The Proposal

by R. R. Banks

  "That is exactly what I'm trying to do," I said. "I want him to be able to make the absolute most of the opportunities that baseball can give to him. He hasn't had the easiest way in life and if I can figure out ways to make something easier or to put them in a better place, then I will. He just needs a break. If he can slide this time, then he can apply himself later."

  Gwendolyn was glaring at me, but there was more than anger and frustration in her eyes. She was opening her mouth to say something, but I silenced her with a kiss. I felt like I couldn't resist her. I couldn't keep myself from touching her. Frustration snapped inside me, and I tore my mouth away from hers, turning and stomping out of the classroom before she could say anything else. I was nearly out of the school when my phone rang in my pocket. I picked it up.

  "What?"

  As soon as I heard the voice on the other end, I broke into a run toward the parking lot.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gwendolyn

  I looked up at the clock above the classroom door, then opened my desk drawer and looked at my phone to make sure that the clock was right. It was fifteen minutes after I had told Jason he needed to be in the classroom to take his retest and I hadn't seen him. A bitter mix of anger, frustration, and disappointment filled me, but there was also something in the back of my mind. Something told me that this wasn't right. Jason had been receptive to the idea of taking the test again, even excited about the opportunity. Worried that something might have happened, I jotted a note on a piece of paper just in case he showed up in the classroom while I wasn't there, left it on my desk, and hurried out into the hallway.

  I made my way up and down all of the hallways in the Humanities wing and then crossed through the open common area in the center of the school. There were a few small groups of students still gathered there, and I scanned their faces to see if maybe Jason had stopped to talk to some friends and simply lost track of time. But when I didn't see him, the nervous feeling grew stronger. It seems strange for me to react this way. It wasn't the first time that Jason had fallen short of expectations, yet something about this situation struck me oddly. I made my way out toward the baseball fields, wondering if he might have decided to go to practice anyway, or had possibly forgotten to let his coach know about the retest and had just gone down there to talk to him. When I arrived at the field, however, I didn't see Jason.

  I approached the coach and ask him if Jason had been there that afternoon. He shook his head at me.

  "He told me that he had to miss the beginning of practice because he had a retest with you," the coach said.

  I nodded.

  "We had a retest scheduled for this afternoon. I told him to be in my classroom right after his last class, but he hasn't shown up yet. I looked for him in the school, and I couldn't find him, so I came here."

  "I haven't seen him."

  I started back toward the school, but something out of the corner of my eye stopped me. I rushed down the sidewalk and through the small parking lot in front of the school's football stadium. The field itself was empty, but the track team was running around the track warming up. I made my way toward the stands and stepped under them. Just as I thought I would, I saw a dark figure sitting on the ground, leaning back against one of the support poles. I approached it and looked down into Jason's face. He was holding a paper-wrapped bottle in one hand and when he looked up at me his eyes were watery and red.

  "What are you doing out here?" I asked. "Don't you know that you could get expelled for drinking alcohol on school grounds?"

  "Why would it matter?" he asked.

  "Why would it matter?" I asked. "What about your retest? We had a deal."

  He shook his head and brought the bottle back up to his lips. I snatched it out of his hand and tipped it over, pouring out the rest of its contents onto the ground. I grasped him by the wrist and pulled him up. Suddenly he looked so much like a little boy I wanted to wrap my arms around him, to tell him that I heard his screams for help and that I was there for him.

  "Come on," I said. "We're going inside."

  "Are you going to take me to the principal's office?"

  "No," I said. "I'm going to take you to my classroom."

  He shook his head.

  "I can't take the test now," he said.

  "I wasn't going to ask you to," I said. "We're just going to talk."

  I dropped the bottle into the trash can before we walked out of the stadium, feeling at once like I was betraying who I thought I wanted to be as a teacher, and living up to it in the most meaningful way that I ever had. I rushed Jason through the hallways, hurrying him along so that none of the other teachers could catch enough of a glimpse of him to know what was going on. When we got into the room, I closed the door. He dropped down into the desk that he always sat in during class as though it was the only place in the room that he could imagine sitting. I went to my desk and opened the bottom drawer, reached in and pulled out a bottle of water and a bag of salt and vinegar potato chips. I brought them to him and set them on the desk in front of him.

  "I'm sorry," he finally mumbled.

  "Eat," I said. "Drink your water."

  He guzzled most of the bottle of water and filled his mouth with a handful of chips.

  "Why did you come find me?" he asked. "Is it just because of the test?"

  "No," I said. "It's not just because of the test. Don't get me wrong, I'm mad about that, but we'll talk about that later. I came to find you because whether you want to accept it or not, I care about you. I can see that you're going through something. You have been since the first day you walked into my classroom."

  "I'm not going through anything," he snapped.

  It was an almost comically classic teenage response, but the pain was so evident in his eyes that I couldn't bring myself to even smile.

  "Alright," I said. "Then you aren't going through anything. So why did you skip out on the test? Just to piss me off?"

  He looked startled, but at least it got his attention.

  "Why would it matter if I took it anyway?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I heard you and my father talking," he said.

  My stomach sank.

  "You did? What did you hear?"

  "That my father doesn't believe in me. He doesn't think that I can accomplish anything for myself. It doesn't really matter anyway. No matter what I do or how hard I try, I'm always going to live in his shadow. I'm either never going to live up to him because he's this amazing man who served in the military and is a hero fire chief, or I am doomed to be exactly like him because he was wild and out of control as a teenager, and ended up with me and a completely messed up marriage."

  "So, which one of them is worse?" I asked.

  He looked at me as though no one had ever asked him something like that. It was as though he always felt like no one cared about his thoughts or what he was going through.

  "I'm not sure," he said. "I never had any interest in being in the military or being a firefighter, so everyone who says that I could never be like him is probably right. But I also feel like I don't have any way of escaping being like him. I am like him. I'm exactly like him." He hung his head. "I don't want to be like him."

  "What about him?" I asked even though I thought that I probably already knew the answer.

  "I don't have a mother because of him," she said. "She left when I was just a little boy because she couldn't stand to be married to him. And she said that she never wanted that life. She never wanted me." He looked down at his desk again. "But I still miss her."

  "You do?"

  "Sometimes. Part of me hates her and I know that I can't trust her, but it's like I miss something I didn't have. Like I miss what I could have had. Does that make any sense?"

  I reached out and patted him on the back.

  "It does," I said. "I think I understand that more than you could ever know. But there's something that you need to understand, too."

  "What?"

  "You said
that you don't have a mother because of him. You don't have a mother because of her. You do have a father because of him. You're so afraid to turn out like him, but the truth is that he is who he is because of how much he loves you. He might not know how to show it sometimes, and he might be really misleading, but there is one thing that is absolutely undeniable and that is that you mean everything to him."

  "Thank you," he said.

  "For what?"

  He laughed.

  "For not taking any of my bullshit."

  "Well, that might just be the most surprising thing I've ever heard." I sighed. "Alright, so I think that you should probably head home and get some rest. I heard that this nasty flu that you're dealing with can make you feel pretty sick."

  "Absolutely," he said.

  I reached for my phone and called Garrett. The phone rang several times and then switched over to his voicemail. I looked at the screen and pressed redial. It again went to voicemail.

  "Your father's not answering the phone," I said.

  "Why do you have my father's phone number in your phone?" he asked.

  I was stumbling over my attempts to find the words for some sort of explanation when the door to the classroom burst open and Mr. Jefferson rushed in.

  "Mr. Jefferson, are you OK?"

  "Jason, I've been looking for you."

  Jason stood up and faced the principal.

  "Is everything alright?"

  The principal shook his head, looking out of breath and even more frazzled than he usually did.

  "What's wrong?" I asked.

  "There's a fire," he said. "Another arson. This time it was an apartment building. Garrett's there."

  My stomach turned, and I felt a spike of fear inside me. I looked at Jason and saw that all the color had drained from his face. He looked at me as though at a loss for words.

  "Come on," I said. I looked at Mr. Jefferson. "Where is it?"

  As we ran through the school and toward the parking lot, my heart was pounding so hard in my chest and in my head that it was all I could hear. I prayed with every footstep that Garrett would be alright, and I felt something inside me shift. I suddenly thought about my ex-husband and how he had come into my life and shattered it even further than it already had been. When I first met him, I thought that he was going to be so wonderful. He seemed so strong. He seemed like he had everything together and was going to be there to take care of me. It was a whirlwind and I was swept into what felt like something magical, but just as quickly as it had begun, it began to unravel. He became unpredictable, some moments seeming completely out of control and then suddenly coming back and apologizing, telling me that he would never act like that again. And then it would simply get worse. I only stayed until the first moment of violence, but by that point, so much damage had already been done. I limped out of that marriage questioning myself and all that I was. I couldn't understand why I had been so attracted to such a string of toxic men. It was only after I had stepped back from my life and looked at it with truth and honesty that I saw that the men I chose were men I wanted to save because I had never been able to save Michael.

  My tires squealed as I drove out of the parking lot and toward the apartment building that Mr. Jefferson had described. As I sped along the roads, I realized that I was thinking of nothing but Garrett. Not the pain. Not the fear. Not any sense that he needed me to rescue him. Only of him. I didn't know what caused the pain that was so evident within him, but for the first time, I didn't see it as something I needed to fix. It was a part of him, and all that I cared about was him.

  We were nearly to the apartment building when we hit a blockade in the middle of the road. Police officers came to the window and tried to shoo me away. I rolled the window down and looked out at them.

  "You need to head back, ma'am. It's not safe."

  "My dad's in there," Jason shouted from the passenger seat.

  "You don't need to be anywhere around here," the police officer said. "Head back."

  There was a severity in his voice that caused me to back the car up and turn around, heading toward my house because I didn't know where else to go.

  "Where are you going?" Jason asked. "Dad's back there!"

  "I know," I said. "He's doing his job. There's nothing that we can do. I'm bringing you to my house for now."

  "What are we supposed to do there?" he asked.

  “We wait.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Garrett

  I ducked my head against the blazing heat as another rush of flame came toward me. All around me pieces were falling off the walls and tumbling down from the ceiling. I lifted my arm to shield myself from a large chunk of the structure that was falling toward me and felt a deep pain. The flames and the smoke were so intense that it was quickly becoming disorienting inside the building. For the first time in many years, I started to question whether I was going to be able to take this fire down. It was burning with an incredible ferocity. A consistent breeze outside continuously fed it, keeping the flames growing and spreading. It had been clear since just a few minutes after we arrived on the scene that the apartment building was a total loss. There was no point in trying to save any of the structure. Our responsibility now was getting inside and trying to save as many people who might be trapped there as we possibly could. From there, we needed to keep the fire under control so that it didn't catch the dry grass and brush around the building. There hadn't been any rain in a couple of weeks, and if even a small flame hopped onto the grass and the wind picked it up, it could put most of Silver Lake at serious risk.

  There was fear coursing through me. I was afraid that we weren't going to be able to get the fire under control and prevent it from destroying other buildings. I was afraid that we wouldn't be able to find the people who were here and get them out. I was afraid that I would fail and that I would finally have to give myself up to the flames. It was that fear, though, that kept me pushing. I refused to give up. I refused to give into it and to let it consume me. I knew that the moment I turned the questions into doubt, I was sacrificing myself and everyone who was relying on me. I fought against the indescribable heat and visibility that had been reduced to nearly nothing. Ahead of me on the floor, I could see a dark shape against the flames. I took a step toward it and knew that it was a person. I leaned down to touch it and realized that it wasn't one person, but two children curled around each other. I scooped one into each arm and rushed in the direction I hoped was the entrance.

  Relief washed over me when I burst out of the building and into the evening air. But my work wasn't finished. I brought the two children to the waiting emergency responders and handed them over. Both whimpered as they came out of my arms and I knew that they were still alive. It was enough to give me another boost of motivation and I turned, running back into the building. I tried to remember the layout of the building that we had studied on our way to the blaze, reminding myself of the location of the stairwells so I could try to navigate the inferno to where people who had tried to escape were now trapped. I could hear the voices of my team shouting, but they were so muffled by the roar of the fire that they sounded like whispers. That was something about fire that people never understood until they had stood in the midst of something like this. Fire wasn't just hot enough to melt skin or bright enough to leave you feeling blinded. It was loud. The sound of the flames would get inside you as it rushed through the space, consuming oxygen, crackling across surfaces, exploding glass and electronics, giving sizzling protests when touched by water.

  Just as it always did when I was fighting a fire like this, time seemed to both slow and speed up as I continued to fight. It seemed that we had been there battling the raging fire that had nearly taken down the entire building for days, and yet I felt like the seconds and minutes were slipping away from me too fast. I was all too aware that with every one that went by me, the risk of cost of life increased. There was always a chance that someone had passed out before making it into the stairs or th
at a child was hiding, making it harder for us to find them. I wouldn't accept that.

  I found a woman draped across the stairs and swept her onto my shoulders, running her outside, and then diving back in. A few minutes later I brought out an elderly man and then two more children. Then teamed with another of the firefighters to carry out a large man who had been trying to help others escape but had been overcome by the smoke. I would have to remember to find out who he was and visit him after the fire. He would be a good addition to our team.

  Each time that I ran out of the building I tried to appreciate the dip in temperature and the clearer air in front of me. The smoke was billowing out of the building and darkening the sky, but out there, I could look in front of me. I could see the mountains.

  "It's going to collapse," one of the men shouted.

  I heard him, but I didn't stop. There was still a room I hadn't gotten to. I wasn't going to leave that space untouched. There was no way of knowing who could be inside, waiting, praying for help to come. I was going to do everything in my power to make sure that that help came. All around me the building was tumbling down, sacrificing pieces of itself into the mouth of the flames. The fire was creeping up the stairs now, but I leapt through it and rushed up, my ax in my hands, ready to do battle with whatever obstacles might come my way. I heard Gwendolyn's voice in the back of my mind, her laugh, the way she said my name. I focused on that rather than the sound of the flames. The more that I heard her, the less the flames could get to me. They couldn't win.

  I finally crashed into the room that I hadn't gotten to yet and looked around. It was full of smoke but hadn't been engulfed by the fire yet. I didn't see anyone and was starting to leave when I noticed a flicker of movement by my feet. I looked down and saw that I was standing beside a dresser. A tiny paw shot out from under it and batted at my boot. I crouched down and reached under, grabbing with my gloves and hoping that I had gotten ahold of the little creature. I pulled it out and saw that it was a white kitten, it's green eyes wide and its fur tinged with soot. I brought it close to my chest and started out of the building. The structure was groaning around me, telling me that it couldn't withstand the intensity for any longer. I moved as fast as I could, but I was disoriented, unsure of where I had gone. I stepped out of the stairwell door but didn't know if I had gotten to the first floor. I kept the kitten as close to me as I could, tucking it close to my helmet hoping that it could get some of the oxygen from inside.