Let It Burn

by Dee Ellis

  “A thousand, maybe a little more. I expected to have to give a kidney and maybe moonlight as a hired gun to afford a place in this city.” My laugh was dry and got stuck in my throat.

  “Done. A thousand. Will you have much to move in?” I blinked again at Deacon, certain I had heard him wrong.

  “Back it up a second, sir. Deacon. Did you just say it’s in my range? No, I have literally nothing yet to move in. I mean my clothes, my books of course. The necessities. Rent though. I mean...I...do I owe you the kidney?” My eyes swung between the two, somehow feeling like I was missing something.

  “Oh pet.” Sara laughed and came to hook her arm through mine again.

  Then they were talking about what I would need and Deacon was stating he could have the place furnished in a few days if that was okay. Still waiting for the catch to come, I listened quietly as they talked, Sara leading most the conversation.

  Suddenly I was signing a rental agreement and Deacon was telling me where to drop rent off. That if I needed something fixed, his son was always close by. That same son could help me move anything if I needed.

  Then Sara was telling me how great his son was, a fire fighter too but still I was waiting. Something more was to come. I’d be rooming with someone. Or putting up with some strange clause. I read over the rental agreement repeatedly. Found nothing out of the ordinary. I watched them warily before Deacon set a pair of keys in my hand.

  “Charli,” Deacon laughed gently, the sound musical to my ears, “good things happen sometimes. To the right people. I learned a little about you through Sara. Who is an expert in research so don’t believe you didn’t have that job and this place before you even set foot in Chicago. Her feeling is the same I have. You are good people; from the sounds of it, it's time you get the good stuff other people were keeping you from. Let me know when you’re ready to move in, I’ll have Cage get the place painted and have Regan furnish it for you.” Handsome and a seemingly good guy.

  “Thank you si--Deacon. I can’t...I mean I can’t really tell you how huge this is for me. I thought it would be months before I found a place. Let alone was able to furnish it. Figured it would be me and some cardboard boxes and pizza for a while. I... I know its business to you sir, but its life changing to me and... I’ll pay for the paint and help if you’d like. The furniture too of course.” I knew I was babbling and they both laughed as we headed out, Deacon placing a heavy hand at my back that reminded me of my father for some reason I couldn’t place.

  “Charli. My wife and I love sweets. Sara says that you might be talented in that arena. Pay us in the unhealthiest way possible. I love donuts,” He laughed and patted his trim stomach, eyes twinkling, "Gwen loves cakes. I just hate to see the place empty; it’s a house meant to be lived in.” With a long wistful look at the cute cottage, he gave my back another pat and we shared a look.

  I knew then how important the place had been to him. It had been his family’s home. The house I had left back home held the same fondness for my family, which was why I hated it now. Well, hate was a harsh word, really. It was painful to walk around a house full of memories.

  The first time Cash brought his baseball team home after a big win. The camp outs Colton and I used to have in a tent in our back yard. My first prom, with Tucker of course, my mother and daddy going through two rolls of film. A time when my mother and daddy shared a long look across the kitchen before he swung her into his arms and danced to no music. Each room held endless memories and I couldn’t take it anymore.

  It was overflowing with bittersweet memories. Of two different lives; one before tragedy changed the path of my life, and the life after. Neither of which were really ever what I wanted for my life. I had the choice taken away from me. This house, with so many memories for Deacon and his family, was different. It no doubt had bad memories but he could see only the good. In that look, I saw he wanted someone else to be able to build good memories here too. It was more than I could ask for and I was going to take it.

  We said our goodbyes, with Deacon promising his son, Cage would arrange for painters before daughters Regan and Tegan furnished it. I assured him I would be ready to move in within the week. The sooner I could settle in, the sooner I could start believing this was really my reality. Really my life.

  A path I had chosen and no one else could change for me. Also I hardly wanted to spend more time at the hooker hotel than I had to. Nightly moaning and thumping against my walls had grown old.

  “Perfect match you an’ the place, I think.” Sara murmured as the stood on the sidewalk, peering up at the cottage.

  “I think so too. I can’t...this is scary and amazing and I don’t know why things are falling into place for me. Just sort of waiting for something to ruin it. Kind of how things go for me, Sara.” Sara had arrived with Deacon so we were forced to walk back to the library.

  This was fine with me. For one I needed the few blocks to let this all sink in. I had a job, one I was certain could not be more perfect. I now had a place to call mine. One that did not involve a kidney or any killing on my part. Soon I would be settled in to a brand new life.

  As we walked past the lively neighborhood, full of diners and pubs and shops, I could barely contain my excitement. If something was going to ruin it, take this feeling of freedom and exhilaration away from me, it was going to do so with one hell of a fight from me. I wanted something for myself, wanted to be selfish for once in my god damned life. I no longer had to live for my family, for Tucker or anyone else. That life was over.

  After a busy day of learning the routine with Sara, in between discussions about the new place, I was exhausted. I loved it though. Loved doing something that felt like me. Baking sweets, which had been my mother’s love and never mine, was exhausting in different way. An empty to-the-bones fatigue.

  This exhaustion was from talking about books and life and aspirations. With people who knew nothing of my tragedies and didn’t have to pretend to care. It was fulfilling in a way nothing I had gotten to experience ever had been.

  When I shoved into the hotel room that would be home just awhile longer, I was happy. Excited that the dingy four walls and tiny bathroom were no longer all I had to look forward to. Thrilled someone like Sara had found their way into my life. I loved to listen to her talk about the city and the library and her hopes for the kids who frequented it. Her heavy Irish brogue was melodic and warm.

  Today she explained the after school programs she had championed that were finally finding purchase with some kids. Computer labs with courses on everything from creating resumes to detailed financial spreadsheets were offered, as well as language courses and even painting and creative writing classes.

  “Now our focus is this mentoring program,” Sara was explaining a few days into my first week at Washington. “A chance for a few very different trades to talk with the kids, get them on the right path towards building something for themselves. We have a few mentors lined up, it all starts next week. Is it something you would be interested in overseeing?” Right away I knew I would absolutely be excited to be in charge of it.

  “Why...why me? It sounds like you have the project well in hand, I don’t know if my coming in now could be of...” Sara leveled a look at me over sushi; she had insisted I try it and that was my new mantra. Try new things.

  “Nonsense, pet. I have plenty to keep my plate full, which is precisely why I needed you. I have a few mentors ready to go for the next month or so, and I can explain the basics of the program. It’s so early in to it. I think it would be a great project for you to get under. Make your mark at Washington.” Dipping her Uni into a pool of soy, she pointed her chop sticks at me then took a bite.

  “Sara,” For some reason as I picked at my own plate of sushi, wishing it were maybe battered and fried, my eyes flooded with tears, “this might sound insane or ungrateful. Why do you have such blind faith in me? I barely had the guts to try sushi because it’s like nothing else I would have done before.” I swiped my
fingertips over my eyes hastily; I was a lot of things, but weak or pathetic had never been on that list.

  “Oh pet. I joked with Deacon about feelings, remember? When you reached out to me for the position at Washington, like he said, I did research. Like I always do. Before you told me, I knew about your family, about your...about Tucker. Not the details of course, just what was on paper. The very first email you sent me, after the application process had begun, I had already begun interviews.” She smiled warmly at me, her hand reaching to stop mine from fussing with my sushi, “Then I read that lovely email. It was more than a hello email, even though it was just a few paragraphs. You are a talented writer, Charli,” I knew my face flushed because I felt hot and her words felt so important I focused on her bright, watery green eyes.

  “In those few paragraphs somehow you let me know that you wanted more than a job. You wanted a chance at life. You wanted to choose something for yourself and you needed it more than you could let on. That is why I have faith in you. Because once upon a time, I left the most beautiful village you might ever see because there was not a shred of myself left in my life. We all need something for ourselves. You want to succeed; you want to prove that you can own something as bad as I did when I took a flight to the US with nothing but hope and some pride. I have faith in you because once, I had to have faith in myself when no one else did.”

  “Sara,” Again I swiped at my eyes because now both our eyes were watery, “thank you. For...for the job, for the cottage. Really though, for letting me take a chance, even if I fail. I need a chance to fail, to try things. Thank you. I can’t.... you might be my sweet Irish fairy godmother.” We laughed and she shoved my sushi at me.

  “Don’t forget mouthy and inappropriate, Charli. Speaking of, how lovely to look at is your new landlord? If I didn’t love Gwen like a sister, Jesus the things I’d let Deacon do to me!” Then we were laughing, the tears different as she carried on about him and his apparently equally hot son.

  Before the end of the day, we were deep into the mentoring program and I knew it was a perfect fit for me. Besides knowing what it was like to want a chance at something, which this program could offer, it was a great way for me to make my mark here. Just like Sara said. If I could create a program with a positive impact on the kids here, it would prove to Sara and myself I made the right choice.

  After a midafternoon talk with Deacon, where we talked about furniture and painters, I could not have felt more like I had in fact made the right choice. I could move in within the next week and had his promise it would be all ready to go. I had to promise to drop him some donuts, homemade of course, at his fire house and I was all too glad to throw an apron back on.

  Most of my night was spent outlining the program and going over the mentors Sara had lined up for the first week. It was to be an eight-week program but so far we had just five mentors lined up. It was an additional life building program offered to the high school students Sara was so passionate about building futures for.

  The mentors each had a week to speak to the kids who signed up, which so far was a good number. During that week they would hold sessions with smaller groups of the kids, to allow more one on one time. There would also be visits to businesses, when positions allowed for it. This would allow chances for the kids to get a feel of what their day-to-day was.

  My first task was to fill out the rest of the weeks with mentors, as we were short a few. At the moment, we had two men Deacon had offered; his son Cage would lead the first week and a police officer named Blake Stiles would lead the fourth week. The second week was a doctor friend of Sara, whose name made her blush every time I mentioned him, and the third week was a basketball coach.

  The kids could choose who to spend time with actually shadowing on the job, but they got to visit with each of the mentors during the lectures. With a little of my background, I had an idea of who else would be interesting to tap for mentors. With that in mind, I wrote up a proposal to pitch to possible mentors. By the nights end I had a really good feeling about the program.

  Ignoring the thumping and moaning from next door, I ordered in some food when it got late. Ordering in food was the smallest most trivial thing but it was new for me. Back home the most you could order was a pizza or wings. Pretty basic staples for my little town in Iowa. It was a tiny town, just two-thousand residents and it felt like a small town.

  When I had been very young, mama used to joke they rolled the sidewalks up at dusk. It wasn’t entirely inaccurate; most businesses back home closed early and opened even earlier. With a lot of farmers populating the area, most the town operated around their schedule. We had the tiny library, two grocery stores on either end of the town and less than ten restaurants that weren’t mom and pop shops.

  Everyone was sure they knew everyone and their business. It was the main reason I had always wanted out. The first time I kissed a boy, Jared Blair in the sixth grade, my entire block knew by the time I got home. I hated the talk and the muttering that went on when I walked down the street. My entire life had been made up of expectations. Not my own.

  When I began dating Tucker, it had been mostly because it was expected. He was handsome and funny but I’d known him most my life. Our parents were close, my brother’s best friends with Tucker and his brothers. It was as if I never had a choice in it.

  “Does it matter that I know for a fact Ryder Blair catches your eye every single time he’s in the room?” My mother had asked after I had accepted Tucker’s proposal.

  “What? No he does not,” Ryder was Jared’s older, hotter brother, and the black sheep of the family, “I mean...maybe because I don’t understand him. He’s different.”

  “So, Cupcake, are you.” My mama married young and though she had adored my daddy, I knew she didn’t want the same for me.

  “Not like Ryder. He’s...different than everyone here. Just like his mother; they got out because there was nothing here for them. There are some of us that will get out. Some of us who don’t want to. And some of us who just don’t have the choice.” My ring had caught the light and I knew I was crying because I knew which one I was.

  “Oh Cupcake.” Mom had been sick by then and I could sense the sadness that was deep in her bones.

  It wasn’t about being sick, that sadness. It was about regrets. When I was little she had a hatbox that had never held a hat in it. It was full of the dreams she had tucked away as a young girl. Photos and postcards of places she wanted to go, tiny bottles full of dirt or sand from the places she actually saw. Scraps of paper with words that meant nothing really, but to her meant everything.

  It was about her knowing my daddy loved her so much he resented sharing her with us. Oh he loved us, in his way, but his abandonment would always make me question how much. Her sadness was about me accepting that I had to live the life everyone expected me to.

  “Charli. You listen to me. You can marry Tucker because you love him or because you think you ought to. Or you can find someone like Ryder who makes you feel something you don’t understand. Who makes you wonder what could be out there. Or you can love no one at all and be just as happy as you want to be,” Mama had not gotten all her dreams but she had been happy, I knew that.

  “You don’t have to accept a life that doesn’t fill you with light and hope and lets your dreams come true however you want them to. Your daddy was it for me, no matter how flawed he is. Your brothers...they will find some way to carry on. When I’m gone...you don’t let this place or my life or anyone else hold you here or anywhere at all.”

  Of course as much as her words had startled me, it felt like I had finally heard the truth. Too soon after, still figuring out what to make of those words, I lost her. Like a fool I’d done exactly what she had told me not to. I stayed while Tucker was off playing hero and I played the bride-to-be for everyone else.

  After my brothers left, shortly after Tucker, my mother’s words came back to me. By then it was too late because I had made a promise. The night before
Tucker had left, I had vowed myself to him in every way possible.

  “It’s us, angel. From this moment on it’s about us. Everything I do is for us.” Tucker had a way with words and as he took the last part of me, sinking inside me beneath the moonlight as we laid in the back of his truck, I had believed him.

  Because I had loved him too. He was handsome, built like the ranch hand he had been, he was golden and blond with bright blue eyes. Everything a hometown boy should be. Polite and sweet, he loved my family and from the first dance during high school, he had loved me.

  Our relationship had been perfect and the envy of all my friends. Friday nights were spent hanging out with our older brothers at bonfires by the river. Tucker was perfect and never expected too much even when I did. The Friday night bonfires gave us a cover to sneak off into the dunes and be alone. Before that night in the back of his truck, Tucker had never pushed.

  Those nights hidden in the dunes had begun with fumbling kissing and seeking hands. How we had never been caught with his hands down my pants or his mouth around my nipple, I had no idea. Every weekend I wanted more because I felt heat and need build in me with every stroke of his fingers and swipe of his tongue against mine.

  The first time I stroked him to orgasm, I had all but mounted him I had wanted him so badly. We had been together so long and had pleasured each other plenty of ways. Tucker never asked for and frankly, never seemed to want more. I had wanted him to prove he wanted me, that he loved me the way I thought I did him. It seemed Tucker knew better for both of us and so we waited.

  Sometimes I had wondered why he took me the night he left, knowing what I knew now. Now I had figured it out, I thought. Tucker did love me, just as much as I loved him. Which was never enough. Would never have been enough to make a future for both of us. But he wanted to try. So that night he had meant what he said. I truly believed that.

  His choice to join the army was his way of proving to me he was going to try. Tucker wanted to get us out of that town so we had a chance for something different. He also wanted to find out for himself if he could love me the way he knew I needed. It had been perfect for a few moments but soon, I had realized what he would take so much longer to admit.