Brooks brushed my hair from my face, so tender I felt weightless.
“What are you thinking about?” he asked.
Before him, I couldn’t comprehend the compulsion to want to spend every moment with a person. I didn’t know the ache that comes when separated, like a bruise on a rib, and then the swell of relief when together again. I understood then.
I wanted to tell him that I was thinking I was scared, that I was thinking that it made me nervous whenever his cell wailed with his station’s ringtone, calling him closer to an emergency and farther from me.
But instead I said, “I’m thinking that you should really invest in outdoor cushions.”
We never sat on the chairs, always on the ground. It was an unspoken rule. The chairs kept us separated. On the ground, our knees touched.
Brooks wrenched the wire hanger from my grasp—tossed it and his own off to the side, our roasted marshmallows melting into the pebbles—and pulled me onto his lap. His body was hammered from the pack training, from the hikes and mop-up runs, from the hours lost at 24 Hour Fitness, strapped into a machine, so he’d be prepared to conquer rugged land when the time came.
“This better?” he asked.
I kissed him in response. “It scares me,” I said. “The idea of you in a fire.” I rested my hand on the curve of his cheek, nervous; he always did the touching. “I don’t want you to go away,” I said.
He leaned into me. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“You could die.”
Die. His brother, not even dead a year.
But Brooks didn’t notice, didn’t react. “Risk of the job,” he said.
“What are you thinking?” I asked.
“That I’ve never felt so happy in all of my life.”
A kiss. One, two, three, four. Marshmallow-sticky lips, a sweet tongue. The word kiss from the Middle English word cyssan: to kiss. It was Brooks who told me this, and Cameron who had told him—Cameron who studied Chaucer his first year in college and relayed the juicy translations.
Brooks’s tongue was tracing my teeth when his dad’s cat jumped from the bushes onto us with a snarling meow.
“Shit.” He shoved the cat and me away. I landed on my elbows, the cat curling around my back. “That thing—” He looked at me. “Did I hurt you? I’m so sorry. It scared me.”
I ran my hand over her matted fur, feeling her spine curve at my touch, her body vibrating with her purr. My body ached from his push.
“What is the thing’s name?” I asked.
“Cat.”
“You named a cat Cat?”
He fiddled with his Zippo. “It seemed fitting.”
“I thought she’s your dad’s.”
Brooks waved his hand. “So?”
I bit my lip. “You can’t have cats outside around here. She’ll be dead in days.”
“You and death tonight. You’re obsessed.”
“You live in a canyon!” I said. “You of all people should know that we’re surrounded by mountain lions and coyotes and deer and all sorts of crazy cat-eating animals.”
An eyebrow rose, a pointedness in his gaze. “Deer eat cats now?”
“That’s not the point.” I nuzzled the kitten. “Poor Miss Cat. So neglected.”
“How do you know it’s a she?”
“Does it matter? Males can claim Miss too.”
He scrunched his nose. “I’ve never seen you so worked up before, Audie. It’s a nice change.” An attempt at a smile. “I thought you were a dog person.”
“That doesn’t mean I don’t care about a cat’s life!”
We stared at each other, his shoulders wide and tense. I didn’t understand the roll in my stomach—my irrational desire to get the cat safe inside.
“Don’t worry so much,” Brooks relented, pulling me into him again. “I’ll talk to my dad about keeping her inside. Making Cat an indoor cat, okay?”
His lips were on mine, mine on his, because I was desperate for the good to come back, the moment before Miss Cat jumped at us. But before I could find the earlier sweetness, his cell went off with a wail. The station’s ringtone. He pressed his head against mine with a sigh, and I moved from his lap, voluntarily this time, back onto the pebbles, my arms around my knees, elbows still stinging.
“This is Vanacore,” he answered.
I checked my own phone. I had three missed texts from Maya.
We still on for baking cookies while sashaying tonight?
Where are yooooooouuuuuuuu, sister?
I’m going to fire you!
I texted back my apologies, my having lost track of time. I told her I’d be home soon and I’d make it up to her, that I’d try. Because, his phone pressed to his ear, Brooks fumbled with the fire pit, killing the flames, and I knew he was hoping to hear he was being paged to fight a larger blaze elsewhere. I knew, regardless of what he was hearing, he was going to end our night to join a fight. I gripped my phone and kept my eyes on the bushes, looking for the cat who’d already slinked away.
* * *
* * *
When Brooks dropped me off twenty minutes later, Maya was waiting in the hall between our bedrooms. Her legs were propped up against the wall—toes pointed, her torso relaxed. Her headphones were in, her eyes closed, head bobbing, as she sang, “Look how far I’ve come, look how far I’ve come, look how far I’ve come.”
I tapped her with my foot, and she jumped.
“Oh, look who it is, my prompt older sister slash ballet relaxation tutor,” she said, throwing her headphones aside. “Only two hours late for our cookie-baking-and-plié session.”
I sat beside her. “I fail, I know.”
She let her legs fall to one side and rolled onto her stomach. “You’re suffering from boyfriend syndrome,” she said. “I’ve seen it happen before.”
“You’re thirteen.”
“Sam had a boyfriend at ten!”
“That’s ridiculous,” I said. “Boys are gross.”
She rolled her eyes. “I suppose.”
“Is nine too late to start our cookie-baking-plié tutoring?”
Maya sat up. “Hmmmmmmm. Hell, hell, hell no,” she said. “I’m about ready to throw away my pointe shoes out of sadness, so the situation is desperate,” she said, already more sarcastic than me at thirteen. “I must learn to dance like no one is watching ASAP.”
“Did someone say cookies?” Dad called from the bonus room, where an action movie played loudly.
“Did someone say hell three times in a row?” Mom yelled after him.
“Yes!” I shouted.
“Guilty!” Maya laughed.
“Language, sweetie,” she yelled. “Bad language is not proper for a ballerina.”
Maya rolled her eyes. “I can’t tell if she’s being serious or if she’s joking,” she whispered.
“Probably both,” I said.
“Don’t forget the baking soda this time,” Dad yelled again. “And the salt. And to tell us when they’re finished!”
I motioned to the stairs and stood with a twirl. “Prepare to be schooled, sis. Schooled in the art of risky baking and dramatic spinning.”
We tumbled down to the kitchen and stayed up past midnight, eating cookie dough and dancing around the kitchen with Practical Magic on the TV in the background.
29
11:13 A.M.
My rescue mission to save Maya’s cat isn’t playing out like it did in my head.
I am wheezing. My arms are bleeding from a fall into the bramble. I am sweating through my tee, and snot drips down my nose as I scale the gate that borders my yard. Fire trucks line the street. Shouts of firemen ricochet from my neighbors’ house. I run up my driveway, through thick, suffocating smoke. Pray I’m not seen. I slip on the foam they sprayed. Fall on my ass, get up. Run to the front door. It’s lo
cked. I locked it for Dad this morning, and Grace has the keys on her belt.
I’m trapped. But this is my house, my home. I look up at the bank where the deer stood this morning, and now, where the deer stood, there is fire. Where the hell did the deer go?
The fire is raging down to where Maya and I grew up. It’s so hot I think my skin might burn from the heat alone.
“Hey!”
Brooks’s colleagues. They see me. Two of them are approaching. A woman. A man. They wear helmets, bandanas around their mouths, thick goggles.
“Honey, you need help?”
“Miss, this entire area has been evacuated.”
“Miss, you are breaking the law.”
And I say, “DON’T TOUCH ME!”
I push past them, run to the garage, pound in the key code. The metal door lifts.
“You can’t stay here,” they call, “it’s not safe.”
I roll under before they have a chance to catch me. I sprint to the button on the other side, punch it so the door rolls back down before anyone can move in after me.
“Please, listen—”
The door shuts, seals, and I’m immersed in darkness. I am home.
30
Twisting
It was supposed to have been Grace’s and my summer. That’s what we’d planned. Sleepovers stretching for weeks, late night meet-ups with Quinn and Rich and the rest of the gang, maybe we’d both get jobs at the Irvine Spectrum, maybe we’d find a piercing parlor that wouldn’t ID us, and we could get our belly buttons pierced like Quinn.
But none of that happened.
Grace and Quinn became more serious, and I found Brooks. I cancelled plans and slipped away. I tried to explain. I tried to articulate to Grace what was happening, what I felt, but how could I? All I knew was that I wanted to spend every waking moment with Brooks, that he was my thing—that I’d finally found what was most important to me.
“I miss you,” Grace said, twisting around on a park swing, mid-July, a diet Coke in hand. “Why does it always have to be all or nothing with you?”
I sat on the swing beside her. “It doesn’t.”
“Either all ballet or no ballet. Aiming for a four-point-oh or you don’t give a shit. You hang out all the time or you’re antisocial.” She untwisted her swing, knocking me in the shoulder. “I’m just saying, I sense a pattern.”
“I don’t like doing things halfway, you know that.”
“AKA you have an obsessive personality.”
“AKA I’m a human being.”
“Setting you up with another loner was a bad idea,” she said. “You two have just retreated into each other. Why can’t you guys hang out with other people together? I know Brooks has anxiety issues but—”
“One, you didn’t set us up,” I said. “And two, the retreating, so not true.” I pumped my legs and flew. “We came to your Fourth of July barbeque, remember?”
She snorted. “Oh, yes, that glorious hour, how could I forget? You’ve totally retreated, Audrey,” she said. “I hate it.”
“Like you’ve never cancelled plans with me to be alone with Quinn.”
She glared at me. “Not at the rate that you have in a mere few weeks.”
Grace wasn’t being fair. Was there ever a point in our friendship that she wasn’t obsessing over some girl or boy, proclaiming me the third wheel, talking her throat dry with tangents over the most petty of fights? No. There wasn’t.
“I only mean that your relationship shouldn’t define you.”
“Brooks helps his dad out at his office,” I said. “And he has the volunteering at the station. I swear he cares about it more than he cares about me, and he has his crew, his workout partners—”
“And what about you?” Grace said, feet on the ground now, swing stable. “Take out Brooks and what do you have?”
I swung and I laughed because it stung and I said, “Well, duh, you.” But I kicked my legs hard, because now that he was in it, the very idea of subtracting Brooks from my life was paralyzing.
“Do you ever wonder if some of the rumors were true, about the fights, juvie—” Her bleached hair was tousled around her ears from the swinging. “I thought he was a sexy hookup, Audrey, but a boyfriend—” She kicked at the woodchips. “Dude, I’d rather you be with Hayden.”
“Oh gosh. You’re joking.”
“Hayden hates Brooks, by the way.”
My stomach tightened. “Hate is a strong word,” I said. “Especially for Hayden, who you claimed liked Brooks.”
Grace ignored me and asked, “Do you feel safe?”
“I feel safest with Brooks,” I said.
Grace jumped from her swing. “Come on,” she said, holding up her phone. “Quinn will be here soon.”
We headed to the sidewalk as Quinn rolled up in her Mini Cooper. She parked, only to leap from her car in a black peacoat for the seventy-degree night—her long dark-brown hair up in a high bun and her taupe skin highlighted with golden blush. Her lips broke into a wide smile when she saw me.
“Audrey Harper? Am I really seeing Audrey Harper, flesh and blood, before me?”
“Dearest Quinn.” I laughed. “I’ve missed you.”
I’ve always adored Quinn, even if I’m sometimes jealous that she’s replaced me as Grace’s number one. But she makes Grace happy, loves Grace, and smiles at everyone. She’s the person at the party who makes it her mission to ensure that everyone feels welcome, and she seemingly succeeds—a beacon in bright lipstick.
And Quinn has always been relentlessly kind to me, taking me on as a friend immediately—never, as far as I know, having an issue with my frequent solo time with Grace, unlike Brooks.
She pulled me into a hug and then pulled back to look at me. “Uh-oh. Did you and Brooks break up?”
“Nope,” Grace said, and she nudged Quinn’s shoulder. “I told you, Q, you’re a terrible face reader.”
“Well, is he meeting us at Rich’s kickback?”
Grace coughed, totally not on my side, and, a coward, I looked down at the grass.
“Wait, you’re coming to the party, right?” Quinn asked. “Audrey. You have to come. A girl squad, remember? We need a girl squad to defeat the beer pong zealots that await us.”
I cocked my head. “I’ve never won beer pong in my life.”
“Because you haven’t given yourself enough chances!” Grace whined.
“It’s not the same without you,” Quinn said. “It’ll be low-key, I promise.”
I couldn’t stop myself from smiling—warmed by their want, by the kinetic energy of being with two good friends who were eager to be around me. I wanted to go, I did. I missed last semester: the low stakes and ease of being with Grace and Quinn and our friends, sitting back and watching their party chaos unfold. But my mind was already made up, so I pulled out my phone, looked at it like it was my ball and chain.
“I need to hold back,” I said. “I’m waiting for Maya to let me know if we’re having one of our ballet relaxation nights. I’ll stay here, try to get an answer, and either head back home or get Brooks to drive me to Rich’s.”
“You’re a better sister than me,” Quinn said.
Grace eyed me. “We’ll see you soon then, maybe?”
I said maybe, and I hugged them both, and they headed away.
* * *
* * *
I am a liar. A terrible friend. I didn’t text Maya because I knew she had plans with Sam. I never went to Rich’s party. I stayed at the park, swinging higher—until Brooks got off work an hour later and showed up with two spiced hot chocolates and a kiss that tasted like cinnamon. Safe.
31
11:27 A.M.
My chest might burst. I’ve never run like that before. I wonder if they’ll break open a window and drag me out of the house. I wonder if they’ll arrest me.
The smoke trapped inside chokes me. It’s dark from the gunk the firefighters sprayed over the windows. And it’s somehow hotter than it was outside.
I run upstairs into Maya’s room. Her door isn’t closed. Did I close it? Her closet door—it’s open too. Did I shut it? When I was running around this morning, evacuating, did I close any of the doors? I shove off the pile of clothes, the boxes and junk. And there it is. A litter box. That bottle of vanilla body spray. A crate. Stuffed toys.
No kitten. No cat.
I search under her bed. Cat poop and a torn up sock, but that’s it.
“Shadow!”
“Shadow!”
“Shadow!”
And I scream, because I have to scream: “Cat, Miss Cat!”
There is no Shadow. There is no cat. There is only the pounding on the door downstairs and the yells from outside.
I move through the house. My phone is vibrating in the back pocket of my jeans, but that’s the least of my worries. I go from room to room, calling “Shadow” and “Cat.” Thinking of how I’ll tell Maya. How I’ll have to tell her I didn’t save her cat.
I stand in my room and stare at the ampersand pillow on my bed. The hat from Balboa. The dried rose from an apology bouquet a few weeks back. I don’t take any of it, but I grab the silver Zippo on my desk. I let the Space Needle imprint into my palm.
I pause on the stair landing and call her name again.
I can’t leave. I have spent every day of my life with this house as my home. I may bitch about Orange County, the heat, the drought, our obsession with designer clothes and slick cars—but there is nowhere I’d rather be. This house is my family. I could stay and wait it out. But no, I can’t. I’ve been inside for fifteen minutes, and through the window I see fire where this morning I only saw smoke. I see flames so bright and alive against the brittle, brown land.
“Shadow!” I call one last time.
Nothing Left to Burn Page 10