by Kira Blakely
I didn’t answer. Didn’t want to. Wanted to keep a firm distance between me and the others. Someday, hopefully not soon, we’d be together on the front line. And if anything bad happened to them—as had almost happened to my best friend, currently in the hospital back home in Alabama—I didn’t want it to affect me. Not like it had.
It had run me out of town.
But the past had a way of doing that to you. Of forcing you to carry it around with you. Of making you feel you shouldn’t be allowed to live another second.
Chapter 2
Sarah
I sobbed myself into exhaustion on the front porch. I was bleary-eyed, weak, realizing I hadn’t eaten in nearly two days, since the breakup had begun. Josh had started the conversation in that super-smart, smarmy way guys liked, saying that he felt he was holding me back, that he didn’t think we really “connected” anymore. Were these words he thought women liked to hear?
Was this supposed to “let me down easier”?
Josh and I hadn’t been together long, really. It had been around Christmas, nearly six months ago, when we made things official. And even then, I’d always sensed he wasn’t really in it. Could I say he was using me for sex? Sure. Could I say I was using him so I didn’t feel so alone? Perhaps.
But in the end, it never feels good to be left alone. And that’s how I felt, there at my front porch steps, in the house I could hardly afford in Fountain Square. I pieced together the rent and other bills using money I earned at the nearby diner, where I’d worked for the previous three years. I was sure I would die alone.
Lifting up from the steps, I eased into the kitchen, reaching for the top shelf, where I kept an emergency bottle of red wine. Uncorking it, I poured myself a massive glass—nearly up to the rim—and glugged it like water. Ripping my mouth back, I felt drips of red wine ease down my chin. But dammit, I didn’t care.
After another few sips, I began to come around on the idea of Josh leaving. He’d filled me with torment, asking me to fulfill him sexually and never giving back in return. It had been ages since I’d spread my legs for him, watched his tongue flit around the lips of my pussy before diving into the pink folds. Ecstasy and pleasure hadn’t been strongholds with him in my bed.
And maybe, just maybe, I deserved something a bit more.
Filling a pot of water, I salted it and dropped in a layer of spaghetti. After dropping a skillet onto the side burner, I added tomato sauce, vegetables, oils, and spices, loving the way my brain was feeling fuzzy at the edges. My movements were dream-like, lost. I was going to fuel myself, in all the ways I hadn’t allowed myself in the previous few months. Trying to stay stick-thin for Josh hadn’t allowed for pasta. It hadn’t allowed for pleasure.
And dammit, what was it all for?
I turned on the burners, then grabbed the bottle of wine, filling my glass once more. I flicked on the speaker system in the corner, playing some of my favorite ‘80s pop tunes and strutting around the kitchen, feeling the weight of the breakup fall from my shoulders. The sauce began to sizzle, and I stirred it with a swoop of my spatula, bringing a bit of the red sauce onto my finger and then licking it. It sizzled against my tongue, burning me. And I felt hungry for more.
After a song break, I flung myself into the hallway near the kitchen, abandoning my glass of wine so that I could drink straight from the bottle. I giggled to myself, ripping down the hallway and easing into the bathroom. The bath looked inviting, the porcelain clean and bright. I drew the water, locking the drain and stripping myself naked. Blinking into the mirror, I reassessed my ideas about my body. Pretty, sleek and thin, like a deer’s, with large, milky breasts that had firm, saucer-like nipples in the center.
As the bath began to grow taller, I sipped more of the wine, beginning to toy with my makeup selection, painting on dramatic red lips, using dark purple eyeshadow to highlight my deep brown eyes. Perhaps I would call my best friend, Chelsea, and go out dancing downtown. Perhaps I would head to the Brass Ring bar, just a few blocks away, and flirt with that bartender with the mustache, the one who played jazz music and spoke in a pretentious way about his favorite bands and the best drummers in the world.
When the bath was drawn, I dipped one toe into the center, like a cartoon character. Finding it to be steamy—yet unable to resist its charms—I eased into it, bringing the water up around my neck. Reaching for the soap, I created a bubble bath, bringing my fingers across the surface to swirl the bubbles around.
With my legs spread wide, I began to feel sensual desire course through my veins. With a final swig of the wine bottle, I dropped it, empty, onto the bathroom floor and then brought both hands to the pink softness between my legs, bringing two firm fingers against the tight knob at my clit. Drawing my head back, I felt intense pleasure. Josh certainly hadn’t touched me like that, with such tenderness, in weeks, perhaps months. And I felt myself devolve into animalistic urges.
As I touched myself, bringing two fingers into the soft darkness within, I brought my feet along the edge of the tub. Pressing two fingers against that impossible G-spot, I began to stroke my clit, feeling my body begin to quiver with pleasure.
And just as my body filled with ecstasy, as I allowed myself to forget the horrors of the world around me—the fact that I was abandoned, that I wasn’t good enough for someone—I smelled it.
Burning.
Smoke.
And I knew, somewhere in the dark recesses of my mind, that I’d really fucked myself over this time. There was no going back.
Chapter 3
Theo
The first hour or two of the shift was pure drudgery. Dillon continued to try to reach 200 pushups, drawing his energy thin as he sweated in the corner of the room. A few of the other guys played cards, swapping decks to try to make sure they had a full set. Mason had decided to get to the “bottom” of me, of who I was, and had begun tossing questions like lightning.
“You were in Alabama your whole life, then?” he asked.
“Sure was.”
“Listen to that accent,” he said, chuckling. “You can tell you’re such a southern guy. A real gentleman. I bet you even open the doors for the ladies and all that shit, don’t you?”
“I guess if you’re calling it ‘all that shit,’ you ain’t getting laid that often,” I fired back. He shifted uncomfortably, his eyes becoming slits. I needed to reel it in. But I knew, in that moment, that I’d earned his respect.
“So why’d you leave, then?” Mason demanded. “Why’d you leave this place where you’re apparently getting laid all the time, where you’re the champion of the force, where your entire family is?”
“My brother moved here.” I shrugged, speaking truthfully. There wasn’t any way I was going to tell a shoddy guy like Mason my truth. He didn’t deserve it. Perhaps nobody in Indiana did.
That’s what starting over meant, I reminded myself. It meant you were supposed to regroup. To find peace. To bury your past, for good.
“What’s it like there?” Dillon asked then, pushing up from his stance near the corner, sweat oozing down his forehead. “In Alabama? I never been. Heard it’s hot as fuck.”
“Sure,” I answered, swiping my fingers through my dark blond hair. “It’s hot. Everybody’s friendly, more or less—“
“And the women?” Dillon asked. “Skanks, all of them. Right? Pretty easy?”
My nostrils flared. People in the north did tend to think women in the south were easy, wearing short, booty shorts and stripping for skinny-dipping on the daily. They weren’t far off, of course. My ex-girlfriends had all been sexual beings, spreading their legs wide on the second date, if not the first.
“He doesn’t want us to talk about his sister that way,” Mason said, trying to take the upper hand.
My heart hammered in my chest. With my nostrils flared, I searched for words. But they gave me aggressive eyes, showing me they’d take me down in an instant: all of them, versus me.
That’s when the alarm began to blare.
With my heart hammering in my chest, I bolted toward the locker to don my big, bulky burnt-yellow uniform. The others shuffled around me, their faces growing dark with concentration. Together, we shuffled toward the pole and slid down, our anger from the previous few minutes fell around us like sand. It didn’t matter.
“Address?” Mason boomed, jumping into the driver’s seat.
“Spann Avenue,” Dillon answered, grunting. We leaped into the truck behind Mason. The siren began to blare above our ears, becoming our heartbeat, our pulse.
“Spann?” That was my road, deep in the heart of Fountain Square. “Which number?”
“411,” Dillon replied.
Not mine. My head spun toward the window, watching as cars jumped out of our way. Mason shifted into driving gear and roared down the downtown street, blaring, and whisking us toward the next disaster. I felt resolute, sure, affirmed: finally, I was doing what I was meant to be doing, after so many months of no action.
I felt useful. I felt somber. I felt sure.
Chapter 4
Sarah
“Fuck. No. No!” I jumped up from the tub, my mind finding sobriety quickly and taking on panic, instead. The smoke had begun to filter in through the bottom of the door, first coming in slight gray wisps, but then becoming black and tight, making me cough. My body dripped with water from the tub: water dribbling down my tits, toward my stomach, and onto my thighs. I reached for the doorknob, wanting to peek toward the kitchen—perhaps there was a way out I couldn’t comprehend?—but saw only darkness.
It all came rushing back, then. The sauce in the skillet, steaming. The water and noodles boiling in the pot. The wine, guzzled. I could still hear the ‘80s music, blaring from the speaker. But nobody was there dancing to it any longer.
The singing felt too bright. You could almost see the horrible outfits they’d worn, the bad lipstick, the earrings dangling to their shoulders. I glanced into the mirror at myself, still done-up from the makeup I’d dredged out of the closet, and felt I was in some sort of nightmare music video. I was running from the monster. But now, the monster would swallow me whole.
I smacked the door closed once more as the smoke continued to roar. The fire flickered against the hallway walls, blackening the paint, and making me more fearful than ever. After a brief glance at the single window above the sink, I knew I’d never make it out. It was just a single strip, near the ceiling, more for ventilation than anything. I opened it, knowing this would keep me alive a bit longer. It would clear out a bit of the smoke, keep me breathing.
But it wouldn’t save me, in the end, when the fire nibbled my toes and burnt my hair and made me crispy.
Jesus.
I eyed my clothes on the floor, wondering if I should get dressed. If I should be moral, when people found my body. It felt morbid, considering this. What would they say about me, after I was gone? Would they know that I never really loved Josh? That I hadn’t meant to kill myself, all because of him? Perhaps I could leave a note, with my lipstick sliding across the mirror. I could tell the world that my love was reserved for someone better. For someone with more balls. For someone who would love me the way I needed to be loved.
Of course, all that waiting hadn’t amounted to much. Not if I was going to die.
“HELP!” I began to scream, feeling the tears run down my cheeks. They were salty, thick, and they dribbled against my tongue. “HELP!” But the fire was growing more insistent, loud outside the door, roaring in my ears and making me shiver, despite the intense heat. Unsure, I dipped into the bathtub, wondering if this would keep me safe longer. But then, the thought of being boiled alive overwrought any other fear. I tumbled out, falling to the ground.
What on earth was I going to do?
I couldn’t feel the screams any longer. They just poured out of me, filling my lungs, making my throat raspy. I knew, in these moments, coiled against the tub on the bathtub floor, that I wasn’t going to make it alive. I knew that I needed to kiss my life goodbye. That I would never see my mother again. That I’d never find true love.
Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. The world wouldn’t belong to me. Not anymore.
Chapter 5
Theo
The fire truck bolted down Spann Avenue. I eyed my house, shadowed and dark in the minutes after dusk, and then turned my head across the way. The house that belonged to the young girl I’d seen earlier. The beautiful woman, with her large breasts, her thin waist, her tired tragedy as the boy left her behind—it was her house, burning. Orange flames snuck from the front window and dark clouds of smoke oozed from the back. The house was tiny, with rooms kind of stacked together in a single layer, meaning it was easy to get trapped. After glancing in the front yard, at the collection of neighbors that had grown, becoming voyeurs, I realized the girl wasn’t among them.
Which meant she was probably still in the house.
I grew alert, activated. The moment the fire truck halted, I bolted from the back seat, hunting for the fire hydrant. With a dramatic tug, I brought the hose from the back of the truck and connected it, sensing the other firemen’s eyes upon me. I felt animalistic, alive, working on someone else’s time, rather than just my own. I shot my hand toward the front door, crying out, “Mason! Grab the hose! I think there’s someone in there!”
“How do you know?” Mason cried back, his face red from the heat steaming from the house.
“I live across the street. Come on!”
I raced toward the front door, leaping up the stone steps and nearly kicking the welcome sign that lay, tilted, near the scattered beer cans along the side. I wondered, in the back of my mind, if they were his or hers. How many fires had I been to that involved very drunk people? Too many. And too often, they didn’t make it out alive.
I broke through the door, scattering glass. Even in the doorway, I heard the ‘80s music, still streaming from the kitchen. After a jolt through the foyer, I stood, poised, watching as the fire licked at nearly everything in sight. The refrigerator was already a mere skeleton. The pot and skillet on the stovetop were completely incinerated. The smell of burnt food, of ash, was everywhere, and I immediately donned my mask so that I could breathe. Mason appeared beside me, holding the hose. After a brief pause, he began to blast everything, causing steam to whoosh up toward the crumbling ceiling. Immediately, the ‘80s music grew stifled and turned off, finally falling to death.
Without pausing to watch the rest of the attack, I burst through the side of the kitchen, stepping on hot coals that had once been a dining room table, and then found myself in the hallway. At the far end, a single door stood, closed, with towels peeking from beneath, as if someone had pushed them there, wanting to keep smoke out.
Feeling as if I were in a dream, I trudged toward the door, trying the handle, and then banged on it—not wanting to bust it open and hurt her. My heart raced, remaining somewhere near my throat, as I waited.
“Hey!” I cried, finally knowing I needed to make some kind of human contact. “It’s us. Hey! We’re here to help you!”
After a long, aching pause—during which I began to make peace with the fact that the smoke might have killed her already, or at least knocked her out cold—I heard her soft, intimate voice. It felt like it was coming from another world. A dream.
Not one of my nightmares.
“The handle’s too hot to touch!” she cried.
“Okay. Stand back!” I cried. “Are you back?”
“Yes!” she answered.
We were working together. She was cooperating. She wasn’t unconscious.
I’d gotten there in time.
With all the energy I could, I bolted against the door, cracking it with my shoulder. After another lurch, I managed to break open the door completely, creating a human-sized hole in the center. Blinking through the dark, horrible clouds of smoke, I saw her: quivering, naked, near the sink. On the sink, she’d written a single word: Sarah.
As if she wanted the world to remember her name.
; I broke through the hole, reaching for her. Her eyes were saucer-like, unable to comprehend that I was there. That someone had found her. Her breasts, milky white and round, would fit perfectly in my hands. Wrapping my arms around her thin waist, I thrust her over my shoulder. I grabbed a towel from the floor and dipped it into the bath water. “Put this over your mouth. We’re going to walk through your house to get out. Okay?”
She did as she was told, putting her utmost trust in me. Her muscles still quivered in my arms. Stumbling into the near-black hallway, I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I could still hear Mason’s water, blasting against the kitchen cabinets, the counters. We hadn’t made it there in time; the entire place would crumble to the ground. I’d seen fires like this before.
I knew how they worked. They were like animals, almost organic, like anything else.
Sometimes you just had to let them burn.
Bursting down the hallway, I could feel the wooden floor crumbling beneath me. I yelled out to Mason as I blasted through the kitchen, “We have to go! Come on! She’s the only one!”
Mason gave me a firm nod before following me out the front door. The naked girl—Sarah—bobbed against my shoulder, clinging to my clothes. We appeared in the clean, cool air of the night, in full view of all her neighbors. But as we moved through her house, her muscles grew lax, her mind gave way to unconsciousness. Shock had taken over. Perhaps it was for the best, her body telling her what she should and shouldn’t experience. In my experience, our bodies normally knew best.
I stretched her across the grass beneath the maple tree that lined the edge of her yard. A neighbor fled to his house, finding a bright blue blanket, and then gave it to me. Drawing it over her, I watched as she shifted, child-like, beneath it as if I were tucking her in for the night. After biting her lip, she whispered, “I never really loved him, anyway.”
