by Cora Brent
“Comes in handy when you’re trying to sleep with all the racket in the place,” he explained to me, raising his voice to be heard.
I nodded.
He shifted his weight and eyed me. “You want to go for a walk?”
I nodded again.
Bran held the door and waited as I silently filed out.
“Smells like a barbecue gone bad,” he said when we were out in the hallway.
“It does,” I agreed. “Let’s get out of here before I’m forced to investigate.”
Neither of us said a word as we descended the stairs. I stared at the back of Bran’s head, wondering how I was going to articulate some of the things that had been rolling around my mind the last few days.
The weather was perfect outside. The heat had receded, giving way to a fairly cool evening. I felt strangely shy, very aware of every step Bran took as we walked a short way in uneasy quiet.
I awkwardly broke the silence. “How’s your dad? Kevin mentioned he was sick.”
“He lost his left leg but other than that he’s fine.”
“Oh my god.” I stopped walking. “What happened?”
Bran’s head dipped. “He spent years failing to take care of himself. Diabetes complication.”
“I’m sorry to hear it. I always liked your dad.”
“He always liked you too, Cess.”
Then the way Bran raised his head and turned to me suddenly, peering into my eyes with such frank intensity made my mouth run dry. In that second I clearly remembered exactly how it felt to be eighteen, that strange gulf of time between youth and adulthood, when the impossible happened and Branson Hickey fell in love with me.
“Bran, I-“ I stammered.
“You knew,” he said in a coarse voice.
I blinked. “Knew what?”
His lips tightened. A puzzled look flashed across his face. “You knew I didn’t lay a damn hand on Kayla. You’ve always known. All this time I thought that was why you despised me. But that wasn’t it at all.”
My eyes closed for the span of seven heartbeats. When I opened them Bran was still staring at me with a mixed look of pain and confusion. A thousand old agonies warred inside of me and threatened to cut off my breath. I hadn’t been prepared to confront this topic and now a slow and terrible trembling started in my core and fanned out until I was clenching my fists and battling tears.
“YOU THREW ME AWAY!” I wailed, attracting the attention of a passing man who had the spectacle and tweed look of a professor. “You threw me away,” I repeated in a whisper. I raised my fists, intending to pound on his chest for a while until he understood how I felt but he caught my wrists.
“No, Cess,” he hissed, pulling me a few feet away into a shadowy corner. “I let you go.”
“There’s no difference,” I spat, wrenching away from him. The words had the ring of familiarity. I was sure I’d said them before. I’d said them to him.
He was breathing hard. “You’re wrong. There’s a world of difference.”
“Oh god, Bran,” I moaned, covering my face with my arm and struggling to hold back the tide of tears that threatened to take my voice before I said something important, something I needed to say. “There’s no point in pretending you weren’t tired of being married, that you were looking for a reason to get rid of me. You found one and you took it.”
“Cecily,” he choked out and roughly pulled me against him. “No, baby. I loved you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. I just couldn’t stand being the reason you hung around Hickeyville year after year watching all your hopes and dreams dissolve. I didn’t want you to lose out on life just because you felt like you had to stick by my side. I couldn’t give you everything I wanted to give you. I wasn’t even a real man yet. So I did the best thing I could and gave you a reason to leave.”
“Bullshit.” I tried to twist away but it was a half hearted attempt. Despite my pain and fury what I wanted most was to bury in my face in his broad chest and weep for a while.
“Cecily.”
“You deceived me.”
“I didn’t cheat on you. I didn’t touch anyone else. I didn’t want anyone else. Cess, I still don’t want anyone else!”
“You crushed me, Bran.” My tears were flowing freely now and I resented them. I had assumed I was finished over him crying years ago. “You crushed me,” I said again.
His face was pure misery as he released me. “I’m sorry. That’s never what I wanted.”
My fists were still balled tightly but I kept them at my sides. My chest felt as if it might crack open if I tried to contain my sobs so I didn’t try.
“Cecily,” Bran said. “I’m so sorry. I was wrong. I was too young and too fucking stupid to understand the consequences of anything.”
He meant it. I could hear his regret in his voice. But it wasn’t enough, not yet.
I stood tall and took a few deep breaths. “Branson,” I said, fighting to control my voice because he needed to hear every word I was going to say. “When I found you in our bed with Kayla I thought there was nothing worse. I know things were rough between us. I know that was partly my fault. But the idea that I wasn’t enough for you, it just killed me.”
He hung his head and I could see how hard he was breathing. He said nothing to interrupt me though.
I took a deep breath and continued. “And then when Kayla came to me and said that you’d rejected her it occurred to me that there was something worse than cheating. You wanted me gone. You wanted our marriage to end. You didn’t want to work on things. So you made sure I believed something that could never be forgiven.”
“I wanted to give you a chance,” he said quietly. “I loved you too much to cling to you, holding you in a place where nothing was ever going to happen for you, for either of us.”
“That was my choice too!” I shouted. “Not just yours!”
“Cess,” he said in a pained voice as he raised his head. He held my eye for a moment before continuing. “What would have happened to us if we hadn’t gone our separate ways? We’d probably still be in Ohio and divorced and hating each other.”
I released a bitter laugh. “As opposed to being in Arizona and divorced and hating each other?”
He winced. “I don’t hate you. I love you.”
“That’s why you waited seven fucking years to seek me out, Bran. Because you love me that much.”
He didn’t look away. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Do you hate me?”
I lowered my head.
“Do you hate me, Cecily?” he asked again.
No. I don’t. I couldn’t.
Branson Hickey was inseparable from my heart. I couldn’t hate him as long as it kept beating. Yet the words failed me and instead of answering him I stared at a narrow crack in the concrete beneath my feet. Oddly, a high-pitched noise seemed to be rising from the split in the ground, a shrill keening that grew louder and eclipsed all other sound.
When I raised my head I saw Bran. He was staring with grim dismay at something I couldn’t see, something behind me.
“What is it?” I asked in a hushed voice as I spun around.
“The building is burning,” he said.
“What building?” I asked stupidly. I could hear the fire alarms and the howl of the approaching emergency vehicles, could see the people pouring out onto the quad. But I hadn’t processed the reason for all that activity yet.
“Yucca Hall,” Bran said. “You see the smoke? It’s coming from the third floor.”
As he spoke I understood what I was seeing. No flames were visible but smoke was billowing from one of the rooms on the third floor. My mind finally hit the panic button and my hand flew to my mouth. Yucca Hall was one of the smaller dorms but there were over a hundred and fifty residents spread across three floors. All those freshmen in their messy rooms suddenly seemed extremely vulnerable.
Before I could make the decision to propel my legs anywhere, Bran seized my head a
nd pulled me toward the chaos. We stopped in the midst of a knot of students milling around the quad and I gravitated toward a group of girls I recognized from my floor.
“What happened?” I asked Maya, once the roommate of the unfortunate Saffron. She was standing barefoot in shorts and a tank top while chewing her lip and staring down at her phone.
“I don’t know,” she shrugged. “I was writing a paper and I heard the alarm, figuring it was a drill. Then as soon as I reached the hallway I saw all the smoke so I freaked and ran outside. Someone said it started on the third floor.”
“The sprinklers should have been set off by now,” I said. “That will put out the fire.”
“Maybe, maybe not,” Bran responded and I saw that he had his phone to his ear. “Fuck, he’s not answering.”
“Shit!” Maya exclaimed, slapping a hand to her head. “I left my laptop open on my desk. It’ll totally get ruined.”
“You trying to call Kevin?” I asked, ignoring Maya and her laptop distress.
Bran nodded and tried again.
“I’m sure he got out,” I said, my gaze skimming over the kids who were wandering around, comforting each other, or taking duck-faced selfies with the burning building as a backdrop.
“Our house is burning down!” someone screamed in a singsong voice before erupting into crazed laughter.
“Idiots,” said a disgusted voice right next to me and I found Dorritt standing there. She glared at the crowed and tossed her bleached hair over her shoulder. “They won’t be too excited when their iPads melt and their wardrobes are scorched. I swear to god I’m going to throttle the fuckheads who were grilling hot dogs in their room.”
“Is that how the fire started?”
She shrugged. “That’s what I heard.”
Members of campus security had arrived on the scene and were doing their best to herd people away from the building. Two fire trucks pulled up and unloaded squads of men in protective gear.
“Shouldn’t we be doing something?” I asked Dorritt.
“Like what?” she asked, wrinkling her nose. “I’m not a fireman.”
“Like making sure everyone’s accounted for.”
She snorted. “It’s not an elementary school, Cecily.” Then she noticed Bran and her demeanor changed. A dazzling smile replaced her scowl. “This whole thing is wild, isn’t it, Branson?”
Bran’s face was troubled. “He’s still in there.”
“You don’t know that,” I argued but I wasn’t sure at all. I thought of the way Kevin had dropped off into a drunken slumber before we even left the room. I thought of the way the noise of the sound machine might obscure the sound of the alarms that would otherwise wake him up.
Bran had made up his mind. “I’m going in.”
“No!” I stepped in front of him. “The fire trucks are here. Just tell them where to look.”
“I can get to him sooner,” he said. The look in his eyes was resolute. “I’m going, Cess.”
As he said it I saw the steely determination that must have gotten him through some bad situations when he was deployed to scary places. I was sick over the idea that Kevin might still be in that building. But I was terrified at the prospect of Bran endangering himself. I couldn’t lose him. I couldn’t have borne losing him when he was half a world away and out of my life. I certainly couldn’t stand it now when he was right here, when we were finally sorting out the things that might give us a chance to....
To WHAT??
“Wait.” I pulled at him, feeling desperate “Don’t go in there. Please, Bran.”
“Cess.”
“Please!”
“I have to.”
A tear squeezed its way out of my right eye and down my cheek. Bran’s eyes softened as he looked down at me. He touched a gentle fingertip to my cheek. Then he dipped is head and kissed me with the kind of hunger and longing that every woman wishes for. My eyes closed and a soft moan rose from my throat as I felt his body pressing urgently against me, his lips demanding my submission, which I gave to him eagerly. I’d give him a lot more if only he wouldn’t leave me.
Even after I felt his touch disappear I couldn’t quite steady myself to open my eyes again for a few seconds. When I did he was gone.
“I love you too,” I whispered and Dorritt glanced back at me as if I’d lost my mind.
But I hadn’t lost my mind at all. I had lost something once but now there was a chance I might find it again. Fire crews busted into the third floor of the building, breaking glass in their path. I shuddered at the echoing sound.
My legs felt rubbery as I sank down onto a nearby curb but no one paid me any mind, probably figuring I was just distraught over the sight of the fire. My feelings were much more complicated, much more frightening.
Nothing could happen to Bran.
I refused to consider the possibility, comforting myself with the thought that the universe simply could not be that cruel.
I felt heartened by the idea even though I knew it wasn’t true.
The universe guaranteed nothing. Nothing at all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Branson
I tore myself away from Cecily without glancing back and charged straight for the smoldering building. That wild, passionate kiss made me move even faster, determined to get back to her as soon as I could.
“Hey!” exclaimed a young firefighter as I brushed past him on my way to the west stairwell. “You can’t go up there!”
From the outside I’d been able to assess that the worst of the smoke was coming from the east side of the building so I figured I’d have an easier time making it up to third floor by choosing the staircase on the opposite end.
There was another shouted warning directed at me. I ignored it and went barreling up the steps as soon as I was in the stairwell. The smoke here was ominous, but not so dense I couldn’t see where I was going. I pulled my shirt off and held it over my face, ducking low as I climbed. It didn’t help much.
Cecily might have been right about Kevin being somewhere among the crowd of confused students but something in my gut screamed otherwise. My gut had served me well when I was in a range of hot spots over the years and I wasn’t about to disregard it now.
The building’s fire alarm had stopped shrieking and there was no water anywhere, meaning the sprinklers had failed. I had suspected that would happen, given that they hadn’t been triggered when some moron accidentally started a tiny fire a few weeks back as he passed out beside his overflowing laundry basket with a cigarette in his hand. The university would have some explaining to do when it came to the failing fire sprinklers but I didn’t care about that right now. All I cared about was getting to Kevin and then getting the fuck out of here.
When I reached the door to the corridor that stretched the length of the third floor I paused and cautiously touched the metal door handle. It didn’t burn my skin so I eased the door open. The smoke was much thicker up here, a dense and deadly fog. I swiftly tied the cotton shirt over my nose and mouth, then dropped to my hands and knees to get my bearings.
The fire had definitely originated at the other end of the corridor. The smoke thickened with every inch and I could feel the heat now. Plus I could hear the voices of the firemen shouting instructions as they battled the blaze down the hall, calling out to ask if anyone was trapped. Even if they were able to stop the fire in its tracks the building would likely be badly damaged. Anyone with a room on the third floor would probably find that everything they owned reeked of smoke or was outright ruined.
None of that mattered. Things could be replaced. People couldn’t.
I was counting doors as I crawled quickly down the hall. My room was the seventh one on the left, number three fourteen. The farther I traveled the thicker the smoke got. My eyes burned and my chest hurt with each breath I drew. When I finally reached the right door I fumbled in my back pocket for the card key but it wasn’t there.
“Kevin!” I shouted, pounding on the surface with my
fist.
I could hear the firemen shouting commands to each other as the fire escalated. A cloud of thick smoke suddenly enveloped me while I crouched beside the door. Instinctively I knew I didn’t have long before the smoke caused me to pass out. And if Kevin was in there he might have already lost consciousness.
“HEY!” I screamed. “DOWN HERE!”
With a sinking feeling I knew my shouts were lost in the chaos of noise. I’d seen an emergency ax encased in glass hanging on the wall but I knew it was at least a dozen yards away. The farther I traveled into the smoke the more likely it was that I’d pass out. For a terrible second I imagined Cecily receiving the news that I’d collapsed and died on the third floor of Yucca Hall.
“No,” I growled. I couldn’t do that to her, to my father.
A coughing fit seized me and I doubled over, gasping for oxygen that was getting harder to find. When I caught my breath I pounded on the door again but there was no response. The only way I was getting through this door was to break it down myself. Kicking it down would have been the logical method but I was barefoot, having thrown off my flimsy sandals before scaling the stairs.
The first time I slammed my shoulder into the door nothing happened. These doors were old, heavy. They stuck all the time. I backed up a few paces and crashed into the surface again. This time there was an audible crack but after a third attempt the door still wasn’t giving way.
“KEVIN!” I yelled.
With a roar of frustration mixed with desperation I delivered a savage kick to the door just below the handle. This time it moved. A shot of agony stabbed my kicking foot and might have brought me to my knees if I had that luxury. I gritted my teeth, pushed the door open the rest of the way and lunged inside.
“Kevin!”
The smoke poured into the dark room while I felt my way over to Kevin’s bed. My hand grazed his limp form and I shouted his name again but he didn’t stir. I found his cheek and reared back for a hearty slap. To my relief, he moaned slightly. He wasn’t in any shape to walk out of here though.
Summoning a skill from my Army days that I thought I’d never have to use again, I grabbed him under the armpits and flung him across my back. He moaned again and I was encouraged by the sound but I knew I needed to get both of us the hell out of here.