Burn

by Shey Stahl

  My stare flicks to Nixon who winks at Caleb. “Doesn’t look like you’re welcome here anymore.”

  Caleb’s eyes move across the lobby until they land on mine, beside him. I’m crushed by the look on his face, the one of rejection. He stares for several seconds, and I can’t look away. I don’t want to. I want him to understand everything I’m not saying.

  But he doesn’t. His stare shifts to my father and his chest expands with a deep breath and a gentle shake of his head. “Have a good day, sir.”

  Caleb doesn’t look at me again. He doesn’t need to. Everything he wants to say is directed at me through what he’s about to do.

  Twisting, he faces the door. It’s then, even ten feet away, I can see him shaking, his body vibrating.

  I flinch. My chest constricts in response to my heart beating so fast, so hard, it’s painful. I put my hand on my stomach and release all my breath in one heavy sigh.

  I know I shouldn’t, but I run after him wanting to explain myself. He didn’t go far. I thought for sure he would have left, but he’s standing there on the other side of the valet parking, waiting, his hands locked behind his head as he paces the sidewalk.

  The street is quiet, an unusual sight for this city early in the morning. Cars hit potholes, splashing water up over the sidewalks at our feet, but we don’t pay attention to it.

  While I’m attempting to make sense of what happened, his mind seems to be far from anything substantial. Maybe it’s his hands buried in his pockets or the way his eyes never quite meet mine for any length of time.

  His jaw tightens. “Did he fire you?”

  “No.”

  He looks at me with a cold expression, one I don’t recognize.

  “Caleb, I’m sorry I didn’t—”

  “No,” he shakes his head. He starts to walk away toward his truck, but I grab his wrist. When I refuse to let go, he lifts my fingers from around his wrist, releasing me. He watches my arm fall limply to my side. “You don’t have to explain.” Those five words punch my heart because his eyes contradict them. “I get why you did what you did, but you should understand why I’m walking away.” His words are slow and precise, begging me to listen to each one. “You just stood there like an ashamed little girl who got caught fuckin’ the kid from the wrong side of the tracks. I’m not that guy. I refuse to be treated like that, and if you want to, that’s your business, but it’s not me.”

  “Caleb, it’s not like that. I’ll go in there and tell him everything.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m not stupid, Mila, so don’t treat me like I am. He’s your father and this is his hotel. He has every right to be upset, but you should have stood up for yourself. That’s all I was trying to do, and if you can’t see that, we have no business messing around.”

  It pisses me off. How dare he, but then again, how dare I be upset at him for trying to stick up for me. “So that’s it? You’re done with me because I didn’t defend you in front of my dad?” I ask through clenched teeth.

  He laughs condescendingly, his hands buried in the pockets of his jeans. “It’s not because you didn’t defend me. I’m not a child. I don’t need you sticking up for me,” he says, raising his voice. “I just don’t want the fucking drama.”

  His words are a slap to my face. I bite my lip, holding my breath and fighting back the tears I don’t want falling. He’s doing this because I hurt him.

  Caleb closes his eyes and rubs his hands over his face, groaning in frustration and then clasps his hands behind his neck once more.

  I inhale a deep breath, but I don’t respond with words.

  Dropping his hands, his eyes move to my mouth, and my chest hurts at the thought of never feeling his lips against mine again. He’s so close I can feel his breath on my skin, so close I can imagine the taste of his lips pressing to mine.

  I wipe traitorous tears away with the sleeve of my shirt and refuse to look his direction. Only he’s staring at me now, like he’s trying to figure out how to respond. Lifting his hand, he runs it through his hair as he lets out a heavy sigh and focuses his attention on the street.

  My heart is about to tear its way through my chest and flop down at his feet, gasping for some sort of indication he feels the same way.

  Only I know it’s now coming. He’s never going to see me again, and he’s trying to tell me.

  I blow out a breath, trying to control my rapidly beating heart, but it’s no use. I’m free-falling into hell.

  I clear my throat. “Say something.”

  He slants his head so we’re looking at each other. “Something.”

  “Be serious.”

  His expressions unreadable. “What’s there to say?” He breaths in, low and deep. “I don’t think you want me to say anything.”

  His statement tugs at so many things inside of me. Want. Need. Denial.

  I’m not sure what to say, but I squeeze my eyes shut when he presses a kiss to my lips. Words escape me, my heart twisting inside my chest at the onslaught of emotions I’m doing a piss poor job at holding back.

  And then he lets go of me, maybe forever.

  BACK INSIDE THE hotel, Nixon’s standing there, smug satisfaction on his face. “It’s for the better, Mila.”

  I shove his shoulder and push him back against the concierge desk. “Fuck off, Nixon. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, and I’m going to prove to my father you’re behind this shit.”

  He snorts, righting his posture and straightening out his suit, the darkness in his voice moving through me when he says, “He won’t believe you. I can be very convincing when I need to be.”

  Remember when I said don’t trust bankers?

  It’s the fucking truth.

  I’m ready to tell my father the truth when I see him outside his office but I’m nearing an emotional shit show, one where I toss myself on the floor and scream and kick. For that reason, I attempt to avoid him and side-side him blocking my entrance to the elevators.

  “I never want that man in my hotel again,” he demands, dipping his head to catch my watery stare. “Do you understand me, Milena?”

  I clench my jaw as I make eye contact with a man I suddenly feel I will never be good enough for judges me for the first time. “Whatever happened to don’t judge a man until you’ve walked in his shoes?”

  His jaw tightens, unbelieving that I would question anything he has to say, but he also knows he’s wrong. I can see it written in the sympathy touching his pale eyes. “That has nothing do to with this situation.”

  “Yes it does. You don’t even know Caleb, yet you think he’s not good enough for me. Let me guess, you think someone like Nixon Shaw is, don’t you?”

  My father’s brow furrows slightly, the only indication he’s listening to exactly what I’m saying. “I just want what’s best for you.”

  I clear my throat, compose myself and then say, “If that were the case you wouldn’t have treated Caleb like that, or talked to me the way you just did.”

  Staging

  A sector of incident command where responding resources arrive for assignment to another sector.

  “It’s for the better,” I tell myself. Begged is more like it.

  Do I believe that?

  What do you think?

  A week. That was all. It was a week of nightmares she can’t take away and a week of feeling guilty. On my four days off from the station, I drank. Seemed logical to me.

  There are four empty bottles of whiskey on my nightstand, a hole in the wall of my room, and a broken television on my dresser with another bottle of whiskey sticking out of it.

  If you ask me, I’m pissed. And I had every right to be after what happened at the hotel.

  But I’m a stupid son of a bitch if I believe that. So I don’t, mostly.

  I don’t blame her, really, how could I? She has a job to think about and if I was in her position, how would I have reacted?

  I pushed her toward reacting like that. I’m the reason she’s in thi
s mess.

  Drinking seemed like the answer. So that’s what I did. All day, and now all night, for four days.

  It was working too, until I had to go back to work and couldn’t sleep because I was sober again.

  “Just man up and tell her how you feel and that she pissed you off,” Owen tells me, knowing what’s going on with me. I may have been so drunk one night I told him everything that happened at the hotel with her father.

  I don’t like talking at three in the morning, let alone on the way to a two-alarm fire. “Who says I feel anything for her?”

  I think about her face when I walked away, and regret fills my chest when I recall the hurt in her eyes. I think about the way her eyes held mine, searching for answers she wouldn’t get from me.

  I didn’t mean the things I said to her, but I said them anyway because the less time I’m around her, the less time she’ll need to heal from being with someone like me.

  “You know, that’s funny.” Owen laughs, our shoulders knocking into one another as the truck rocks back and forth. “You’re seriously expecting me to fuckin’ believe that shit?”

  “Yep.”

  His eyes hold mine. “You’ve been seeing this chick for well over a month.”

  “Correction, I’ve been fucking her for a month. There’s no dating involved. I haven’t taken her anywhere.”

  “I don’t believe you. If you weren’t into her, you wouldn’t be spending so much time with her. The Caleb Ryan I know doesn’t waste his time on anything.”

  “Shut the fuck up, I don’t want to be having this conversation right now.”

  Despite my hostility, Owen’s absolutely right. I don’t, but that still doesn’t mean I’ve fallen for her. Sure, I care for her, and it sucks what happened the other morning at the hotel. But I also knew eventually it was going to happen. She was falling for me. I could see that.

  I don’t want her to love me because it translates into I’m in love with you and always, for me, leads to me failing them, or me not being able to give the pieces of myself they think I should.

  I can’t love her.

  To me, love is like a fire, a chemical reaction between compounds with energy. Some fires come on like a flash fire, quick to burn, but die down quickly, too.

  Then you have the slower-moving fires, the ones that burn steadily, hot but maintaining their heat and destruction. No matter which way you come at it, the flames rage on until you cut off its fuel and heat, and eventually it’ll burn out. That’s exactly what I did by walking away. I cut off the fuel source, and all that’s left now are volatile gases that make smoke.

  I don’t want to admit it but Mila’s like a spark inside of me, catching wind, and creating a fire inside my heart I’m having trouble ignoring now. She’s an instant fuel mixture that hit hard. A backdraft. The kind I never saw coming until she burned through me.

  FIRELIGHT SPILLS OVER the street, flashing lights captivating the onlookers who cluster nearby. When we reach the building, it’s a ten-story apartment complex with the fire raging in the upper floors.

  My dad, the battalion chief, is set up as the commanding officer. He starts in immediately with the details. “I spoke to a resident who indicated most floors are clear. There’re five missing, but we’re not positive.”

  Cap nods and gives the details to us. “You four get in there and get as many as you can. And then get back out here.” He gives us a “no bullshit” look. “You got one shot at this, and then I want you out.” Then he nods to my brother behind us. “E, take point on this one. Get in fast and get out immediately.”

  We’ve just started up the stairs when Evan gets on the radio. “Ladder to command . . . Do you know their location?”

  “Stand by . . .”

  “At a time like this”—Evan looks at me, confused—“he puts me on standby?”

  I shrug, one hand on the railing, the other thrown up in the air. “No idea.”

  The response comes through from Command. “They’re on the fourth, he thinks.”

  Evan laughs. “He thinks? Awesome. So no one fuckin’ knows.”

  Pulling our masks over our faces, we crank the air and head up the smoke-filled stairwell.

  It’s easy to lose your head at times like this, but you literally have to be ready for anything.

  Our radios crackle with broken words. “Emergency personnel, please be advised heavy fire is noted on seven. Proceed with caution.”

  We make it to four and Owen and Jay peel off while Evan and I continue to go up. He stops, and I run into him. I don’t say anything, but he does.

  He looks back at me, one hand on the rail. “What’s with you? Are you still drunk from last night?”

  “No.” I don’t look at him. “What the fuck are you waiting for?” I motion up the stairs with a flick of my wrist. “Go!”

  He does without another word.

  “Five’s clear. Nobody home,” Owen says, meeting us in the stairwell, Finn closely behind him, and starts in on me about Mila again. “So, about this whole Mila thing . . . I’ve been thinking and you just need to show up there and apologize.”

  Groaning, I shake my head and start up the stairs again. I can’t believe we’re having this conversation right now. This isn’t something to have a chit chat about when shit’s real. “What’s that going to solve? I told you, I don’t love her. I’ve known her a month.”

  He points his halligan at me, raising an eyebrow. “See, that’s fucking bullshit and you know it.” Reaching across his body, he taps into his radio. “Hey, boys on Engine 5, can you get the ladder up to the fourth floor? I saw a dresser I like.”

  The radio crackles, a rough voice filtering through with a laugh. “Yeah, give me a minute.”

  Leave it to Owen to crack jokes now. And then he turns to me, waving the halligan in my face. “I’ve seen you around her. I know you have feelings for her and this crap where you deny it because you don’t want anyone to know is insulting because I’m your friend.”

  He has a valid point, but I still don’t like it.

  On seven now, the glow of the fire spreads across the floor, engulfing everything in its path. Another truck company arrives, their steps meeting ours as heavy sheets of curling smoke roll together, constricting our view and making it almost impossible to find anyone once on seven.

  Just a few minutes on seven, and we’re nearly lost. Everywhere we look there’s another hallway and another door, but we continue down the one on the left as command said it leads to the apartments. I’m kinda thinking they might be full of shit or have the wrong building plans.

  Slogging through the water, we search for anyone who’s still alive, the glint of angry orange flames surrounding us above. “Seattle Fire Department . . . call out if you can!”

  There’s no more conversation between us, no talks of being in love or of fucked up situations, our focus entirely on the fading light in our path and thick smoke.

  We drop to our knees when the heat and smoke become too intense, and the only way through is to go below it. The water on the floor is boiling with the heat. It’s hot inside my mask, slicking my face with sweat, and my palms and knees burn as I crawl along the hallway.

  “This place is like a fucking maze,” I tell Evan, who’s in front of me. We’re searching every room, calling out for anyone who can hear us and getting nothing but the roar of the flames in response.

  Evan says something, but I can’t hear him. I doubt he heard what I said, the roar of the flames above us making it almost impossible to hear anything.

  We can hear the fire as it shifts, the heat more intense this time. It’s almost unbearable as the flames roll up the sides of the walls and to the ceiling, orange in the middle and purple at the edges.

  We make the mistake of turning down another hallway and end up in a room filled with black smoke, but when we try to go back, it doesn’t seem like we’re going the right way.

  Evan pauses, staring at Finn, Owen, and me. “I think we go that way.”<
br />
  It’s a guessing game, one none of us want to be playing. We know we’re in trouble.

  Our radios aren’t working properly. Every time we tell command our location, the radio cuts out and command never responds. I have no idea if it’s the same for them. I can assume it is since we haven’t heard from them. Fuck, they could be telling us to evacuate for all we know.

  The fire’s breathing, a low hiss that leaves us with that eerie sensation, knowing it’s gaining strength. As we move, it almost feels like it’s slow motion.

  Every fire is a lesson. Where will it go? When will it gain strength and school you on the dangers? Understanding the danger and knowing the risk is what we’re trained for, but there are some things you can’t prepare for.

  We come around another corner and what I assume is a different set of stairs, but I don’t know for sure. It’s raging with flames and doesn’t appear that we’re going down that way. “Oh look,” I deadpan, wishing I could fucking see something other than flames and dead ends. “Another fuckin’ dead end. This place blows.”

  Evan stops, laughing, and reaches for his radio. “Hey, Cap, lost our way out. How’s up?”

  “Negative!” Cap shouts. “Do not go up, Evan! Get the fuck out of that building.”

  Evan groans, dropping his hand from his radio. “Shit’s about to get ugly, boys.”

  “Engine 5 to Ladder 10 . . . There’s a ladder in place on four, can you make it?”

  “Did they not hear us before when we said we couldn’t go down?” Evan asks me as we walk down another hall and find ourselves in another fucking room.

  I shrug. “Guess not.”

  What I want to know is who designed this motherfucker? Dr. Seuss? It’s one winding hallway after another and leads to rooms with no exit.

  Behind us there’s a pop, with a deafening bang of an explosion, and before I know it, I’m sent floor surfing as part of it collapses.

  It takes me a minute to come around, my ears ringing and my heart beating so fast it’s all I can hear as I pick myself up from what appears to be boxes around me. My hand immediately goes to my throbbing head. I realize then my helmet’s gone.