WHY I AM BULLETPROOF.

February 16, 2007

I wrote this one because I had to. Not for catharsis, not even to process it fully—just to get it out of my head. This was the first call that made me realize how close to death we work, and how easily it can reach out and take someone—anyone. Three months into training, I found myself on the floor of a stranger’s apartment, fists flying, blood everywhere, fighting a man who should’ve already been dead and trying to keep him from pulling a cop’s gun. And in that moment—split seconds away from what could’ve been an execution—everything changed. This story isn’t dramatized. It isn’t inflated. It’s exactly what happened, and it’s why I never approached the job the same way again. This call made me buy a vest. This call made me flinch at sirens in the dark. And this call made me understand, for the first time, just how thin the line really is between control and chaos, between walking away... and not.

This call was the inspiration for Chapter 1 in The Trilogy Project.