Burn

by Shey Stahl

  I get it thought. I bet there’s a lot of people in this very city who have been in this mindset in some form or another. A dark place where your life and everything in it isn’t what you want it to be.

  Hell, look at my professional life in the shitters right now?

  Case. In. Point.

  Anyway, the life you have suddenly resembles none of the elements it did in the beginning, and now you’re left wondering where it will end up?

  I ask Caleb all the time if he’s all right and he says he is. He doesn’t want to talk about Evan, and I respect his wishes. I want to comfort him, take away this pain he won’t share, but I can’t. I’ve never felt so hopeless in my life as I do in the moments I’m with him.

  I want to tell Caleb I love him and I’m here for him when he’s ready. They’re words on the tip of my tongue, but I don’t in fear that’s not what he needs to hear.

  “What do you want from me, Mila?” Caleb whispers in the dark. Complicated eyes draw mine toward his. He’s on his side, facing me, the moon lighting up the side of his face.

  It’s late. I’m at his apartment, giving him what he wants, but I’m so tired I can barely keep my own eyes open. Oh how quickly we fell right back into the “whatever” status.

  Believe me, I’m ashamed, but here’s the thing, I look at him now, and I don’t feel the same way I did before. I’m out of the “like” stage and face first in love.

  And I think in some ways, I’m here for this, what I give him in the darkness where my roots me because he talks to me, like this, when the sky’s painted in stars and nothing else matters.

  “I don’t know.”

  His tone is frustrated as he repeats his question. “Tell me what you want.”

  Love. You, maybe some babies.

  “You.” I settle on one. For now.

  I can’t lay it all out there right now.

  “You already have that. I’m here.”

  Look at us. Two people both silently trying to find themselves in the aftermath of destruction. He’s still a man lost in his thoughts he can’t put into words, and I’m trying to burn my way through the walls he puts up.

  If you have an open flame and you smother it, the fire will die. Without oxygen, everything dies eventually. Without oxygen, you suffocate. I’m suffocating not knowing what to say to him.

  Forcefully, pressing his eyes shut, he sighs.

  He struggles with what to say, his eyes narrowing as he looks away, and then he asks, “Do you love me?” His voice is like gravel, and my heart an open wound.

  I want to tear this feeling from my chest. Rip the motherfucker away. A slow burn crawls up my throat as I find the words, “I think you know I do.”

  Caleb gives a nod and shifts his stare back to mine. There’s something intimate about the moment that has me wanting to breathe him in, taste his very presence before he closes his eyes, then opens them slowly, watching me. An emotion hits him, devastation twisting his face that someone loves him and it’s enough to bring me to my knees.

  Why can’t he see that it’s okay for me to love him. There’s no harm in it.

  Suddenly flustered by the intensity of his stare, I begin to ramble, “You put up a good front. You do. But I see you love me too.”

  He doesn’t say anything. No reaction at all.

  IT’S EARLY IN the morning when I find Jacey on the couch in the living room, Owen at her feet. They must have fallen asleep watching a movie last night, and she’s wide awake wearing Evan’s SFD T-shirt.

  Love can make you do crazy things. It can make you hold on to something when you should be letting go. It can make you see things you didn’t see before, good and bad. It can be the cure, but it can also be the destruction.

  “I hate that people are moving on. Damn it,” she tells me when I sit next to her with a cup of coffee. Caleb’s still sleeping, so I creep around careful not to wake him. “It’s been a month, and I feel like I’m thinking about him less every day, and it makes me so fucking mad. I don’t want to move on. I don’t want to forget.” And then she touches her belly. “Everyone else may forget, but I never will.”

  I understand Jacey’s position, because had that been Caleb, my reaction would have been the same. Regardless of me only knowing him a few months.

  “I know, sweetie.” My hand finds hers.

  “What am I going to do now that I’m pregnant?” she asks, staring at her cup of untouched green tea. “What would you do?”

  “Oh, uh, what do you mean?”

  “I’m twenty-seven, live with two assholes, my baby daddy died. Now what? I’m going to raise the kid with these two shit-dicks?” She motions to the floor where Owen’s snoring. “My life is a fucking wreck.”

  I suddenly don’t feel so bad about my own life, but I also know I have to say something noteworthy here to make her less stressed out.

  Jacey catches on to my apprehension. “Sorry. I just meant . . . never mind.” Her brows are knotted, confused by everything and finding contentment in nothing.

  “Losing Evan has been hard enough on you, Jacey. Everyone deals with this differently,” I say, taking her hands from her mug, I wrap them up in my own, attempting to comfort her the way I would want to be comforted. “Move at your own pace and when you’re ready, make a decision but not until you’re ready.”

  Jacey smiles, soft but still, she smiled. “I’m thinking of moving out.”

  “Why?”

  “I need my own place if I’m going to raise a baby. These two are horrible examples.”

  We both look down on the floor to see Owen slowly waking up and scratching his balls. “I don’t doubt that.”

  Her lips press into a straight line. “Just the thought of moving out makes me sad. These guys are all I have left. I don’t want to leave them either.”

  There’s a moment of silence between us and then she sighs, a heavy but jagged breath that catches my attention. My eyes find glossy chocolate brown. It’s easy to see why Evan was attracted to Jacey. Even after everything she’s been through, she’s still breathtakingly beautiful.

  “I didn’t cry yesterday, and then when I thought about not crying, it scared me. It made me think I was moving on, and that seemed worse than losing him.” Her tears return, a reminder she hasn’t moved on even the slightest. “Whenever I struggled with anything, he was the perfect balance of perseverance when mine was gone. I know everyone thinks we just hooked up and there was no relationship there, but there was. He knew everything about me.”

  I don’t know what to say to her, but “I’m sorry” isn’t what she wants to hear.

  “I go back to that night a lot,” she says with all-too-sad eyes, a portrait of a girl who’s given everything to one guy who couldn’t give her the same, and now he’s gone, never able to right the situation for the two of them to be happy.

  Now what’s she supposed to do? Live her life again? How is that even possible?

  “I think about how numb I felt . . . what the doctors spoke to me . . . the way his burned hand felt in mine, and none of it makes any sense. Some days I want the numbness of the night back because at least then it didn’t hurt as bad. It’s the weeks after that hurt the worse, when everyone else wants to move on and you can’t.”

  “I can’t imagine.” My eyes fall to my hands, knowing my words won’t offer much for her.

  “Listen, Mila. Caleb is like a brother to me, and I know we spend a lot of time together, but the truth is . . . if it hadn’t been for Caleb being here, I would have stayed in bed even longer every day, smiled less, and probably starved to death . . . and maybe never laughed again, either.” Jacey wipes tears away with her sleeve. “It’s weird to say, but he’s my best friend.”

  I take comfort in knowing they have each other at a time like this and that Caleb’s that good of a guy that he can be friends with her even after their past. I only wish he and his brother would have been able to make up before he died.

  Jacey takes my face between her hands, her sorrow
and grief taking my breath away. “He loves you even if he’s too stupid to say it.”

  “I told him I loved him last night,” I tell her. “He said nothing.”

  “He doesn’t know how to say it.” She holds my stare, begging me to see. “He’s never told a girl he loved her.”

  “Even you?”

  She frowns, but it’s not from sadness. “No, he never told me he loved me.”

  “He tells me every day,” Owen says, stretching his arms above his head.

  Jacey takes her warm cup of tea and dumps it on his crotch. “No one asked you!”

  CALEB COMES DOWNSTAIRS around eleven that morning in only a pair of shorts and looks from me, to Jacey, to Owen on the floor still, then back to me.

  I’m thinking he’s going to tell me to go home already, but he doesn’t, he takes my hand and leads me back upstairs to his room without saying a word.

  I stand there, waiting to see what he’s going to do when he steps toward me, our bodies in line, his hands reaching up to cup my cheeks. Wrapping my arms around his bare back, I run my hands over the hard ridges of his muscles, my body sagging into his. I love his hugs. They’re so consuming and addicting I get to the point during the day I want to call him just for this.

  He’s watching me, eyes intent on mine and part of me is wondering if he’s remembering what I said earlier this morning. That I loved him and I knew he loved me too, despite him not saying it.

  Will he say it now?

  His lips make their way to my neck, then my jaw and my lips. He kisses me tenderly, once, twice, then angles my head to deepen the kiss. I don’t think it’s going to go any further than kissing because Owen and Jacey are downstairs. Not that we haven’t had sex with them in the house, but it’s been late at night when they’re more than likely sleeping.

  Right now they’re not sleeping. They can hear us from below the loft.

  Waking me backward, Caleb keeps kissing me until he lays me down on the mattress, his hands cradling my head. “I’m sorry.”

  I stare at him. “For what?”

  “That you love me.”

  I want to laugh, or cry. “You’re sorry for that?”

  He nods, careful eyes searching mine. “I’m sorry because I don’t how to love someone else. At least not in the ways you need me to.”

  Raising my palm, I touch his cheek, and he leans into my hand. “You don’t know that. We haven’t tried. Let me try.”

  Again, he nods but doesn’t say anything. The passion behind the kiss that follows does.

  He wants me to have his babies. I know it.

  GUESS WHOSE PHONE number I have now?

  It rhymes with Jamaica. Actually, no it doesn’t. I can’t rhyme.

  He gave me his phone number, and I cherish it like it’s a goddamn ring. Are you surprised?

  Didn’t think so.

  I’m at work on Friday night, in my office, when my phone rings. It’s Caleb. Staring at the screen lit up with his number on it, I flash back to being in high school and memories of boys calling me. Whenever they’d call back then, my mom would answer for me and pretend I was on the other line, you know, too busy to take their call and prolong it a little. Then like the perfectly choreographed routine we had, I’d make the boy wait five minutes and answer, always asking who it was. Sure, I knew because we had caller ID, but they didn’t need to know I’d been sitting by the phone all day waiting for their call or the fact that those 100 hang-ups they had from the blocked number last night was from me. All they needed to know was that I was a busy girl and playing hard to get.

  I can’t play hard to get with Caleb. It doesn’t work that way with him. Mostly because I’m too excited that he’s calling.

  Sliding my finger over the screen, I answer and literally fucking sigh. So pathetic.

  He even laughs at me. “Expecting my call, were you?”

  “Uh, no. I’m a busy girl.” Lie. All lies. Well, I am busy but whatever. “How’s work?” I ask, redirecting the conversation but happy as hell because, dude, this is relationship status stuff. Phone calls, texting . . . sigh. Again.

  “Slow.” He sounds annoyed. “Not much going on besides MVAs and a few false alarms. We thought for sure the snow would cause some cool shit, but nothing yet. It’s fucking cold, and the freezing rain is supposed to hit soon, so you never know. Could be a busy night. Calm before the storm or some shit like that.” He laughs.

  It’s true. It’s the beginning of March and still fucking cold. Stupid weather. It’s drunk.

  “Hmmm.” My voice drops as I look out my window down at the city below. “Maybe I should tie myself up and then call in a fire.”

  Caleb growls, the sound fucking adorable as hell. “Fuck that. No way in hell the boys are seeing you naked. It’s bad enough they have a video of you half-naked giving me a lap dance.”

  “I never said anything about being naked,” I point out, twirling a piece of my hair around my finger.

  “Yeah . . . but you would be in a matter of minutes if I walked in and you were tied up.”

  I smile, my cheeks heating at the twist in our conversation. “Do you have some sort of fantasy you’re not telling me about?” I’m sure he can hear the smile in my voice.

  “Maybe.” And I can hear it in his, too.

  “I have one.”

  Caleb lets out a breathy sigh, as if he needs to prepare himself. In the background, I can hear the boys arguing, and laughter as something gets knocked over. “Let’s hear it.”

  “You in your turnouts, all of it, again, with me bent over my desk again.”

  “Damn you.” His breath hitches when he chuckles. “But I remember how hot that was in the bathroom. I nearly passed out from heat stroke. Can’t you think of something else?”

  “Like what?”

  He pauses and then sighs. “Like you in that red dress . . .”

  “Okay, well I’ll wear the red dress, and you can just wear the mask. It was so sexy I think I came just from the way your voice sounded when you groaned in my ear.”

  He lets out a quick but heavy sigh. “Now I’m hard.” I can hear him wrestling around, no doubt trying to adjust himself so no one can see. “Fuck, this is embarrassing.”

  “So? What’s the problem with you being hard at work? Surely those sick fucks you work with don’t mind.” I imagine those guys have to take matters into their own hands at the station from time to time. The thought of Caleb doing that, thinking of me as if he’s so worked up he can’t wait until he gets home is kind of a turn on. My panties are wet just from the images my brain conveniently provides for me. “Do you . . . um, you know, take care of it at the station?” My voice sounds like the first time I asked my mom what sex was when I was nine and then proceeded to ask why the hell anyone would put anything in their vagina. I quickly found the pleasures in doing so five years later but still, my voice was shaking and my eyebrows were hot. Much like right now.

  Caleb’s quiet, the only sound his gentle breaths on the other line. “Are you asking if I jerk off at work?”

  It’s like my eyebrows are on fire now. Forget being hot. “Yes,” I manage to squeak out.

  “No, I don’t. But I don’t get off work for another fifteen hours and that’s a long time to wait so maybe I’ll have to make an exception.”

  I smile into the phone, my body buzzing with excitement that we’re talking about this and that I have his phone number. I could for all intents and purposes send him a naked picture of me. We could sext.

  “Sorry, buddy.”

  “You’re not sorry. I can tell by the tone of your voice right now you’re imagining me with my hand on my dick, thinking of your wet pussy . . . aren’t you?”

  Christ, he’s good at making me squirm. “Yeah, I am.” Sitting back in my chair, I fan my face with a nearby folder. “Are you?” I add, eagerly awaiting any detail he might provide.

  And then he laughs, as if he was playing me the entire time. “No, I’m not. There’s a room full of guys around me.
Last thing you do around them is touch your dick. Unless you’re Jay. He’s always touching himself because he can’t get his fuckin’ wife to.”

  My excitement deflates. I even stick my bottom lip out. “Damn it, there goes my fantasy for later.”

  “I’ll bring my mask home if you promise to wear the red dress and let me tie you up.”

  I pause, acting like I have to think about it for about a minute, probably the longest minute of his life, and he sighs. “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re getting shy now?”

  “I’m not. I’m envisioning.”

  “All right, this is too much.” He laughs.

  To distract himself, I think, he asks about work and how my day went.

  He laughs as he tells me how he placed Coke cans under the bedposts of Owen’s bed and I almost forgot how that sound affected me. Caleb can make just about anyone smile with his warm laughter. It’s contagious.

  “So . . .” He pauses. “If I were to get home in the morning, do you think there’d be a naked girl waiting for me?”

  “I might be able to arrange that.”

  Then his attention seems to shift. “Hey, I was . . .” There’s an uncertainty to his words, but there’s also a calmness I’ve missed so much finally returning. “I’ve got some vacation to use and I was thinking of taking a week off soon. Thought maybe we could go away for a weekend.”

  “Really?” There’s no hiding the excitement in my voice.

  “Yeah. I want to take you away for a little while. Get out of the city.”

  The alarms go off in the background. “Ladder 10 . . . Engine—”

  “Sorry, gotta go.” And then he hangs up before I can say anything else.

  IT’S NEARING eight in the evening, and I’m finishing scheduling conflicts and arranging details and catering for a wedding we’re accommodating later this month. Just as I’m closing my laptop, the fire alarms burst on, a strobe light from the detector on my wall swirling through the room.

  The sound jolts through me piercing my ears. My hands snap to my ears as I rush toward my office door without my purse or phone. Given our frequent false alarms in the hotel from guests smoking in rooms to burst dinners in the restaurant, I’m fairly calm despite my ears ringing.