“Hayden,” I said.
And he replied, “You started dating Brooks.”
My skin went numb. “What does Brooks have to do with you and me?”
“It made me realize that you didn’t have to be off-limits. That I didn’t want you to be only Grace’s best friend.” Hayden blushed and rubbed his palms against his jeans. “I realized that there was space for more than my usual only-school-and-in-the name-of-school routine. Or, really, that I wanted that space—wanted to hang out—” He glanced at me, stopped, and started again, “But then you had Brooks.”
A football scrimmage started down on the field, and shouts echoed across the valley.
“Oh my god,” I said. “Jealousy. You’re jealous of Brooks?”
He laughed tightly. “Yeah. I guess. I’ll own up to that.”
It took me a minute to find my voice. “I could’ve made room, if you’d told me you wanted to hang out.”
Hayden finally looked at me. “You honestly think that’s true?”
I stared back at him, trying to find my response, wanting to say something, anything, but the hot wind shifted and picked up speed, dirt spiraling around us in a violent gust. And Hayden—so sudden—he leaned in, his arm around me, his hand on my head, protecting my eyes from the dirt and the ash. We braced together against the gust, and it was so odd, how good it felt.
And he was laughing with his arm around me, yelling into the wind, “This was a brilliant idea. Go up to the T on the most hellish of hell days!”
Even over the stench of fire, he smelled like the cool of his mint. He bit into the candy, and the crunch of the sugar—I could feel it. It made me wonder if he could hear my heart, if he could smell my sweat, last night’s blood, my scarred skin.
The wind calmed and we separated, sitting up, looking up.
“This is crazy,” he said.
“Yeah.”
I yanked the green Nalgene from his backpack and chugged. I thought he’d comment on my not asking first, but he only watched me throw back the water.
“I thought you were going to scream,” he said when I passed him the bottle. “Was this all a ruse to get me to confess my cardinal teenage sins? I was kind of looking forward to the screaming.”
“Oh, right,” I said.
And everything bottled up: I screamed like I never had before. I screamed liked I should have some twenty hours earlier. And Hayden joined in, only he pretended to be some kind of animal, a mountain lion, I think. It was strange to hear Hayden’s voice in a wild, free way; it was even stranger to scream in front of him. And I wondered if the football players could hear us, if our cries echoed through the courtyard. And it gave me a high, a release too great.
And so when those seconds ended and silence settled, I kissed Hayden.
He kissed me back. Hayden, the second boy I’ve ever kissed. And it made my heart stall because it was different: slow and tentative. But I pulled him closer, my hand on his neck, a somehow-urgent calm filling me. And then he pushed me away.
“You have a boyfriend,” he said, now standing. “Or did you guys break up?”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said, because I didn’t think it did, not with the lies and the fire and the nonexistent photographs from the camping trip. “And you just said you want—”
“Stop,” Hayden said. “Just stop.”
I sank down off the cement T and into the dirt. That’s what I’d said the night before. Stop. “I’m sorry,” I said.
“God. Audrey. Not like this.” He shoved a hand through his curls. “You’re my friend,” he said. “You’re Grace’s best friend. Don’t hurt yourself through me.”
I thought I might be sick. “That’s not what I’m doing.”
Hayden looked down at the school, down toward the fields. He kicked at the dirt and offered me his hand. But I ignored him, so he asked, “Are you going to be all right?”
“Already am.” A lie.
“Let me know when you want to talk or scream again or whatever,” he said.
Hayden pushed his way down through the brush, away from me, and then he was gone. I pulled myself back up onto the T and lay across the hot cement. I closed my eyes against the smoke, listening to the crackling of the bristled grass and the howl of the wind and the occasional voices drifting from campus. Guilt pounded in my chest, and the sun burned my skin.
I counted the school bell rings, and I got up at the end of fifth period and texted Hayden.
For the project . . . does Sunday at 8 work?
See you then.
* * *
* * *
I kissed Hayden because I was still thirsty and he smelled like peppermint.
No.
I kissed him because the smoke got into my brain and I was mad at Brooks.
No.
I kissed him because he always smiles with his teeth.
No, I kissed him because I wanted to kiss him and I needed something to feel real, feel good, feel like something other than the asphalt spreading through my limbs.
I kissed him because I like him and I’m selfish.
56
6:35 P.M.
At the Ayres Hotel & Spa, Mom tosses her book on the bed. “You’re going to study now?”
“Not study,” I say. “Work on a big-deal, half-my-grade project.”
“School’s closed, remember,” Maya says from the floor, where she’s sprawled out with her right leg in the air, foot pointed. “Vacation time.”
“But vacation time might only last a day,” I say.
Capistrano Unified School District’s Robot Lady called all four of our phones with the thrilling news: School is closed tomorrow because of poor air quality. The status of the rest of the week is still pending.
Beat that, snowy states. Wouldn’t you love a fire day?
Dad sits on the bed. “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” He takes off his watch, rubs his wrist.
My backpack is hanging from my shoulder, and my freshly charged phone is in my hand, ready with the texts Hayden and I exchanged as evidence.
6:01 P.M.: I’m at a hotel in Mission Viejo. Where should I meet you?
6:03 P.M.: The Ayres?
6:04 P.M.: Yes . . .
6:07 P.M.: I’ll meet you in the lobby?
6:08 P.M.: I can come to you!
And his final reply at 6:10 P.M.: Want to make it easy for you, see you around 7.
Neither of us mentioned school being closed, though I bet he knows. I bet we both received Robot Lady calls.
One of the few hotels in the area, the Ayres Hotel & Spa is an oasis for the South OC evacuees who don’t want to sleep on cots at Mission Viejo High School. Five minutes and three exits off the Toll Road, it’s close enough to home to not feel like we’ve totally abandoned hope, yet far enough away to ensure we won’t be waking to another fateful knock in the morning.
Anyhow, my body wants to collapse, but my mind wants to run. Working on my psychology project seems like fair-enough middle ground.
“We’re supposed to present on Wednesday,” I say to my parents. “And I promised Hayden. It’d be rude to cancel.”
“Honey,” Mom says. “I think you should just hang out here. You’re exhausted.”
They’ve deflated since dinner. Driving into the ashy parking lot—the smoke too thick to breathe for too long—and then standing in the distraught crowd of the hotel lobby, I think it finally hit them that, maybe, I wasn’t being totally overly dramatic at dinner.
“It’s for school,” I repeat. “And it’ll help get my mind off of all of this.”
The TV is on and muted. The screen flashes with burning light, and I’m trying not to notice. I move for the door, phone and truck keys grasped tightly in my hand.
“Why don’t you two come up here?” Dad asks.
Maya vetoes that id
ea before I can. “We do not need an extra body in this room.”
Mom looks around, eyeing the packed space. We’re falling over one another as it is. There really isn’t room for anyone else in here. “Well,” she says.
“So I can go? Seriously,” I say, “I feel fine.” And oddly it’s kind of true. I could dance a full ballet and run from school and back. I can’t imagine sitting, chilling out, lying in bed. Who needs sleep when there’s smoke to breathe and adrenaline to expend?
Maya pouts. “You’re going to leave me? What about our microwave brownies?”
“I’ll be back,” I say, and I’m going to offer my final argument, but something flashes on the TV and Dad unmutes and I can’t not listen.
While over a thousand residents of the gated community Coto de Caza were evacuated, a dramatic shift in the winds sent the fire barreling south, toward the neighboring association, Dove Canyon, while also fanning out west deeper into Caspers Wilderness Park. Over three thousand homes have been evacuated across the communities for this single fire. As of now an official count of ninety-three have been lost—
Ninety-three. Ninety-three homes lost, hundreds more at risk.
I can’t breathe.
It’s old footage on the TV—daylight—at least three hours old. Canyons and valleys and gulches we’ve known our entire life engulfed. Neighborhoods we drive by every day. They don’t show our bank, our street, our valley. They show a lonely mansion collapsing on a hillside. They show the street that acts as the border between the wild and the civilized, burning bright. Two ruggedly placed estates reduced to blackened frames.
I need to get out of this room before this sinking swarms me.
“If your house burns down, do they call you?” Maya asks.
Mom and Dad look at me. I should be the expert on these things, but I’m not.
The footage cuts to a night scene, live, a reporter on a street, the fire and the hills behind him. He shouts things over the wind that make me want to plug my ears, but Dad’s clicking the volume up, up, up so I have no choice but to hear.
It’s breaking news. What the stations have been waiting for all day.
A statement has been released by a task force of agencies announcing that Southern California Caspers Fire is officially being declared arson. There will be a press conference this evening when more information is obtained—FBI agents have secured the scene—if you have any information—
No.
—We are told that a potential point of origin has been identified and evidence uncovered near the trail adjacent to Coto De Caza and Cleveland National Forest gate—more information to come—FBI—secured scene—come forward with information—
I have to leave.
“I love you,” I say.
But they don’t hear me.
I rush to Maya and kiss her hair. She’s blinking at the screen. They’re blinking at the screen. My hand is on the doorknob now, one foot in the hall. I call over my shoulder, “I’ll be back later,” and then I’m running to the elevator, but fuck the elevator, that’ll take too long. I take the stairs.
Arsonist. Arson. Arsonist. Arson.
57
THURSDAY
On Thursday night, after Brooks and I’d hiked out beyond the wind- whipped trail, on the sleeping bag spread across the hard ground, after I said No, stop, don’t, and he did stop, Brooks stayed on top of me for four beats, his weight on his arms. And then, in a breath, he shoved himself away. He said he’d wasted his entire summer in this desert, in this place too dead and artificial to even burn, land not worthy of a fire’s warmth and glory.
And I was thinking how he must have been thinking that he’d also wasted his summer on me, those three months, me too stiff and too dry. I can only sit. I can only listen. I can only kiss. The hot wind splitting my skin, I blinked. Brooks held his Seattle-skyline Zippo to his palm. He struck the flame. Didn’t flinch. Moved it away. Moved it closer. I leapt forward. Grabbed his arm. He pushed me aside, so easily, and I landed on my back, scraping my elbows.
“Cameron told me that the pain was sharp. Scalding.” Brooks laughed, so bitter. “I guess it woke him up. I don’t feel a thing.”
Dirt kicked up in the wind, sticking to my cheeks. I swallowed past the pulse in my throat. “I know you’re lying,” I said. “About Cameron. He didn’t die last year. He was a kid. When he died, you were both kids.”
His green eyes didn’t flinch from mine. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
This wasn’t how I’d planned to confront him, but then again I’d never really had a plan. “How did Cameron die, Brooks?”
Brooks clenched his Zippo. “Like I said.”
“Stop lying.” I cracked. “He’s in every story you’ve told me about yourself,” I said. “All you talk about is you and fire, fire and him. It’s how I know you. And you’ve just been lying.”
“Stop talking,” he said.
“Did you kill Cameron?”
His left eye dripped. “How could you ever ask me that?”
I didn’t have an answer. A gust slammed down the canyon. It knocked over jars, whipped our hair into our faces and dust into our eyes. A lit candle fell on dry grass. A tiny spark, an almost start.
“It’d be so much easier for you if I killed him, wouldn’t it?” Brooks asked. “I’d finally fit into this broken narrative you’ve created for me. That’d make you happy. If all along you were dating a cat-burning beast. You’d get to be the hero of this story.”
I choked. “You burned Miss Cat?”
He laughed dryly. “Is that what you want to hear?”
Rocks bit into my skin, my head, me. Brooks stood. He was pacing around the circle of mason jar candles, most blown out. His gaze pointed up to the silky, crystalline sky, the blazing stars. His fists were clenched.
But then he was kneeling at his backpack.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“I want to show you something.”
58
6:49 P.M.
“Audrey!” Hayden jogs from the hotel doors. He’s backlit from the orange glow of the lobby, making it hard to see his face. “Wow. Déjà vu, right?”
Brooks said it was okay. He said it would be fine. I’ve stayed quiet and I’ve stayed low. Has the word arson blasted through Luis’s bedroom? I’m laughing now, hysteria hot in my throat. Mom was right. What she said at dinner. Shock. I am in shock, and a new wave has hit.
Arson. Arsonist. Arson.
I need to do something. What do I do?
And it’s ridiculous—the repetition. Hayden drove me home less than twenty-four hours ago. He followed me out of the party when I was almost crying but not yet crying. And then this morning he chased me down to my truck to ask if I needed his help, which I declined. And like a fool, just now, I charged out of the stairwell and darted through the hotel lobby—almost knocking into people, almost tripping over luggage and toddlers.
“I was going to call you.” I hold up my phone in defense, though he wasn’t who I was going to call. “Like, just now.”
He nods. “Okay.”
“Have you heard from Grace?” I ask.
“They’re camping in Pismo Beach tonight—with school cancelled, they’ll do Big Sur tomorrow—though they’re definitely busted. But she’s happy, and Quinn is elated.”
“Good. That’s really, really good to hear.”
His eyes are so tired. “Are you okay?”
We might as well be standing on Derek Sanders’s driveway. The wind is hot, licked with smoke, dropping ash like rain. “It’s kind of,” I say, “been a really bad day.”
He’s messing with the strap on his backpack, unable to stand still. “I would be surprised if you said otherwise.” And his exhaustion, his frantic movements—suddenly it hits me.
I press my hands against my eyes, but I alrea
dy know it. I know it’s true. “You were evacuated, weren’t you?”
He laughs. “I don’t hide emotions well, I guess.”
“Grace didn’t text me.”
“It happened after she left, and she’s taking it well, focusing on the road trip.” He rubs his neck. “It was a voluntary evacuation. Not mandatory.” He winces and closes his eyes for the smallest of moments, as if remembering that mine was mandated at five this morning. “My parents are just playing it safe.”
“I’m so sorry,” I say.
“You have no reason to apologize.”
My breath snags. I have every reason to apologize. “You want to go somewhere?” I ask. “Like, somewhere that’s not here?” Hayden nods, gestures to his Accord, but I add, “I’m driving.”
59
Offense Cycle
When I think of arson, I think of firebombs thrown into downtown buildings or gasoline dumped on brittle foothills. I think of middle-aged men and women with decade-old grudges. I think of the act and the aftermath, with no consideration of the before or the motives.
But it turns out that motives are everything, and a high percentage of arsonists are minors.
Friday night, after dinner with Brooks, I found a training manual from the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services online. Supposedly, every year in the U.S., fire kills more people than all other natural disasters combined. And apparently, 40 percent of individuals arrested for arson are under the age of eighteen. And supposedly, fire setters are typically less assertive, less intelligent, less physically aggressive, and more socially isolated.
I’d like to email the Washington State Department of Social and Health Services on that last one. Ms. Bracket says it’s dangerous to generalize. I agree. I demand hard statistics.
Motives are hard to unravel in most cases but typically fall under one of six umbrellas:
Nothing Left to Burn Page 20