Beautiful Burn

by Adriane Leigh

  “It’s okay. Just make sure things are okay there. We’ll do something soon.” Her voice raised an octave at the end. Hopeful. She was trying to give me hope.

  “You’re so good.” I breathed as I sat on the porch step.

  “Yeah?” I could hear the smile in her voice.

  “I don’t deserve you.”

  “I know.” She laughed and my heart sped to a gallop.

  “I need to see you,” I growled, finally letting the frustration get the better of me.

  “Miss me?” She flirted.

  “So fucking much.” I pressed a hand to my head, feeling a headache come on.

  “Maybe next weekend?”

  “I’ve got to go to my sister’s and help them put on a new roof before winter.” I clenched my eyes closed and brushed a palm through my hair, exasperated with the entire situation.

  “The following?”

  “I'm attending a teaching conference in Detroit with a friend. I committed to it, fuck I wish I hadn't. And then the following is Thanksgiving…I could come after class some night during the week? Wine and dine you?”

  “Drive three hours just for dinner? You’d have to turn right around after. No, it’s okay. We can figure something out. I'm usually out of class early on Fridays, or I can take off early sometime.”

  “No, you’re not skipping class to see me. Absolutely not.”

  “You can't tell me what to do.”

  “I like telling you what to do.” The hum that came in reply sent a lightning bolt straight to my balls. “Fuck, I wish you were here right now.”

  “God, me too,” she murmured before I heard rustling on the line.

  “Where are you?”

  “In my bed. My hands are between my legs.”

  “Jesus, Auburn. How wet are you?” My fists tightened and my muscles ached. I was wound tight, desperate for release, desperate for Auburn.

  “God, Reed. I'm drenched.” Her breathing picked up.

  “What are you wearing?”

  “Auburn!” A third voice called as I heard a loud banging on the door.

  “Fuck. Just a second!” She called to whomever had interrupted us. “I have to go, I’m sorry. I’ll call you later?”

  “I don’t know how long I'll be here. I'll text you,” I finished, defeated by the night's sudden turn of events.

  “Okay,” she said quietly. Her friend called her again. “I have to go. Bye, Reed.” She hung up before I could even return the sentiment. I tossed my phone on the floorboards and threw my head back, frustrated and horny and feeling suffocated, exactly like I’d been six months ago. Mel had gotten the best of me again, I knew it, and she knew it, but I couldn’t walk away when she was so vulnerable. I knew what it was like to feel all alone with no one to talk to, and no matter how much I hated her, I still cared enough to stay, if only for tonight.

  I stood and tucked my phone back in my pocket, my mind spinning ways to escape with Auburn, if even just for a few hours.

  twenty-three

  The Wednesday before Thanksgiving we texted throughout the day. I knew she was coming home for the holidays, would be right here in town, we had to make something work, we both hoped so, but it would be tough. Between her family obligations and my own, squeezing out a few private hours could be nearly impossible.

  My parents spent the winter in Florida, but always came home for the holidays. They normally stayed a few nights with Mel and I, we had dinner at our house with both sets of parents and a dozen or more of us with siblings and all, but this year was much more sad than anything else. My mom made a full Thanksgiving meal for just the three of us in my too-tiny apartment. They didn't ask questions, I think they finally realized there was in fact not a light at the end of the tunnel for Mel and I.

  Thanksgiving came and went, quiet disappointment heavy in the air. With my parents retiring early in my room, I settled in to read an essay by a sophomore student when a text came from Auburn.

  I’m outside.

  My heart tightened, my stomach dropped.

  Really? I typed and hit send.

  I needed to see you, just for a minute. I promise.

  Be right down. I responded and rushed to slip on my shoes and jacket as quietly as possible. I took the steps two at a time and turned the corner, my eyes scanning the street for her form. The tiny town was silent, the November wind crisp enough to bite the nose and pink the cheeks. I shoved my hands in my pockets and took a few steps, rounding the corner in the alleyway where Auburn and I had fucked so carelessly this summer.

  It all felt like a dream now.

  “Hi,” her voice carried on the wind and landed as soft as angel's wings on my ears.

  “Come here.” I opened my arms and she ducked into them as I tucked us into the shadow of the building so even if someone did pass by we would remain out of sight.

  “I've missed you so much,” I mumbled into her hair, relishing in her scent. My eyes closed as I slipped away with her, just the two of us. We could escape, leave everything behind and just be happy, maybe in Europe. London or Rome, Paris in the winter. My heart screamed at me to run upstairs and pack a bag, but my head knew that I couldn't run from this.

  Auburn’s shoulders quivered in mine, I wasn’t sure whether it was the cool temperature or sobs wracking her frame. Maybe it was both. My heart felt big enough for the two of us.

  “I can't do this anymore. I’ve tried, I really have. I want to be there for you, and what you’re going through is so much harder than anything I’ve ever experienced, but this just hurts too much.” The words fell out of her mouth in a tired jumble.

  “Jesus, I know. I’m so sorry.” I didn’t give her excuses. There weren't any to give. I wanted to be with her just as much as she wanted to be with me. There was just no way around it. “This isn’t fair to ask you, and I understand if you won’t, but just give me a little more time.”

  Auburn pushed away from me, shaking her head. “I can't.” She swiped at angry tears on her cheeks. My heart broke as I watched her's crack and splint.

  “You deserve so much better.” I paused as my heart roared in my ears, deafening my final words. “I can’t lose you.” I placed warm lips on her forehead as I held her cheeks in my hands. Her head shook angrily, eyes clenched shut avoiding my gaze. “Just a little while longer. I have to make sure Mel is okay. I'm afraid if she got the papers right now, it would break her. Believe me, I would have left for good three months ago. That night at the lighthouse, I could have left with you right then. If I was younger, unattached, but I’m not. I have to close this chapter in my life before I can start another one.”

  “God! I know!” She screamed and tossed her arms in the air. “I just hate being that girl!” She swiped at stubborn tears. “I feel like I'm nagging you, begging you to choose me!”

  “But don’t you see?” I screamed finally losing it right there in that shadowed, dingy alley. “I can’t choose you!” I yelled and thrust my hands through my hair before stalking deeper in to the alley. Her footsteps followed before I heard her stop. I turned to face her again, “If I choose you, Mel could destroy both of us! She’s angry and vindictive and her dad is on the school board! All it would take is one false accusation and she could destroy me! If I choose you, chances are really fucking good I’ll lose my job, even though you’re not my student, of age, and been gone for years! So you see Auburn, I can’t choose you. And the fuck of it is, you have my heart, so that means I can't choose me.” I finished, breathless and defeated. The relief that followed my tirade was bittersweet when I saw the look of utter loss on her face. “Jesus, I'm sorry.” I went to her, encased her in my arms and let her sob into my jacket.

  “This feels like hell,” she weeped.

  Tears pulled behind my eyelids as my heart slowed. “I know.” I choked as I held her in the chilled night, rocking to a soft tune in my head, soaking up my light before she was gone again.

  twenty-four

  December rioted in with snowfall that brok
e records, and freezing temperatures that chilled to the bone. Auburn and I spoke less as the weeks passed, only intensifying the chill in my heart. We no longer tried to mimic what we’d once had. The easy laughs and heartfelt conversations we’d shared through the summer now replaced with long silences and awkward one-word answers.

  We made vague plans on two different occasions, the first she was to come home early one Friday after class, but instead she was called for a job at a coffee shop she'd been hoping for. While we’d been looking forward to Auburn being home over the holidays between semesters, her new job shot that plan to shit.

  And so we continued.

  I began to wonder how I would ever give her her Christmas present, the book shelf. I’d lovingly repaired it, and it now sat empty in my bedroom. I refused to use it, so I waited until I could give it to her. Show her the love I had poured into this bookshelf, piece by piece.

  Christmas week approached and Auburn texted that she wouldn’t be home until Christmas Eve, and had to be back to work the day after Christmas. Again, we were left with so little time. It was hopeless.

  I resolved to speak to the superintendent after Christmas, but before winter classes resumed. I didn’t know what I would say, which meant I had only one choice, to be honest. I would explain to him that I’d fallen in love with a former student. Maybe it wasn’t as bad as I'd thought. Maybe he’d smile and pat me on the back and send me on my way, without disapproving looks or lectures.

  I flipped over in bed and hovered over Auburn's name on my phone. I wanted to text her, every cell in my body itched for my fingers to tap out those three words that had been floating in my mind for so long now.

  I love you. I typed, hovering over send. I considered taking the coward's way out and replacing the word 'love' with a heart emoticon. Instead I deleted the entire message and typed:

  I have something for you.

  I lay awake for an hour, phone on my chest, waiting for the familiar vibration of her reply. It never came.

  twenty-five

  I drove the hour home from my sister's house late Christmas night, anxious to change, pull the bookshelf out, and call Auburn. I had told her no promises, but that I would call her if I got back into town early enough. And for once, everything seemed to fall into place for us. My parents were staying with my sister and I'd managed to duck out at a decent time to get home.

  Powdery sugar breezed across the icy road, swirling tornadoes of white across my low beams. I frowned and hoped Auburn wouldn’t have trouble driving in it when she came over. When I reached my apartment, I hustled up the back steps and kicked off my shoes. I stripped and tossed my clothes on the closet floor and pulled on jeans and a long-sleeved shirt. I pulled the bookcase into the living room, right in the center so she couldn’t miss it, and placed first editions of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Whitman on their sides on the center shelf. I pushed a hand through my wayward dirty blond strands, not used to having to style my hair after the shorter cut I'd usually worn, and sucked in a deep breath.

  Come to my place. I typed.

  Her reply was almost instant. I’m on my way.

  I wanted us back. I was ready to tell her everything. Open up, tell her all the secrets I’d kept, even from myself. I wanted her. I wanted a life with her and her alone, and I was ready to take the next steps. I was so ready to finally unload everything.

  I finally had a plan, and it included us.

  She knocked fifteen minutes later. I set down the opened bottle of wine I’d bought, her favorite, and hurried to the door. I opened it, ready to feast my eyes on the girl I loved, the girl I’d laughed and smiled and held all summer. Instead I saw a shell.

  Her eyes were hollow, dark circles where creamy skin once was. Her already high cheekbones more prominent than they'd ever been. She smiled softly, stepped in, and shrugged off her coat.

  “Jesus.” I breathed as I took it from her. “Auburn, what happened?” My hands slipped to her waist, fisting at her now protruding hipbones.

  “I've been so busy with classes and that job, another girl quit and they asked me to pick up her shifts. I haven’t been sleeping...” She wiped at her eyes.

  “Why haven’t you been sleeping?”

  She crossed her arms, lips pulled taut, before water filled her eyes and flowed down her cheeks in uncontrollable rivers.

  “Fuck, Auburn, tell me what’s going on.” I held her sobbing face in my palms as my heart fell on the floor at my feet.

  “You! It’s you! I can’t stop thinking about you! I can’t sleep, I can’t eat, I just work and study! I haven't even been reading! This?” She pressed her palms to her face, fresh tears coming. “This isn't me! I won't be the girl that sneaks into her boyfriend's house in the middle of the night sobbing!” She crumbled in on herself. “I don't know who I am anymore,” she whimpered. I tried to hold her, killing myself inside for what’d I’d done. I’d neglected my love for her, and she’d become a shell of the bright and vibrant girl she was.

  “Auburn, please give me a chance.”

  “I can’t do this anymore, Reed. I'm sorry.” She choked on the words.

  “What? No. We just…let me say some things first. There’s so much I want to say.” I pulled away, my mind raging that it was too late. I’d missed her. I'd lost her. Fuck. I backed into the bookcase and it slid across the shiny hardwood with a groan.

  Her eyes darted up and caught mine, then assessed the shelf behind me.

  “It’s for you.” I stepped out of the way so she could see it in full. Her eyes trailed up and down, then caught mine, before her head dropped and she sobbed. With palms to her face, she shook her head, hair curtaining around her, hiding her beautiful but sad soul from me.

  I rushed to her, sliding my palms along her cheekbones and holding her gaze to my own. “I'm sorry.” My world shattered as those watery, chocolate eyes peered back at me.

  “I’m sorry too,” she murmured as she pulled away. Before I knew what she was doing she'd grabbed her coat and was rushing out the door.

  “Auburn!” I followed, rushed back in to shove on my shoes, then scrambled through the front door and sprinted down the steps. Her form was hardly visible in the blowing snow and wind that pummeled through the buildings of main street.

  “Auburn!” I yelled, willing her to stop.

  She did.

  I wish now she wouldn’t have.

  “I'm leaving, Reed,” she cried across the dancing, dashing snowflakes that fell in the hollow space that now existed between us. I yearned for her. I wanted to stretch, to touch, to run, to leave.

  Instead I stood, dumb. “No.” Was the only word running through my head.

  “I’m sorry. I'm sorry for all of it. I never should have gotten involved with you, I knew it was wrong, I knew it. But something in me screamed that it couldn't be wrong because it felt so right!” she shrieked as tears frosted on her cheeks, others running in torrents to escape into the scarf at her throat.

  “Auburn, no.” I shook my head, my brain refusing to put together more than those two words. My eyes glazed as the mesmerizing snow seemed to transport me to a place where Auburn would never, ever utter those two words. I'm leaving. “I’ll do it! I’m doing it! I just needed to do it on my time!” I finally found my voice and yelled.

  “What about my time?” She breathed, tears finally slowing.

  I watched her, waited, processing. I turned my head and glanced down the main street of our tiny town, the town we’d walked parades in since we were kids, albeit different decades. Snowflakes fell peacefully, swirling in the softly-lit lamplight of colorful historic homes as my world tilted and shuddered to a halt before my eyes.

  “You’re right,” I finally replied. This was the right thing. This was the better thing. This was for her. So why did it hurt so fucking much?

  She licked her lips, waiting a moment longer, before shoving her hands in her pockets and hunching over, walked the few blocks to her car. I watched her lonely form get further and f
urther away as she left me here, without her.

  The silence of the winter night suddenly felt oppressive. I wanted to scream, punch something, run for her. God, how I wanted to run for her. Instead I stood, imprinting this moment on my soul because I'd found myself with her, and then I'd lost her, and I deserved to feel every broken moment of it.

  twenty-six

  Three months passed in her absence. It took her leaving to get my life together. I filed for divorce from Mel, and because we didn't have children, the lawyer anticipated it being final before this coming summer. I felt better than ever, minus the missing dark-haired girl in my life, but I had plans to rectify that. Everything finally seemed to be falling into place.

  And then I went to one appointment that changed my life forever. Again.

  It wasn't the first one, I'd been to too many to count over the course of the last year. The five short weeks of painful memories I'd blocked out from this past summer rushed my brain and had defeat settling deep in my bones.

  I was diagnosed with basal cell carcinoma on my twenty-eighth birthday.

  Skin cancer.

  Two days after I found out, I left Mel. A week later the mutated cells born from a small freckle on my shoulder were removed by a skilled surgeon. “Just to be sure,” my oncologist had reassured, he'd sent me to radiation three days a week for five weeks.

  The treatments had zapped me physically and psychologically, but I'd had Auburn. Those moments of laughter and love had helped me forget. Had helped me push on and live. Finding her had saved me when nothing else could. I chose not to tell her, chose not to tell my parents or Mel, I didn't want sympathy, I certainty didn't want tears, I just wanted to treat it and forget it. The success rate for basal cell carcinoma is high if caught early, he'd said. We'd assumed we had, we'd thought we had. He'd reassured we had. And so I kept my secret and I lived.

  I didn't expect my life to be short, I didn't expect to divorce my wife and fall in love with my former student, and I didn’t expect to get so little time on earth that I couldn't accomplish all the goals I'd dreamed of, but the time I did have, I would spend living.