackle people or handcuff them. That came with the job, but I always did it in the most respectful way I could no matter who they were or what they did.”

“I believe that about you.”

She could feel tears starting to roll down her cheeks. “And then there was that night. It was dark in the building, and the negotiators were outside trying to get him to give himself up. He just wouldn’t do it. In the back of my mind, I knew how many women he had raped, and I knew we couldn’t let him get out of there.”

“You don’t have to talk about this, Emma.”

“I walked down the dark hallway all by myself. I went in without any back up because I thought since I am small and pretty stealth, I could get in there. And I came around the corner, my gun drawn, and I was face-to-face with him. He had a gun on me, and I had a gun on him, and he had a hostage around in front of him in a chokehold.

“Oh my gosh…”

“It seemed like it lasted several minutes, but it was really only a few seconds. He yelled at me to drop the gun, and I yelled at him to drop his gun. And I could just see the look on that woman’s face. She was terrified. I knew he was crazy enough to just shoot her and me. And so I made a split second decision that I can’t take back. He obviously deserved to go to jail for the rest of his life, but I am the person who didn’t even want to step on a bug, and now I’ve taken a human life. I can’t take that back. It’s just permanently stuck there in my brain.”

“But you saved a human life. You saved that woman, Emma. And now she can live the rest of her life doing good things in the community. I’m sure she has a family that is very grateful for what you did that night.”

“I know logically that I did the right thing. My bosses all told me that I did the right thing. I even got a commendation for heroism, but I see his face. I see him laying on the ground when I go to sleep at night. I see what nobody else had to see, and I just can’t get it out of my mind. I wake up every night drenched in sweat, heart pounding. My own screaming wakes me up sometimes.”

Janine stood up walked over and hugged Emma around the neck. Emma leaned her head over onto Janine’s shoulder and just cried. She hadn’t cried since the night of the shooting. She’d kept it all inside, pushing it down until it was almost like a can of soda that someone had shaken up.