IGNITE

by Paradis, Lily

  I heard a female voice whisper in my ear, and I could have sworn it was Stacia.

  “You aren’t anything special to him, you know. You’re just a pit stop and as soon as he’s done with you he’ll dump you like he dumps everyone and he’ll move on.”

  I felt like I was going to throw up. I rolled to the side, trying to get away from the creeper who was trying to kiss me again. Kiss me, or drown me in his saliva, I wasn’t sure which. I wiped my face and let my hair fall over my eyes.

  The creeper got up and left for a minute, and I just sat on the futon. The room was spinning. I hadn’t considered my next move before he was back and pulling me onto his lap again so that I was straddling him.

  Oh no. This was bad, but I was too far gone to try and save myself. This was not happening. It couldn’t be happening, but it was.

  More hands on my shoulders. This time, I was being lifted up. My legs wouldn’t support me. I smelled something familiar. Maybe someone’s cologne? All I knew was I was happy I was away from the creeper.

  Hands came around my legs, and the next thing I knew I was being carried bridal style out of the room. My face rested up against my rescuer’s chest, and his shirt was warm and soft.

  I forced my eyes open and squinted at the light, looking to see who it was.

  “Dean!” I squealed excitedly.

  He looked down at me but didn’t say anything. Why was he so mad at me all the time?

  “I was fine,” I said. “I was handling it. You didn’t have to go all Rhett Butler on me.”

  He smirked.

  “I’m pretty sure Rhett Butler would have left you there. You know, ‘frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’, and all of that.”

  I let my head fall to the side.

  Kenzie had sobered up and we were sitting on the floor of Dean’s bathroom. I didn’t know where he was. I hated myself, and my stomach hated me too.

  “I don’t want to throw up, Kenz,” I told her.

  “I know sweetie,” she said, rubbing my back.

  “He was so awful,” I said, tears streaming down my face. “I was drowning.”

  She could barely contain her laughter. “That’s absolutely disgusting.”

  I nodded. I was so tired.

  “Sweetie, You’ll feel better if you just get it out. I don’t know how much you had, but JJ said that you commandeered his whiskey bottle more than once.”

  I rolled my eyes. JJ was a traitor.

  It got worse when I realized Dean was still with us. I was so embarrassed that he had to see me like this again. I was sitting on the floor, leaning against Kenzie when Dean came inside and leaned against the doorway, his arms crossed.

  I liked his shoes.

  “Hey Lauren,” Kenzie said softly. “I have to go talk to Dean for a second, are you going to be okay?”

  I nodded and she helped me sit up against the wall, and then she followed Dean into the hallway.

  I could still hear them.

  “It’s pretty clear how she feels about you,” I could hear Kenzie saying.

  No, no, no.

  “If you don’t feel the same way, I’m going to take her home right now.”

  Silence.

  “Don’t take her,” Dean said softly.

  “Okay,” I could barely hear Kenzie. Then she came back to me.

  “Sweetie, Dean is going to take care of you for the rest of the night,” she told me. “Is that okay with you?”

  I nodded but pulled her close when she hugged me goodbye.

  “I think he hates me,” I said.

  “I think he doesn’t,” she told me and kissed my cheek. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  I waved goodbye as she left, and Dean took her place.

  “Are you done throwing up?” he asked.

  I considered it for a minute.

  “Yes.”

  “Good.”

  He picked me up and carried me somewhere. I was grateful the lights weren’t as bright so I didn’t have to squint my eyes against it. He set me down on something soft and pulled the blankets up around me so I would stop shivering.

  He lay down next to me and I moved closer to him so I could rest my head on his chest.

  “Hey Dean?” I asked softly.

  “Hey what?”

  “Am I home?”

  He kissed my forehead.

  “Yes,” he whispered. “You’re home.”

  “Okay, good.” I felt so much better than I had in a long time and I felt myself smile. “Hey Dean?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Thank you.”

  As I fell asleep, I could have sworn I heard him whisper something impossible.

  “Anything for you, Annabelle.”

  I WOKE UP to light streaming through the window and onto my face. When I rolled over, I realized I wasn’t in my own bed.

  Shit.

  My head was pounding.

  “Good morning, Sunshine,” Dean said as he walked into the room holding a glass of water and two pills.

  I sat up and took them, and then I looked down to find I was wearing a T-shirt that wasn’t mine.

  “Whose shirt is this?”

  “Mine.”

  “Why?”

  “Did you want to sleep in clothes that reeked like that party?”

  I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think so.”

  I covered my face, wondering how I got to be such a mess.

  He sat down on the bed next to me and leaned against the headboard.

  “So,” he said. “Do you want to tell me why you were crying when I found you? Other than the fact that that asshole was taking advantage of you?”

  I shook my head.

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “Kenzie told me I should ask you,” he said.

  Damn Kenzie.

  “Why did you do this?” I asked.

  “Do what?”

  “This,” I said, looking around. “Why am I here?”

  “Friends do things for each other,” he said flatly. “Friends tell each other secrets.”

  “Tell me a secret then,” I said, deflecting away from myself. I pulled the blankets up over my face.

  “You want a secret?” he asked like he was daring me.

  “Sure.”

  He took a deep breath.

  “I don’t remember when my mom died.”

  I wasn’t sure how to react. I didn’t know we were sharing those kinds of secrets.

  “Why?” I asked, when he stared at me for any kind of reaction. I didn’t want to treat him like a kicked puppy, because I hated it when people did that to me about my dad.

  He pulled up his sleeves.

  I gasped. He had tiny pockmark scars all over each arm.

  “They aren’t recent. Remember how I told you my parents were pushers?”

  I nodded.

  “No,” I said softly, not wanting to believe it as I ran my fingers lightly over his arms.

  When I looked up, his eyes were sad.

  ”My dad would shove me around and use to test out the new batches sometimes. Being high and going through withdrawals at six isn’t fun. ”

  I couldn’t endure imagining how young he’d been and what he went through. I buried my face in his chest.

  “I am so, so sorry,” I told him.

  ”It’s okay,” he said. “They don’t hurt anymore.”

  ”Jenny?”

  He shook his head. “No, she was too young to remember any of it.”

  “Good,” was all I could muster.

  “The night my mom died, my dad speedballed me. Do you know what that is?”

  I shook my head.

  “Well, let’s just say it’s worse than your average hit. He shoved my mom down the stairs, or at least that’s what’s on the police report.”

  “How come you don’t remember?”

  He sighed.

  “I wasn’t breathing when the police came in. They barely got my heart started again. When you have
one depressant and one stimulant, the stimulant burns off faster and it’s bad news for your heart, especially when you’re that young.”

  I started to tear up imagining a tiny, suffering Dean.

  “Oh my god,” I said, my words muffled against his chest as he pulled me closer again. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  “Okay is relative. I’m much better now than I used to be.”

  Neither of us said anything for a moment.

  “Were you drinking last night?” I asked.

  He shook his head.

  “I don’t drink. Any substances are really hard because I find them much more addictive to me after what I went through.”

  I covered my face with my hands.

  Great, he saw the whole show and was completely sober.

  “Why were you so upset last night?” he asked, pulling back to look at me. “Why did you drink so much? That wasn’t like you.”

  I sighed.

  “It’s so embarrassing.”

  “Frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn.”

  I couldn’t help but laugh, but his expression told me he was serious.

  “I saw you with all of those girls and I got mad because I thought you didn’t care that I was there. It brought me back to somewhere I don’t want to be ever again.”

  “Well,” he said, brushing the hair out of my face. “When you’ve finally decided to come back from Siberia, I’ll be downstairs making breakfast.”

  What was he talking about?

  “Siberia?” I asked.

  He turned, standing in the doorway.

  “Yeah. Siberia. You’re all by yourself with your secrets. When you want to stop freezing me out, let me know.”

  I crossed my arms over my chest and let him leave. I didn’t want to admit that he was right. I was in Siberia and I hated that he was trying to dig me out. No one but Tucker had ever tried before, and Tucker wasn’t here to remind me that I was shut off from the world every day.

  Twenty minutes of self-reflection later, I dragged myself out of bed and down the stairway. Dean was sitting casually at his kitchen table reading the newspaper, once again channeling Clark Kent with those glasses. I guessed he wore them when he wasn’t wearing contacts, because he didn’t wear them all the time. I sort of wished he would.

  He noticed me walk in and looked up over it.

  “Eggs are on the stove if you want some,” he said, going back to what he was reading.

  I didn’t think I could stomach eggs, so I pulled a biscuit off the tray next to it, put it on a plate, and sat down at the table across from Dean.

  Neither one of us said anything, and he was clearly trying to freeze me out now.

  “Fine,” I said finally.

  He didn’t look up.

  “Fine?”

  “Fine.” I repeated.

  He glanced up but didn’t put the paper down, but he was listening.

  I took a deep breath.

  “Daniel.” As soon as the word came out of my mouth, I felt like poison had suddenly taken over my body and a dark cloud came over the room.

  “What?”

  He put the paper down and looked at me as I squirmed in my seat and nervously nibbled on my biscuit.

  “His name is Daniel.”

  I couldn’t seem to look him in the eye.

  “The asshole?” he asked.

  “Well, yes,” I said. “But not the asshole you’re thinking of.”

  I knew he meant the guy he pulled off of me last night. This was worse than that. I took another breath and looked away.

  I was fidgeting with the roll, and he leaned over and took it out of my hand.

  “My ex-boyfriend.” I paused. “Ex-fiancé, I guess.”

  Dean’s eyes went to my left hand and then back to my face.

  “Ex?” he asked, his voice low.

  I nodded.

  “What happened?”

  I chewed on my lip.

  “You want the whole story?” I said as I put the biscuit down on my plate.

  He nodded.

  I swallowed. I could do this.

  “We met at church. I was fourteen. He was sixteen. Everything was perfect, until it wasn’t. We wrote love notes and promised forever. He gave me a ring, I gave him my word, and that was that. I thought that was it, I thought I had the thing that people spend lifetimes looking for. He was my best friend.”

  I stopped to try and quell the tears that were rising in my eyes.

  “So,” he urged me softly. “What happened to end this fairy tale?” He spat the last word out as though it had a bad taste, which was funny, because it kind of did. At least until our Disneyland adventure.

  “It wasn’t always such a fairy tale,” I continued. “I thought it was. In my mind, I had found my Prince Charming. There were so many red flags, though. So many things about him that I ignored because I wanted it so badly. I was so desperately afraid of being alone again, I couldn’t handle it. I was so sick of being alone because my mom didn’t care, and my dad had a new family. So I let everything go and let myself go so I could make it work. I lost myself in the years that I spent trying to be good enough for him.”

  “That doesn’t sound like a very healthy relationship.”

  I nodded.

  “It wasn’t.”

  He didn’t take his eyes off me, but didn’t push me to keep talking.

  “I knew something was wrong. I asked him what it was, and he wouldn’t tell me. Finally, he decided we should take a break, and I hung on his every word and tried to fix whatever was wrong with me so that he would take me back. He didn’t. I found out he had been cheating on me with my best friend behind my back. The same best friend who brought flowers to my house the night Daniel and I broke up.”

  “Shitty friend.” Dean cut in.

  “Super shitty.” I took a sip of orange juice and tried to keep going.

  “I found that out because I went over to his house and found them together.”

  “Found them, found them?” he asked, raising his eyebrows.

  I nodded.

  “So that was the night everything changed for me. The night I exiled myself to Siberia or whatever you want to call it. I want to be somewhere that no one can hurt me. Untouchable. I don’t want to be alone, but lonely is a small price to pay for safe. If that’s what Siberia is, then I want it. I’ll take the ice.”

  I took a deep breath, realizing that was the first time I had ever said any of that out loud to another human being. All of that belonged in my head, not out in the open, but it was too late to turn back now. Neither of us said anything for a long time until he put his hand on mine.

  “I get it.”

  I bit my lip and tried to meet his gaze.

  “You do?”

  He nodded.

  “Yep. But Siberia sucks.”

  “Maybe, but I don’t know anything else.”

  “How old were you when that happened?” He asked gently.

  “I had just turned seventeen.”

  After a moment, he moved his hand and cleared his throat.

  “So,” he said, leaning back in his chair as he went over the timeline in his head. He obviously knew when my dad died. “Are you ever planning on coming back from Siberia? Maybe even just for a vacation? I hear it’s pretty cold up there. You know, Ivan Denisovitch and all.”

  I laughed lightly at the literary reference.

  “I don’t know. Siberia’s good for me. I just feel like I would be awful if…” I trailed off. I wasn’t sure how to complete this metaphor.

  “If you lived in Fiji,” he provided.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Fiji. It might be too much of a shock to the system. I wouldn’t know how to live in Fiji. Homeostasis and all. Besides, I kind of had awful role models for parents and I think if I ever tried to be one, I would be really bad at it.”

  He stopped and stared at me intensely and I wondered if I’d done something wrong.

  “What about your dad?” he said. “He seeme
d like he did what was best for you.”

  I nodded.

  “He did. I mostly mean my mom. She wasn’t around much. After my dad died, I feel like I kind of raised myself.”

  “I know the feeling,” he said, looking down.

  We both sat in a contemplative silence for a few minutes and I picked at my biscuit again.

  “So what happened?” I asked finally.

  “With what?” His eyes snapped to mine.

  “Your parents,” I said softly. “I mean, after.”

  Now it was his turn to take a deep breath.

  “Jenny and I went into the foster system after Dad went to jail. I was pretty messed up. I did some things I’m not entirely proud of.”

  “So,” I asked. “How did you end up here?” Clearly he had figured life out at some point.

  “When I was seventeen, someone came for me. He got me a job, got me clean, and helped me make something of myself. When I turned eighteen, I got Jenny out and became her guardian. I owe him everything.”

  “Who was he?” I asked.

  Dean shook his head.

  “My guardian angel.”

  That sounded cryptic.

  “Where is he now?”

  He shook his head and smiled sadly, and I understood. I put my hand back on the table on top of his, and he gave me a small smile.

  When my eyes met his, I wished more than anything that I was brave enough to leave Siberia. But this was too much. He was too much. I couldn’t live through another Daniel, and something told me that losing Dean would be much, much worse.

  WE FINISHED THE rest of breakfast. Dean picked up all of the dishes and washed them, leaving me feeling useless at the table.

  “For the record,” he said, looking over his shoulder. “I don’t think you would be a shitty parent.”

  All I could do was give him a complacent smile.

  “I just don’t think I’m very good with kids.”

  Oh shit. The kids.

  “Wait!” I shot up out of my chair. “Where are the kids?” I looked at the clock. “Did they make it to school okay?”

  He laughed so hard he had to set down the pan he was scrubbing. He turned off the water and dried his hands off on the towel hanging over his shoulder.

  “Callie took them to school,” he said. “Thank goodness for suspensions, right?”

  I nodded and rolled my eyes, sighing as I sat back down.

  “Wait,” I said as I had another realization. “Where’s Jenny?”