“Hey, I don’t know if anyone has told you guys, but we’re packing up early. There’s a fire up on the hill.”
June was too busy holding Aaron’s hand to let those words register with him. Aaron was getting sleepy; lulled by the pitter patter of rain against the tent. June thought it was rather adorable. He was poking fun at him for not being able to pull an all-nighter.
“A fire?” Angie half-crawled-half-fell out of the tent. June felt the humid, hot wind flow through the opening. Something bitter hung in the air.
“Where up the hill?” Charlie followed her, leaving June and Aaron alone for a moment.
June wanted to kiss him. He made a move to do just that and was stopped inches from his face by a sharp, surprised gasp—louder than anyone had bothered to talk since they laid down a few hours ago.
“SHIT!” Angie grabbed the material of the tent and yanked it back, voice growing more unstable. “June, get out here!”
Their bliss fluttered way like a startled bird, and June and Aaron crashed back into reality with enough force to rattle their bones. Aaron got out first, immediately stretching to his feet and turning to face the south. June was a second behind him, getting blasted with a gust of rain and the acrid tang of distant smoke. Not a campfire kind of smell, but a burning chemical one. He squinted, gripped Aaron’s shoulder; followed his gaze to the side of the mountain not far from here. There was nothing at first, but as June’s eyes adjusted, he could see the blurry outline of smoke rising in a massive, wide plume. At the base of it, there was a pulsing, marmalade orange glow.
“You don’t think…” Aaron was the first to say something.
“No,” June insisted, but his body was already reacting. He stepped back a foot, head whipping around to look up the shore toward the line of cars that had been parked there last night. Many of them had already left, making it easy to spot Aaron’s red convertible. “There’s no way,” June said again, mostly to himself.
Aaron must have caught the urgency in his position or the fear in his eyes because he dipped back into the tent swiftly, fumbled around for a moment and came back with their wallets and keys.
“Come on!” he ordered, making June flinch. Angie and Charlie were giving each other worried glances. Looking back at the tent and all their belongings and then deciding that whatever was burning may or may not be more important.
“We’re coming too,” Angie insisted.
Lightning flashed, and thunder snarled a loud, booming roar that followed them up the shore. They made a beeline through the trees and straight to the old asphalt road. Aaron unlocked his car, the four of them shuffled in, and they took off spitting rocks and pine needles in their path.
They’d never driven the roads around the lake so fast.
All June could think was how he knew, already, just a couple miles from the ice cream shop and then another uphill climb to the neighborhood. He knew before they passed the house on the hill where his favorite old dog liked to greet him, that this was it. Somehow. He knew. Before they heard the sound of sirens. Before they rounded the corner onto their street. Before the smoke and rain were so dense, they couldn’t see much ahead of them. Before Aaron stomped on his breaks and came inches from hitting a police officer in the middle of the road.
He gestured furiously at them to turn around.
Aaron didn’t even turn his engine off before June gripped the door handle, threw it open and launched himself outside. He heard Angie scream something at him but couldn’t understand the words as he took off in a sprint. Bare feet scraping rough and painful, lungs tightening with each breath, heart hammering hard now.
This wasn’t happening. There was no way this was happening. Please for the love of God—
A wave of heat hit him like a heavy blanket first, and then a gust of wind that kicked up ash with it. The policeman that had stopped them up the street had followed him; was prepared to tackle him if he didn’t stop on his own. June only just noticed his face from the corner of his eye; it was the same man that had escorted him home many times before. Ironic.
Fifty yards away from him, burning magnificently to the ground, was the cabin.
Violent flames licked their way over the wooden porch, crawling and leaping from overgrown branches to the roof and the debris that clogged the gutters. There was pulsating, red heat coming from beyond shattered windows like a heartbeat. The plastic planters by the front door were dripping, molten and melted beneath the charred mint plant. The old siding was scorched black. The rose bushes under the house were crackling and popping; patches of embers between them protected from the rain. Everything moved faster than he’d imagined possible.
The maple tree that stood bravely, timelessly beside the house, was nothing but a swirling inferno.
June’s first thought was that his cat was going to die, and he had to save him somehow—Quail didn’t deserve a death like that. He was such a timid and peaceful little creature. June’s second thought was he didn’t have a chance in the world of getting past the two huge firetrucks and multiple firefighters attempting to calm the flames before they engulfed the entire mountain.
He took a single step forward, and a familiar hand gripped him by the elbow harder than it ever had before. June turned, confused and stunned to see Aaron glaring back at him. His jaw was shut tight, his emerald eyes blazing the same way they had last night. The only difference now was they burned with a new intensity that mirrored the fire itself. His hand—no—his whole body was shaking with strain.
June must have been holding his breath because when he finally sucked in some air, it felt like he was going to choke. He broke off in a fit of coughing, hunching over and pressing a hand to his chest. His stomach was rolling like the thunder in the distance. Not crickets this time but an ocean of panic, drowning him. Making him see little tiny sparkles like shooting stars in his eyes. The ground shifted, and he stuck his free hand out to grab something—anything. Came up short and collapsed to his knees instead.
Aaron was right there with him, holding him, grounding him. Rasping out something he couldn’t understand beyond the ringing in his ears. June thought he might throw up for a moment; he wrestled with the wave of nausea until it passed. He tried to breathe in again. Another coughing fit. He looked back toward the house—his home—and saw years of his life flashing before his eyes.
Running through sprinklers in the lawn, playing board games with his siblings in the living room, sneaking out of the back window. His mother cooking, his father scolding him for tracking dirt in, his best friend laughing so loud she cried. Learning how to swim. Learning how to drive. Learning how to live. His every good milestone like clockwork. His dreams. His nightmares. His hope.
His first real love.
The porch beside the house groaned under the pressure, and although June’s eyes burned and the policeman was now physically trying to lift him to his feet, he still managed to see it snap and crumble. It collapsed in two pieces, taking the entire wall with the sliding glass door away from the rest of the house. It fell directly into the maple tree. Fire and embers exploded into the living room. The carport on the other side of the house went next. It fell inward into the kitchen with a crash.
Another flash of lightning. Another memory.
June, unexpectedly, deliriously, started laughing. He covered his eyes with his hands, hung his head, and broke down into emotions he’d never experienced before. He laughed until his throat hurt. Till he was in full-blown hysterics.
He didn’t remember much after that. Just the weightlessness of two people dragging him back to the car. The sound of Angie’s voice, broken and lost. He remembered a fireman close enough to them, saying something about how the tree in the yard had been too dry to withstand being struck by lightning. He remembered the coolness of air conditioning and then looking over to see Aaron desperately trying to keep it together while he drove them out of there.
Eighteen years, and suddenly all June had to prove for it was the six photo albums
sitting in his parent’s den on the bottom shelf. Eighteen years of struggling to find himself. Eighteen years of friendship and love. Mistakes and triumphs. Eighteen years.
That’s all June had.
Maybe it was good the house burned down now. Because how could June cease to exist in this world knowing he was giving it up? With no cabin and no more summers, he could go peacefully. That had always been the plan, right?
He’d come here to say goodbye.
The police officer followed them back to Ms. Delgado’s house and talked to her for a long time about the events that had occurred. He used words like tragedy and unfortunate, and we’re contacting the owners to let them know. All things that made Aaron’s heart ache and made him worry for June’s level of stability.
They holed themselves up in Angie’s living room, swathed in blankets and not speaking to each other despite the obvious desire to be comforted. Aaron didn’t know what to say, and Angie was an entirely different kind of upset. Whether she had the right words or not, she couldn’t get them out in complete sentences. Charlie, uncomfortable as ever, had left with her truck to gather the camping gear from down at the lake.
June was eerily silent, staring at the walls like the very soul had been sucked from his body. He stayed like that, oblivious to everything going on around him until Angie’s mother came over and forced him to lay his head down in a pillow. It took a while, but he eventually fell asleep, and Aaron felt relieved for the time being.
He figured it was his duty to pick up the phone and call his parents. They may have already been notified by the police, but that didn’t mean they knew their only son had made it out unscathed. They’d be trying to call him (and while his phone didn’t work here anyway, it should be noted it was left in the cabin, thus destroyed). They’d be worried all the way to the moon and back.
Ms. Delgado handed him a cordless home phone, and he dialed his mother’s number by heart, slipping out the back door and into the neatly groomed yard. It was still raining, but a large metal overhang shielded him from the worst of it. He sat on an old porch swing with a sigh. Smoke still lingered in the air.
Aaron’s mother didn’t even know about June. She didn’t know Aaron had been here, falling in love and making new friends this whole time. She didn’t know he’d managed to get over his fear of the dark. She barely knew anything. Hell, she probably didn’t even know him anymore.
The phone rang once before she picked up, voice frantic and louder than normal.
“Hello!?”
“Hi, mom.” Aaron swallowed.
“Oh, my God. Thank God, tha—Jerry! It’s Aaron!”
The sound of his father yelling back at her and coming closer made Aaron worry that they’d been waiting a long time to hear his voice. It made him wonder where they were at this point too, considering they both had jobs that required a lot of travel. It was unusual for them to be in the same place at the same time.
“Aaron, are you okay?!” she demanded of him. “We got a call that the cabin burned down!”
“I’m okay.” He tilted his head back and stared at the grey sky. It was also unusual for it to rain like this here. The summer so far had been void of the monsoon season. “I’m okay. It’s okay. I wasn’t in the cabin when it caught on fire.”
“Where in the hell were you?” she breathed. “They said it started at four a.m.”
“I was down at the lake, camping with my friends.”
There was a long pause, the shuffle of a cell phone between two sets of ears listening. He could hear a hollow echo of his voice, and it made him think they put him on speaker. His father spoke next.
“You were…camping?”
“Yeah.” He ran a hand through his greasy hair. He still smelled like lake water and had sand stuck to his skin under his swim trunks.
It was a shame he had to tell his parents he’d gotten over his fear now. He’d been looking forward to feeling proud of himself for it. Under these circumstances, he didn’t have it in him.
“I got over my fear,” he said. Like it was the simplest thing in the world.
Another long pause.
“How?”
“I’m proud of you, honey,” his mother whispered. There was little strength to her voice. Almost like she couldn’t believe him. And really, why would she? She’d put up with his anxiety and panic just as long as he had. His father’s reaction made more sense, although Aaron couldn’t explain the phenomenon of June and his blindfold right now.
“Oh, and I’m gay,” he blurted out.
This time their silence was suffocating. If he weren’t so tired, he’d of cared a lot more about what they might be thinking. Best to get the emotional turmoil over with though. Best to let them stew on it over the phone rather than in person where he could see the judgement in their eyes.
No doubt his family loved him; he didn’t expect them to be mad, maybe just confused or skeptical.
“H-How did you find that out?” his father asked. A loaded question.
“I met a guy. We started dating.” Aaron almost added that he loved June, but he bit his tongue at the last second.
“Aaron, are you sure you’re okay? You’re not in the hospital, are you?”
He cracked a very small, depressing smile. There was a knot of emotion stuck in his throat, threatening to choke him. He hadn’t cried yet. Talking to them wasn’t helping.
“I’m fine,” he breathed; his voice wavered. “Well, I’m not fine. But that doesn’t have to do with the fire.”
“Oh, Honey…”
“You should come home, Aaron. We’re at the airport now. We can be home with you tomorrow.”
He shook his head; heavy tears were beginning to form. Why was talking to his parents so hard? Why did he feel like they never understood? It wasn’t like Aaron was complicated or troublesome; he was a good kid. Good kids weren’t supposed to feel rejected for no reason like this.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do.” That was the honest, painful truth. Aaron didn’t know what was going to happen to June and him now. With nowhere to go except back to their respective towns, their summer was cut short.
This was hell.
“I gotta go.” He scrubbed the back of his arm across his eyes. Voice wobbly and broken. “I—I’ll call you again when I know more.”
“Aaron, wai—”
He hung up on them before he lost his nerve. They knew he was okay. They knew the cabin was destroyed. They could deal with this in whatever way they had to now, but he had to deal with this on his own.
Aaron was too caught up drowning in anguish to hear the sound of the porch door opening. He didn’t notice Ms. Delgado until she was at his side, sitting beside him and placing a hand on his back. She rubbed wide, loving circles there. The touch was warm and very unlike his parents, who typically battled with things like this rationally; with words instead of actions.
“Would you like a shower?” she asked him, heavy accent trailing her words. “You will feel better after a shower.”
Aaron didn’t think that was true, but he nodded anyway and let her lead him back into the house.
Aaron stayed by June’s side through the worst of it. The next twenty-four hours after they’d watched the house burn, turned into a whirlwind of grief. Each one of them was dealing with it in a different way. Angie was quiet and weepy, never fully breaking down into sobs but ultimately shedding just as many tears as the rest of them. She wanted to talk about it some, but no one else was up to the task. Especially not June, who was so unpredictable it was even hard to look him in the eyes.
At one point, he accidentally dropped a glass while taking it out of the cupboard, and Aaron watched him then proceed to shove his arm into the shelf and launch every other glass onto the floor as well. Some of them were heavy ceramic and withstood the fall, but most of them shattered into hundreds of pieces all over Ms. Delgado’s floor. And bless that woman, her patience was endless. She’d gotten down beside June and taken him in her arms, wh
ispering words in both Spanish and English. She’d kissed his forehead, pressed his face into the crook of her neck, and let him ride out the anger and resentment until it fizzled like smoke in the rain.
Aaron hadn’t let June out of his sight after that. He remained there, trying to mimic the level of comfort she’d given him and realizing this was the first time he’d shouldered the weight of something so monumental before. He wanted to be strong for June. Wanted to light the path for him, just as he’d done for Aaron so many times before.
You could imagine Aaron’s heartache when June finally approached him, looking more human and less like the shell he’d resided into. He’d uttered out the words Will you drive me to the airport? It was late. Angie and her mother had fallen asleep together in the master bedroom because June and Aaron had been told to share her bed for the night. He’d stared at June, feeling like every piece of glass that hit the floor earlier, and couldn’t even begin to think of something to say in response.
Aaron knew they couldn’t stay here forever. They both had lives to get back to and at this point, moving forward was their only chance at crawling out of the hole they’d fallen in. That didn’t make it any easier. He had no idea what was going to happen to them once June got on a plane. He was too afraid to ask.
“We can go in the morning,” June clarified; his eyes were cast down at the floor. It was the first real sentence he’d said to Aaron since the fire.
What could Aaron do, other than nod?
They spent the night side by side, not daring to sleep but too afraid to talk to each other and break the dam that held back their every, boiling emotion. They touched instead. Gentle hands slipping back and forth over each other’s skin and lips kissing, chaste and faint together. Aaron wasn’t sure if it healed him, or wounded him a hundred times worse, but he wasn’t about to let their last night together go without affection. He held June, arm going numb under the weight of his shoulder, and tried to convey just how much he loved him with eyes alone. They didn’t bother with sex or anything that would require more effort, but they did sink further and deeper into each other’s souls than perhaps they ever had before.
The Maple Effect Page 44