Among the Flames

by Lya Lively

  among the flames

  Lya Lively

  SYNOPSIS

  Hayden Harlow is running from a past she can barely recall; memories so traumatic that she can't even trust herself with them. In an attempt to start anew, she disappears and soon finds herself living with a guy who wishes he was lucky enough to forget everything.

  The rage Noah White harbors burns like an inferno inside of him, threatening to erupt in chaos until he finds a cause worth fighting for... her.

  As their friendship grows, the past Hayden wanted to leave behind begins to surface, from the dark recesses of her subconscious, where the horrid memories had branded.

  As their lives intertwine, and secrets unravel, they find it increasingly difficult to deny the sparks between them.

  But together, the volatile mixture may combust, destroying them both. When they are left to choose between fight or flight, both will have to go against their very nature to save each other from being consumed by their past. Can they live together among the flames?

  Where there's smoke...

  CONTENTS

  SYNOPSIS

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  SEVEN

  EIGHT

  NINE

  TEN

  ELEVEN

  TWELVE

  THIRTEEN

  FOURTEEN

  FIFTEEN

  SIXTEEN

  SEVENTEEN

  EIGHTEEN

  NINETEEN

  TWENTY

  TWENTY-ONE

  TWENTY-TWO

  TWENTY-THREE

  TWENTY-FOUR

  so love me like you’ve

  never lied before;

  lie with me like you’ve

  never told the truth.

  hold me like you’re

  afraid of letting go

  and i promise

  i’ll hold on too.

  PROLOGUE

  At first, my mother’s insanity was like a spark; an undesirable light that sprang out of thin air and sucked the oxygen from the room. And just as quickly as the inferno began, it vanished into the shadowed corners of reality leaving me gasping for breath and cloaked in darkness, unable to discern which side of her was real.

  It all started with the sleepwalking, bouts of consciousness in the middle of the night. But when night would end and come to day, she would roam our house as a zombie among the living, a vampire in the sun.

  She spoke in languages that only she understood, violently screaming from the top of the staircase, always fighting a battle within herself. Whoever she was, she wasn’t my mother anymore. She was something else, something terrifying.

  I missed my parents, before the poison, but this was the only way. I’ve tried hiding, but the memories always found me in the dark recesses of my mind with haunting glimpses and violent whispers. If I’m not turning into my mother then I have already become her.

  Every night I watched the people I love screaming and gasping, the only haven left was among the flames. They wouldn’t find me here; they couldn’t.

  ONE

  Hayden

  I drudged into the air conditioned student apartment complex, the light of May silhouetting me as I stepped through the heavy double doors. I didn’t carry any more than I needed: my Mom’s old suitcase that she got from a thrift shop when she was starting college, and my acoustic guitar slung across my back. Alright, so maybe a little bit more than I needed to survive, but it was everything I needed to live.

  I dropped my luggage down on the tiles beside me as I reached the center of the dull, gray lobby, pushing my dampened hair from my forehead. The weight of the guitar slung over my shoulder was causing my muscles to stiffen, but I kept it secured across my back.

  I looked straight ahead, unable to force myself to be remotely curious in the destination. It’s all too much, I thought, I should just give up and go back. From somewhere behind me, ear buds flooded with the excess sound of a familiar tune, or perhaps it could was a muffled ring of a phone going ignored.

  As I turned to figure out where the sound was resonating from, my head felt light and my knees buckled, perspiration formed along my forehead; I become hot and cold all at once as my body folded, palms slapping loudly against the hard tile.

  I blinked my eyes open to a pudgy, older woman staring down at me, her paper-thin skin bunched together between her eyebrows. I held both fists beside my temples, sitting with knees pressed against cold tiles in the middle of the lobby as I struggled to regain my composure.

  “Are you okay, dear?” she repeated. I quickly pushed to my feet, the sharp pain ebbing and quickly replaced with a flood of embarrassment as my eyes scanned the room.

  Sleep deprivation. No wonder.

  “Yes. I’m so sorry. I must have tripped. It’s been a long day.” My face flushed, and my eyes shifted to the ground. I quickly regained my belongings and tried to muster up any pride I might have left. I blinked against the harsh intrusion of the lights as I struggled to maintain a polite smile.

  “You shouldn’t wear so many layers here. The Savannah heat isn’t something to mess with.” She waved off my apology, “Would you like any help you with your things?”

  My eyes danced over the woman who looked like she was nearly a century old. “No, ma’am, I’m fine, but thank you. It’s just a migraine.” I adjusted my guitar case strap that draped over my shoulder and reached my hand out to her. “I greatly appreciate your concern.”

  “Of course.” She smiled but it faltered, and I knew she wasn’t certain I was alright. “Well, you have a blessed day, dear.”

  “And to you,” I replied awkwardly as I let my hand fall to my side. Where I was from, people looked the other way when they saw someone approaching. I’ll never fit in here, I should just turn back now. I let out a deep sigh and searched the room for people who may have seen my little episode. To my luck, and astonishment, no one else seemed to notice really. The only other person, a guy, appeared to be oblivious as he made a beeline for the doors with his phone in hand, and a scowl on his chiseled face. So much for that famous southern hospitality.

  I made my way over to a counter that reached just below my elbows, giving me something to lean on; that’s a first. “Hello, I would like a room,” I stated to the woman behind the computer screen who was so short I could only see the top of her poofy hair that looked like it used to be brown but was melting into gray; perhaps it was from too many years in the abysmal heat.

  She leaned to the side, eyeing me over a pair of red-framed glasses that sat low on her narrow nose. Wrinkles framed her eyes giving her a permanently tired expression.

  Her lips protruded slightly like she had done the duck-face too many times and stretched that way leaving marks, divots, all around them. Smoker, I thought bitterly, like my mother.

  Her expression was a mix between slightly disgusted and curious but I couldn’t blame the quick judgment. I was sweating profusely, and I’d just spent nearly two days riding three different buses and a cab to get here. “I’m gonna need a bit more information than that if you’re gonna be gettin’ a room,” she joked, the edges of her mouth curling up to reveal coffee stained teeth. Her accent sounded like she hailed from the Boston area, unlike the southern twang of the lady who had helped me up before, and it felt out of place. But I could only imagine it would be the same when people heard the unique dialect from being raised in south-central Pennsylvania.

  My brain was beginning to fog over from the lack of sleep, afraid to rest on the buses, and risk getting any of my belongings stolen. I matched her fake smile with my own. “I just need a place to rent out for a couple of mont
hs.” Because that doesn’t sound shady at all.

  She glanced sideways at me. “How many?”

  “Just a couple months, maybe three. I’m starting an online college program, and this is a way for me to explore, get that college experience, and keep up with my studies,” I rambled. It wasn’t a total lie; I was exploring, not that it was any of her business or that she was even slightly pretending to care. She just wanted to make sure she wasn’t going to get in trouble for something stupid, or perhaps damage her property and disappear in the middle of the night.

  “Identification,” She said, holding out her hand, waiting.

  “Uh, I’m seventeen. I turn eighteen in the fall.” I pulled the card out of my back, left pocket and handed it to her.

  “Mhmm.” She didn’t care, but she typed, and I took that as a good sign. “I’m sorry, we don’t have any single rooms available.” She tapped her fingers on the counter; nails chewed to nubs. “And we would need a parent signature to give you your own place. Liabilities and all.” Her penciled in eyebrow had risen before her gaze dropped to the guitar strap. “Just what we need... another busker,” she mumbled.

  “Parent signatures,” I repeated, sighing heavily. “Do you have anything else? I’m sure I could fax something to be signed...” My voice came out more helpless than I had intended and I let it trail off as she stared at me before shaking her head. “Any way I could rent out a bedroom, or...?” I pressed. My lack of sleep was making me irritable, and I struggled to keep my tone even. I didn’t come all this way just to get turned down.

  She sighed loudly before rolling her eyes. “We may have something available.” More typing. “Alright,” she muttered to herself as she continued to tap her stubby fingers against the keyboard. “Well, you’ll have to share the apartment. It’s registered to a Ms. White,” she read aloud; she sounded out the syllables painfully, as if the name was venom so she couldn’t let her lips touch her teeth. “The agreement would be with her, and if she doesn’t require any parental permissions and assumes all responsibility, you would be able to move in today. Other than that, we’re fully booked. Lots of students have gone home for break, but it’s tourist season.”

  I thought it over for a moment, my teeth raking over my lower lip. The last thing I wanted was to share my space with a stranger, but I’d come this far, and I couldn’t go back. There was nothing left to go back to.

  I gave her my information that she needed and was pleased to discover that I would only be paying for a portion of the rent. At $265 a month, that would put me at $795 by the end of the trip.

  Thank God for babysitting.

  I took a deep breath, declaring the nonexistence of everything before that moment. When I walked through the door to my new home, my real life began.

  Noah

  I let out a ragged sigh as I stormed across the lobby, ignoring the large smile from Miss Jensen as she stopped typing on her keyboard and primped her bouffant hair.

  The buzzing from my pocket almost startled me until my phone’s muffled speaker started blasting "She Hates Me" and I knew exactly who was calling. I flipped it open wildly as I raised it to my ear, hoping she would hear my disgust through the phone. “Chloe?”

  “Are you still coming over?” She asked, the boredom evident in her flat tone.

  “I might.”

  I could almost hear her rolling her eyes through the speaker. Shoving open the door to the outside, I stepped out into the humid air, my shirt clung to my chest.

  “Well, I need to know beforehand,” her voice was growing agitated.

  “Why,” I joked through clenched teeth, “Gotta hot date?”

  She didn’t laugh. “Are you or aren’t you? It’s a simple question, Noah.”

  “No,” I lied, hoping she’d beg me to come. “Forget about it.”

  I pressed the speaker against my ear, folding it beneath the flimsy screen, but I didn’t want to miss a sound, just in case. She sighed lightly, a little distance between her and the phone before she came back in the same calm, uncaring tone. “Why are we even doing this, Noah?”

  I ran my fingers roughly through my short, sooty black hair, biting the inside of my cheek to prevent myself from saying how I really felt. I looked back and forth down the sidewalk, torn on which direction to go. I shook my head, “I don’t know.” I stepped into the street, waiting for a cab to glide past before continuing. “Why are we? I mean, you’re gonna see him one way or another...” my voice trailed off as I swallowed back the bile that was rising in my throat. I wanted to find the guy and beat the hell out of him, but it wouldn’t change anything because he wasn’t the problem. It was her.

  She fell silent, not denying that she would. I pulled the phone away to keep myself from apologizing. You’re not wrong on this; I struggled to convince myself.

  “If you don’t trust me, I don’t see what the point is on keeping this thing going,” she said like she’d been rehearsing that line all night. She said ‘thing’ as if we hadn’t been together going on eight months. Thing, I repeated in her voice.

  I shook my head, clenching my jaw so tightly it felt like my teeth might crumble into dust. “Yeah,” I admitted, “me either.” I shut my phone before making the motions to throw it deep into the bushes, but instead I held it tightly in my fist, wishing I was strong enough finally to say goodbye to her and mean it. Unfortunately, I was too weak to just walk away, and she knew it.

  Instead, I typed a message to myself, unleashing the pain that threatened to drown me. At the very least, my heartbreak could become a few lyrics for my next song.

  i held on so tightly

  to your rope

  i couldn’t breathe

  it took me

  weeks

  to see

  the grip was around

  my throat

  and you held the leash.

  Shoving my phone into the back pocket of my jeans, I made my way toward the river so I could clear my head, or at the very least, drown my thoughts enough so that I didn’t care anymore.

  TWO

  Hayden

  Time seemed to slow before the musty elevator finally reached my floor, and I was able to find the other end of my bridge to be burned, separating me from my past.

  I must’ve checked the room number eighty times, but I wanted to be sure that when I knocked, it would be her and not some strange person down the hall or on another floor altogether. I was going to do this the right way. No more screwing everything up.

  213C.

  I thought about how terrible I must have looked for my first impression as I stepped into my new beginning. My amateur dyed auburn hair was cut awkwardly just above my shoulder blades with countless flyaways, and the denim blue of my irises was framed by long nights of exhaustion that caused my pale, translucent skin to be marred with dark purple moons under my eyes.

  My loose heather gray top now clung to my chest from the excessive humidity, and my faux leather jacket wasn’t helping any. I knew it would end up shoved in the back of a closet, but I couldn’t bear to take it off just yet and shed the final layers of who I was before I arrived here. At least not until I met my new roommate.

  I pulled my black fedora low on my head to try to hide my face before bending down and tying one of my ratty old gray sneakers that previously found residence just inside my bedroom door where I threw them after finishing yard work almost every miserable Saturday afternoon. I groaned as I brushed my palm over the mustard stain on my skinny jeans, that most certainly wasn’t of my doing. I hoped that whoever was on the other side of the door wasn’t too quick to judge me.

  I grabbed the brass knocker below the peephole and pressed it against the door before I could talk myself out of it. It opened as my arm fell to my side causing me to jump.

  “Oh-I’m sorry,” the guy on the other side of the door apologized, but there was a hint of amusement in his crystal blue eyes. I craned my neck up to look at him, smiling nervously as he ran his fingers through his dishevele
d blonde hair that appeared to have been styled by salt water and a steady ocean breeze. He was built like a surfer too; his frame was long and thin but strong. He didn’t look like the type to spend hours in the gym, but his strength came naturally from hours of riding waves, evident by the sun-kissed color of his skin.

  He didn’t look more than a couple of years older than me, and his hair nearly covered his eyebrow that was arched in question, but his smile broadened, and I knew he found my startled expression funny.

  “So... can I help you with something? Are you selling cookies? If so, I’ll take a box of the minty ones.”

  My eyes narrowed, but his wide grin lets me know he was only teasing. “Oh, um...” I pulled out my room information for reassurance even though I could probably recite the small hurried scratch by heart. Room 213 - Ms. White. “Actually, I’m here to be staying with,” I squinted as if my eyes may have been playing tricks on me, “White?”

  “Well,” he shrugged. “You’re in the right place.” He opened the door and gestured me to enter. I hesitated before moving in slowly, my knuckles pale as they gripped my suitcase handles. I thought back to my collapse in the lobby before pushing it to the furthest cavity of my mind. My new life had begun, and I wasn’t going to waste any more time dwelling on the past, even if it had only been moments ago.

  “So,” he called out from behind me, breaking his way into my thoughts. “ I guess you didn’t bring cookies then?”

  “No, sorry,” I replied, glancing back at him.

  “Just my luck. What brings you to Georgia?”

  The hope that I’ll get so lost I’ll just stop existing without actually having to die. “Is it that obvious that I’m not from around here?” I asked, feeling self-conscious for the millionth time about my outfit choice and not wanting to explain why I fled from my old life.

  “Well, anyone from here knows better than to wear a leather coat in the summer.”