Our Hearts Will Burn Us Down

by Anne Valente

  Christina looked back at Nick. How’s Sarah?

  She’s fine.

  Is she feeling better? Matt asked and Nick nodded.

  That’s all fine, Zola interrupted, but what did you really do this weekend?

  Zola, Christina said.

  No, really. What did you do this weekend, Nick? Because I can tell you, I spent the weekend sitting on my back porch just staring into nothing. I tried television. I tried books. Nothing works. Movies? Nothing at all works.

  Christina started to speak, but Nick held up his hand.

  Fine. You want to know what I did? You really want to know? I looked up fire investigation. How the body burns.

  Of course you did, Zola said. As if we’d talk about anything else.

  You’re the one who asked.

  No, I asked you to say something real. I forgot that for you real means only what you can find on your computer.

  I’m preoccupied, Nick said. Big fucking deal. We all are. He nodded toward Christina. I spent all weekend trying to figure out what the hell she saw outside Benji’s house. And you know what I found? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing that was useful.

  Christina’s eyes fell to the table and her half-empty can of punch. A sweetness that bubbled back up, the taste harshly saccharine, a nausea simmering inside her and pushing against the back of her throat. She looked around the cafeteria: people clustered at tables, not enough chairs even with the lunch hour divided by class. People sitting cross-legged on the floor against walls. People balancing their lunch trays on their knees. People sitting alone. People making small talk. People spilling through a space that was never meant to house an entire high school.

  Let’s not do this, she whispered. Please. Let’s just talk about anything else.

  But when she looked back at Zola, at Matt, at Nick and his half-eaten salad, she saw it in their faces. There was nothing to say. That they were here. In this strange building when two weeks ago they hadn’t been. That there had been gunfire and so many flames and a vice principal who’d broken down before them. And in their silence, a lack of disbelief: that nothing anymore in this world seemed impossible.

  WE AGREED TO meet after school. To try again. To talk about anything else but school, the yearbook, every fire. To be who we’d once been, meeting at coffee shops or Midvale County Park or each other’s homes after school for no other reason than wanting to be near one another. After our remaining periods of PE, we changed in bathroom stalls, those of us in gym class who’d sat through the rest of the day in our own dried sweat, the bathrooms bereft of showers and lockers. We sat through English, Spanish class, through art and business electives. We made our way home when the final bell rang, a rush of fall air that nearly choked us when we passed through the doors of Timber Creek and past the security guards and out to the parking lot, air that was fierce and angry and bracing and welcome.

  We promised to meet elsewhere before our parents came home and found us accountable again, liable to speak of school and our classes and how the first day back could have possibly gone. We agreed to meet at Zola’s house, Zola the only one of us with a completely empty home, Matt’s mother back from the animal shelter and Christina’s and Nick’s brothers home from school. We agreed to meet despite Zola’s reluctance, the storm of her mood unshaken. Whatever we talk about, she’d said at the lunch table, I refuse to talk about yearbook or the fires. A demand left hanging in the cafeteria’s air amid the ringing of the lunch-line cash register and the hum of soda machines.

  We gathered in her living room, slanted light already disappearing, the days growing shorter and the nights longer. We crowded on the couch and two recliners. Zola poured us lemonade, spiked with nothing, though Matt asked. She set our glasses on the coffee table and left out the pitcher, a hospitality without warmth.

  Matt extended the leg rest on the recliner next to Christina and leaned back and asked her if swimming practice had started again.

  Next week. She pulled her knees beneath her on the couch. I’ve been to the pool, though. I’ve been practicing on my own to keep up my strength.

  Matt thought to ask more but knew his questions would hit a wall. Elise on the team. Christina’s relay partner. Her funeral on Saturday, he knew. He didn’t want to ask if Christina had gone or what her relay group would do in Elise’s absence. If the team had planned a separate memorial. A ceremony apart, their own private mourning.

  I’m sorry about you and Ryan, Nick said from beside her on the couch.

  Christina looked at Matt. You told him?

  I didn’t think you’d mind. It’s not exactly a secret.

  I could’ve guessed, Nick said. From what you said at the bookstore. Anyway, I’m sorry. That you’re going through it. And that I said anything about it.

  No, it’s fine. Christina took a sip of her lemonade. Matt’s right. It’s not a secret. I just feel ashamed. Like everyone knows. Like everyone at school today was looking at me.

  No one was looking at you, Zola said. They have their own shit to think about. Now’s not really the time for anyone to gossip.

  She sat back in her recliner beside Nick’s end of the couch and stopped herself from saying anything else. Anything that would sound callous, her mood still wrecked. Now’s not the time. Anything that would brush up against the shooting or the fires.

  I have gossip, Matt said. I saw Ben Kurtz and Lisa Johns together at the theater.

  Over the weekend? Nick said. You worked?

  A short shift yesterday afternoon. One to five.

  Ben Kurtz? Christina said. The senior? Lisa’s a sophomore. Isn’t she on the soccer team? Ben’s a drummer. What the hell do they have in common?

  Who knows, Matt said. I didn’t even know they knew each other, but there they were. There are benefits to working at a theater where everyone we know goes.

  Do you know what they saw? Christina said.

  Does it matter? I don’t know. Cabin Fever.

  That sounds about right. Nick smiled in spite of himself. Maybe they had a class together. Maybe they crossed paths in town somewhere across the past week.

  His smile dissipated. The past week. He didn’t want to see the indignation on Zola’s face. What she wanted them to avoid, impossible to ignore. That they’d all been cooped up for the week in their homes, the movie’s title a terrible pun. He lowered his eyes. He wanted to tell them all about Sarah and what they’d done just to fill the air but he pulled his glass to his mouth. Held his tongue. He knew it wasn’t right. He knew he might tell them in his own time but that Sarah was far more private, that he didn’t want to betray her just to saturate the room in sound.

  No one’s come into the Beanery, Zola said. Nick knew she said it to keep the subject changed. She looked at him. Not even you or Matt.

  I’ve come, Christina said.

  Tell these two what they’re missing, Zola said. Free blueberry muffins and coffee.

  What do I need free coffee for? Matt smiled. My dad makes coffee every morning.

  What happened after that officer talked to me? Christina blurted, her voice casual enough that Nick knew she’d spoken without thinking. It had been part of her week. An enormous part. She was right to ask but Nick saw Zola tense in the recliner beside him.

  Please, Zola said softly.

  Did your dad talk to him? Christina asked Matt. What did they find out about Benji’s mother?

  Goddamnit! Zola shouted. She kicked down the leg rest of her recliner.

  Christina looked at her. Zol, calm down. I know we promised. But Ben and Lisa? Who the fuck cares? Especially with everything else going on.

  I care, Zola said. I care that we remember for one afternoon that there’s more between us than a disaster. I care that we pretend for just one goddamn afternoon that less than two weeks ago we had completely different lives.

  We did, Matt said. He sat forward in his recliner. We did and now we don’t and there’s nothing we can do to change that.

  I wish we could, Zola said.
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  I wish we could, too. But ignoring this isn’t going to help. Matt glanced at Christina. All my dad said is that your eyewitness account helps them determine what might have been happening at each of these homes before the fires erupted.

  Did he tell you anything else?

  Matt avoided Christina’s eyes and she leaned toward him across the couch.

  What is it, Matt? You know something.

  It happened at Benji’s house, too.

  Nick looked up. What happened at Benji’s house?

  Matt looked at Zola, who kept her eyes down, arms folded across her chest.

  The same as at the other two homes, Matt said. There was nothing at all left.

  What do you mean, nothing left? Christina said.

  I mean no remains. Nothing.

  I looked up cremation over the weekend, Nick said. None of this makes any sense. It would take too much heat to burn the entire body inside a house. Too much for a single arsonist, at the very least. Unless they’re using a material the police can’t detect.

  Do you hear yourselves? Zola sat up. This is morbid. There’s nothing to be solved. Everyone’s gone. We can’t bring them back. All we can do is move on.

  And how do we do that? Christina said, her voice rising. Really, how do we do that? How do we do that when our classmates are gone? When our school, our families, the lives we knew are all gone? How do we do that when we go to bed each night afraid that we’ll wake to more news, another house burned?

  Zola stood and set her glass down hard on the coffee table.

  Fuck this. You know what? Fuck all of this.

  She left the living room, her footsteps echoing up the hardwood stairs, to where her bedroom door opened and slammed shut. Nick held his glass sweating in his hands. Sun spilled through the windows of the room. Matt rested his head in his palms.

  Christina set down her lemonade. I’ll check on her.

  You didn’t say anything wrong, Matt said. None of us did.

  She nodded. She disappeared from the room.

  Nick looked at Matt. Did your dad say anything else?

  Matt sighed. I sat with him all weekend. I saw him look through every file, every photograph, every report of chemical analysis. There’s nothing they haven’t considered. They’re retracing Caleb’s path through the school. That’s the only other thing I know.

  Who’s retracing it? Nick said. Your dad’s forensics team?

  He’s still on fire investigation. He said the high school’s team is working on it.

  What does a path matter?

  I don’t know. Maybe they’re trying to figure out in all that evidence if he had an accomplice somehow. Maybe how he could have planned something like that with no one noticing, that maybe he didn’t do it alone. Or maybe they’re just trying to figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again.

  Fuck prevention. Nick heard his own voice, amplified to a pitch as loud as Zola’s. This is still happening. What the fuck does prevention matter now?

  Matt looked up, his hands sliding down his face. I have no goddamn idea.

  CHRISTINA KNOCKED. SOFT at first, then more forcefully when Zola didn’t answer. She found the door unlocked and moved slowly into the room, where Zola was seated on the floor, back against the bed, her legs pulled close to her chest and a small rabbit sitting on top of her knees.

  Zola?

  Go away.

  Christina closed the door behind her. Who’s this?

  Her name’s Penelope.

  Christina sat beside Zola and touched the rabbit’s nose. When did you get her?

  My mom brought her home last week. She thought it would help.

  Christina rubbed her pinkie across the rabbit’s small head and the rabbit squinted as if smiling. Christina never had pets, her mother allergic. Despite her mother moving out and living across the river, a precedent had been set. They were a family without pets though touching the rabbit, Christina longed at once for something soft.

  Can I hold her?

  I guess. She’s not used to other people yet. As long as you’re quiet, she’ll be fine.

  Zola lifted the rabbit from her knees and placed it in Christina’s lap, a small bundle. Christina let her hands fall gently on the rabbit and couldn’t believe how light its body was. No more than a pound or two. She ran a finger down the rabbit’s back.

  Look, I know, Zola said. You don’t have to say anything.

  I just want to make sure you’re okay.

  Zola looked up. Are any of us?

  The rabbit hopped inside the circle Christina had made with her legs. Zola glanced at her camera sitting on the floor near the window.

  I haven’t taken any pictures, Zola said. What is there to capture? What is there to remember?

  It’s okay, Christina said. I’ve tried to write. I’ve tried and failed. I don’t know what to say.

  Nothing can explain this, Zola whispered. Nothing can bring anyone back.

  But there are still fires, Christina said. At least, there were. And we don’t know if there will be more.

  So what?

  So don’t you feel afraid? Don’t you want to know? Why this is happening and what it means?

  Yeah, I want to know. I want to know why this, why us, what’s happening, and when it will stop. Why these parents when they’ve already undergone so much pain. But I’m not afraid. I can’t be. I can’t be any more afraid than I was on the floor of the library.

  Christina felt her breath catch. She forgot, over and again. What Zola had seen, what she’d heard, what she’d experienced on the floor’s thin carpet. How Matt, too, had seen something awful but the danger was already gone, Caleb long disappeared down the hallway outside the men’s bathroom and not blazing through the library in real time where Zola was, not moving through stacks and aiming and firing.

  You can tell me what you saw, Christina said. You can talk to me.

  I know. Zola reached over and touched the rabbit. I would if I could.

  You can.

  No, I can’t. There are no words at all to describe what I saw.

  Christina set her hand on top of Zola’s, her palm running down the rabbit’s back.

  I’m sorry you’re hurting, Christina said. I’m sorry this is happening to you.

  It’s happening to all of us. And there’s nothing we can do about it.

  Christina pressed her palm to Zola’s knee. Wanted to provide what little comfort she could, the same as Zola had done for her in the empty dusk of a coffee shop. Zola pulled her hand away but let Christina sit with her in the fading afternoon light. Christina remained where she was, the rabbit circling against her legs.

  LONG AFTER NICK and Matt left, after Christina squeezed her hand and walked out to her car and after Zola’s mother came home and made spaghetti and watched reruns of Saturday Night Live with her on the couch, Zola watched the night stars through her bedroom window, the things her mother had tried to teach her. The sky was clear and black and a near-full moon crested above her neighbor’s rooftop weathervane. Even in the dark Zola saw the unraked leaves scattered across the backyard’s grass, shaken from a cluster of sugar maples that just last week had been aflame in cranberry. Penelope rattled in her cage, nibbling bits of carrot and lettuce that Zola had chopped, and Zola turned away from the window, her eyes falling on her camera. She leaned forward and let herself touch the Pentax’s lens. She held the camera up, inspected its aperture. Depth of field. Distance scale. A focusing ring she’d manually adjusted hundreds of times. She remembered unwrapping the gift her freshman year, knowing already what it was by its weight. She remembered the excitement in her mother’s face, the anticipation as she opened the box.

  She set the camera on the carpet. Let her fingers run across its shutter release and speed dial, wiping away a film of dust. She’d neglected taking pictures. She’d ignored the duties of her position. There was nothing to capture, nothing easy, nothing as simple as words. What was it for Matt, for Christina? Words they could commit
to paper from the safety of their bedrooms, a skill that could be turned off at will. A talent of imagination, nothing direct to observe or bear as witness. And Nick. Such shelter in the remove of a computer screen. Only research and compiling, a computer that could be shut down if the information bore down too hard. Only clipping articles from the newspaper. Only filing them away. But photography: what was there to do but stay immobile? She couldn’t take pictures of Lewis and Clark High, couldn’t climb beneath the yellow police tape and enter its halls. She couldn’t walk to the doorsteps of her former peers’ homes, couldn’t ring the bell and ask for portraits of grief. She couldn’t photograph a funeral. A home in flames. A community reduced to ashes.

  Zola pressed her hands to the wall, her feet into the carpet. Her brain agitated, her body restless. She looked at Penelope through the cage’s bars, her white shape a ghost. She listened down the hallway but there was nothing, only the quiet wheeze of her mother’s soft snoring. Zola glanced back out the window. A wide orb of moon. She couldn’t believe it had already been a week since they’d buried Caroline Black and her parents, a week since they’d cast themselves out into the wilds of the back-road cornfields, a half-moon solitary above them, the burn of whiskey, the complicated whorls of a Midwestern landscape. She couldn’t believe that two weeks ago, only fourteen days, she’d fallen asleep in this very bedroom thinking only of her trigonometry exam and whether anyone would ask her to the Homecoming dance, two nights before she would awake and bike to school toward an annihilation.

  Zola stood. She picked up her camera from the carpet and pulled on a hoodie. She crept down the stairs and grabbed her jacket and snuck out to the back porch, the moon radiating above her, the air seizing her lungs. November: twelve days away. She felt it coming. She leaned against the porch’s railing and watched her breath cloud the air and listened to the wind sigh through the trees, gentle but brisk, a harbinger.

  She pointed the Pentax toward the moon and glanced through the viewfinder. Its light filled the lens, a cardinal error her mother always told her amateur astronomers made. They always wanted to telescope the moon, the easiest signpost to locate. They thought full-moon nights were the best for stargazing, the light big and wide, and they always pulled away from the eyepiece disappointed that the lens flooded, the moon crowding out the light of stars.