Burning With Desire

by Winters, Bella

  I’d been at school a month and I already hated it. It was not nearly as glamorous as I thought it might be. I thought my days would be filled with making friends who were also artists and we’d critique each other’s work and talk about art, while basically doing the same thing in class. I thought we would support each other and have a wonderful thriving community of artists all being together and growing, similar to the music scene in Greenwich Village back in the sixties. That was the vision I had in my head.

  But I quickly discovered that most of the students were not real artists. They were narcissists who craved attention and validation for their mediocre work and talent. They would ridicule anyone they perceived as the slightest threat to their greatness and they would suck up to the professors as much as possible. The professors were the same way. It seemed that the only good artists in the classes were constantly told that they were not good enough. I’d seen a few of them in tears.

  So far, most of the feedback I’d received had been mediocre. But I was not going to let it get to me. I was not going to be beaten down by anyone, including embittered professors who were far past their primes, not that they ever really had any.

  School had turned me a little bitter too. I missed Ricky. I missed Zoe. I missed working on my art without outside interference. I missed creating what I wanted to create and doing it on my own terms. I always hoped others would like it, but deep down it all belonged to me. I had to be happy with it. That was the key.

  “That looks great,” a voice behind me said. I turned to see Angie Cline, my roommate walking into our room where I was finishing up. Angie was one of the relatively sane people in the school. She was timid and shy. She was just starting to really find her stride as a painter, but she was coming along by leaps and bounds. At least I thought so. I wished that she could have been given a good dose of confidence. That would have done wonders for the girl.

  She was the exact opposite of Tessa, who I talked with on the phone at least once a week. I missed her and my old friends. I missed my family. I missed everyone. I wasn’t sure I really belonged here anymore and I was starting to think that I might pack it in and go home.

  “Thanks, Angie,” I said.

  “Do you think Ricky will like it?” she asked.

  “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him in a few days, actually.”

  “I hope you guys are ok.”

  “Yeah, we are fine. He’s been busy and so have I. But now I’ve got this done and I’ll have a few days where I can actually get some time to call him.”

  Angie smiled. I hated lying to her. Things with Ricky were not as good as they could have been. Ever since the fight that day in the park, we had not been quite as close. We still loved each other greatly and we had amazing sex during the last few weeks before I left for school. But I could feel that there was something off in our relationship. There was just something there that was now missing.

  I had actually accused him of trying to get in my way. But I’d felt that. It was why I’d said it. I just shouldn’t have said it then in the heat of the moment. It was really more of a feeling than a thought. I wasn’t even sure I really believed that in any way. I knew I’d hurt him with some of my comments, but he’d hurt me too.

  The long distance thing had been tough. It was so much harder than I thought it could be. Not being with someone would literally make you lose some of the attraction and feelings you had for them. It was like Ricky had started to stale off in my mind just a little bit, and I had to really work hard to try to keep that connection going. The thing that helped most was how unhappy and lonely I was at school. I missed that sweet love we had. I missed Zoe.

  “I’m going to get something to eat. Do you want anything?” I asked.

  “No,” Angie replied.

  I left the dorm room and started walking towards the MoNally’s restaurant on the corner. It was a good burger joint that all of the students frequented. They were close and cheap. And I was starving. I’d started working that morning and I had forgotten to eat during the last twelve hours. I was now famished.

  I was almost to the restaurant when I saw something out of the corner of my eye. It startled me and I stepped back. The walkway was dark since the streetlamp had burnt out. I could see nothing. There was no one else around. I couldn’t help but feel a bit spooked.

  “Who’s there?” I called. I was still a good two hundred yards from the restaurant. And it seemed that everyone else was attending the party in one of the other dormitories. That’s where I wished I was. But work always came first.

  “Oh, don’t be frightened,” the voice said. A man’s voice. All I could see was a dark figure standing in the shadows. Slowly, he stepped forward coming into the slight reflection of the lights from the main walkway. I could barely make him out, but the voice belonged to Frank Murray, a senior in one of my painting classes. He was taking it as an elective since he primarily sculpted. I’d noticed him checking me out several times in class, always giving me a weird eye.

  “Frank?” I asked. “What are you doing? You almost gave me a heart attack.”

  “Sorry,” he said shrugging. “I wasn’t sure if it was you or not. There are a lot of weirdos around.”

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Just out for some fresh air. I was thinking about hitting that party, but it looks kind of lame. I got bored working on my painting. I thought I could maybe get some inspiration on a nice walk around. How about you?”

  “I just finished mine,” I said. “Now, I’m going to grab a bite to eat.”

  “Ah, a bite to eat might sound good,” Frank said. I now hated that I’d given him that conversational thread to pull. “Mind if I join you?”

  “I’m taking it to go.”

  “Ah, that’s no fun. Sit down and eat with me there. It will be our first date,” Frank said with a chuckle.

  I rolled my eyes. “I don’t think so. I have a boyfriend.”

  “Ah, but he isn’t here, is he? It’s funny how girls say they have a boyfriend but the boyfriend never seems to be anywhere around them. And I’ve been watching you, so I would know.”

  “My personal life isn’t any of your business,” I said. “Goodnight.”

  I started walking towards the restaurant. Frank was really irritating me. He gave all the girls in class a weird vibe. There was just something off about him. He was fairly decent looking, clean cut, with a winning smile, but something about the way he presented himself just put you on guard. I could never relax around him.

  Frank stepped in front of me. “Not so fast.”

  “Get out of my way,” I said.

  “No. What have you got against me? You and I could have so much fun together. You do not know what you are saying no to. Hell, I wouldn’t even tell anyone. Nope. I’d keep my lips sealed. It’s a fun way to release tension. What do you say?”

  “No. That’s not happening. Now get out of my way,” I demanded.

  I started to walk past him. Frank lashed out and grabbed my arm, squeezing hard. He got right in my face. I could see rage in his eyes. I couldn’t remember a time when I’d been so scared. But I felt rage rising up through me as well.

  “You aren’t going anywhere until I say,” Frank said.

  I pushed him in the face with my open hand, jerked my right arm free, and slapped him hard across the face. While he was stunned, I kicked him in the knee cap as hard as I could. I missed it and went a little low, but it was enough to cause Frank to howl in pain and start stumbling around in the darkness.

  I turned and started jogging away towards the restaurant. I could hear Frank yelling and laughing behind me. “Was it good for you? You will come around, baby!”

  The damn pig. When I got to MoNally’s I was visibly upset as I sat down in a corner booth. The owner Moe came over to me just then. He was a big man, about six feet five and he weighed at least three hundred pounds. He was also a sweetheart and I’d never seen him be anything but nice to anybody.

&nb
sp; “Are you ok?” Moe asked me.

  I wiped tears from my eyes. “I’ll be ok.”

  “Did someone hurt you? If they did, I’ll take care of it.”

  I shook my head. Frank hadn’t actually done anything except grab me and no one had been around to see him do that. Besides, he hadn’t tried to chase me and he was laughing as if it was all a joke. The jerk was probably just messing around.

  “I’ll be fine,” I said. “But when I leave, could you walk me back to my dorm?”

  “Of course. And your meal is on the house. Whatever you want.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  I ordered a burger and fries. They seemed to help my nerves, plus just being in a friendly, crowded place. I was safe. I was fine. But I was miserable. I missed Ricky so much. What had I done? Had my own quest to achieve a dream really come between the love of my life and me? Had I done some irreparable damage to our relationship? I wanted to talk to him. I wanted him to be there with me.

  I wanted to go home. That was what I wanted most of all. I didn’t really need school. Ricky was right. I was an artist. They couldn’t teach me to do what I was already doing. And I didn’t need stuffy professors telling me what they thought was wrong with my work, just so they could feel superior to me and pretend that they were actually teaching me something. It was all an elaborate ruse and it was all about getting gullible students’ money. That’s what it amounted to in the end.

  After I finished my dinner, Moe walked me back home. I thanked him sweetly and once I was inside, I laid down on my bed and tried to relax. I wanted to call Ricky. I wanted to tell him what a bad decision this was. But I felt stupid doing so. After I’d fought to do this so hard, and after the way I’d stood up to him about his disapproval of me coming to school in New York to begin with, it would look weak of me. I didn’t want to come off that way. Plus, I didn’t want Ricky to hear me being whiney or crying. It would only worry him, and he was probably already worried about me. And with good reason. I’d almost been attacked tonight.

  As I laid there in my brightly lit room, I felt very alone and very scared. What in the world had I done? I wanted to go home.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Ricky

  I almost didn’t see the step giving way underneath me until it was too late. My foot touched down on the boards and my weight continued to sink beneath it. I’m still not sure how I managed to reach out and grab the banister that quickly. That was the only thing that kept me from plunging straight down to the fiery blaze rising up from the basement beneath my feet.

  I held on tightly to the bannister and held my weight in place. While it stabilized, I yelled to the hysterical woman walking in front of me. “Go! Keep going!”

  Roger, one of our crew, was at the bottom of the steps racing up to take the woman out while I steadied myself. I stepped over the hole in the steps and continued to quickly make my way out of the burning house. That was the biggest close call I’d had in a long time, and it had jarred me to my very core. If I’d fallen, I would have landed on a basement filled with junk in storage, all of which was on fire. I would have been done for. If landing on broken wood and nails didn’t kill me, the fire would have.

  I made it outside where I peeled off my gear and sat down on the curb. That was close. I was still shaking from the fear. It was only a miracle that the middle aged woman I was saving had run ahead of me a few steps. Otherwise she would have gone down for sure.

  And I knew why this had happened to me. There had to be signs. Those signs I would have normally seen. But my mind was fried. I’d barely been sleeping. I’d been eating junk food. I was not exercising as much as I normally did. And I was doing nothing to deal with the stress in my life.

  I missed Julie.

  It all came down to how I felt about her. We’d left on ok terms when I drove her to the airport and dropped her off, but I knew that there was a rift between us. I wasn’t sure how big it was and I didn’t know if it could be fixed, but that day in the park we had torn into each other pretty good. She’d said some mean things to me and I’d let my stubborn side come out. We’d never really apologized about it either. We were both too stubborn for that.

  And now Julie had been in school for a month. She seemed to be doing well, but I could tell that there was a hesitation in her voice. There was something that was missing about her. I was used to feeling a sweet glow there when I spoke with her. Maybe it was to do with me and that she was no longer sure I was the right guy for her, or maybe she thought I felt that way about her. That couldn’t have been farther from the truth, but I was still unhappy about the way she handled things.

  Mostly, I was sorry about how this was affecting Zoe. I hadn’t gotten around to hiring another nanny. I wasn’t going to do that to Zoe. She’d been going every day to her friend Stephanie’s house. Her mother Diane agreed to watch Zoe for a small fee every day after school. I could tell that Diane had a bit of a thing for me, and though it made me feel a bit cheap to use that to get cheap, easy babysitting, I did it. I was cordial and grateful, nothing more, but if Diane wanted to let her imagination run wild, then I was fine with that.

  To Zoe it was just a fun time hanging with her best friend. It was good for her. Stephanie was a nice little girl.

  “Shit man,” Harold said coming over to me. “Are you ok? You almost bought the farm in there.”

  I sighed. “Yeah, it was a rough day. But I’m fine. Thanks.”

  “Look man, whatever it is you are dealing with, you need to get it fixed. We’ve all noticed that the lights are on but nobody’s home, if you know what I mean? It’s like you’ve just been checked out lately. You can’t keep going on this way. You are going to end up dead.”

  I knew Harold was right. He was speaking from the heart. The guys cared about me. My head was jacked up lately. And I knew it all had to do with Julie. I needed to talk with her, for real. I had to speak with hear at length and if there was a problem between us, we had to get it fixed.

  When I got back to the station, I showered and thought about a few things. I missed Julie like crazy and it was interfering with my life to not have her here. But she was doing what made her happy. I wanted to be supportive of that, but I would have been lying to myself if I pretended to believe that what she was doing was a good thing. She didn’t really need school to achieve her goals. Going to school was a goal in and of itself. But there were other options she could have pursued. For whatever reason she jumped on this one and became almost possessed with it. And maybe some of this was my fault. I didn’t know.

  When I finished my shower and got dressed, I thought about why I didn’t propose to Julie when I had the chance. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with her. I needed her to be my wife. I wondered if she ever would be. I should have proposed, but I knew it was the wrong time. The way she was talking, it wouldn’t have done any good. She still would have left and it would have made it that much harder and even more like I was trying to get in the way of her achieving her goals. That was the farthest thing from the truth. Every time I thought about that accusation, it made me so angry. I still couldn’t believe she’d said it. Surely, she did not think that.

  As I drove home, I thought about what to do. I’d spoken with Julie a few times, but her phone calls had become less frequent. I sensed that things were not going as well at school as she’d hoped they would, and she was just not going to say anything about it. She probably thought I’d rub her face in it or something. I wouldn’t have. I would have thought that I had been right all along, but I was not going to make her feel bad about it. That would have been childish and petty. I wasn’t vindictive that way.

  On the way to pick Zoe up from Stephanie’s, I decided to stop and talk to Becky. Ben was still at work. Becky was home early that day, so it worked out. I explained everything to her. She hadn’t kept in touch with Julie much since she went to school.

  “Yeah, that is a messy situation,” Becky said. “All you can do is be there for her and mak
e sure she knows that you are there any time she really needs you. I think right now Julie is really scared. She is trying to do something with her life and she feels that she is behind the eight ball. She is really trying to make up for lost time.”

  “Lost time? She is twenty-five.”

  “But she is also in a serious relationship. You are possibly the only man she has ever loved. She sees a serious, long term future for the two of you. And she might be feeling the pressure to make all her dreams happen before she settles down with you and starts that job of wife and mother.”

  “I guess I never really looked at it that way,” I said. “I wish she would open up to me a bit more.”

  “It’s not always so easy. Sometimes when you tell someone your real feelings they are often hurt by them. She might have thought that if she explained all this to you then you would feel like you were standing in her way. She didn’t want to put that kind of burden on you.”

  “She accused me of standing in her way. I’ve done nothing but try to help her. I’ve tried to give her all the support that I possibly can. My mind is so muddled lately. Hell, I made a stupid mistake today and it almost cost me dearly.”

  Becky was alarmed. “Are you alright?”

  I nodded. I explained to her briefly about the fire and what happened to me. “I’m glad you are ok. You’ve got to stop holding on so tight,” Becky said.

  “I just can’t stop thinking about that last conversation and the things she said to me. Some of them felt attacking.”

  Becky nodded. “Well, she might have been deflecting. Maybe she was accusing you of that which she thought you were afraid of doing. Again, I’m not her. I can’t see into her mind, but I was once a twenty-five year old woman. I didn’t know for sure if I wanted to spend my life with Ben. I thought I did, and I was pretty sure I did. But I couldn’t be sure. And if Julie has not had that much experience being in such a serious relationship, she might be feeling a bit boxed in. She is rebelling a bit and stretching her legs. She is trying to find solid ground as herself again.”