Burning Down the House

by Allie Gail

  “No.” I’d been a little out of it at the time.

  “It was Riley.”

  “Riley?”

  “Yeah…he called your dad. Said he didn’t know where you were, but it sounded like something was wrong.”

  I scooted up in bed quickly. “Oh my God - the phone! That’s right, I never ended the call, did I? He was still there, he must have heard what was going on…” I was amazed he was able to make out any of what was said, especially over the music. “He was trying to apologize to me for what he said the other day in the theatre. And then I heard Habanera and it freaked me out so I dropped the phone…” And to think, all this time he was the scapegoat everyone was pointing a finger at. Including me. “Holy shit.”

  “Talk about irony, huh? Tell you one thing - I owe that guy one hell of a debt of gratitude. Not to mention a major apology. If he hadn’t made that call…” His eyes grew shiny and he paused to lean his head against mine. “God, baby, there’s no telling what might have happened to you…”

  “I had it under control.” Okay, maybe that wasn’t quite true. But I refused to consider the alternative. It was easier to convince myself that the situation wasn’t as critical as it really had been.

  “I don’t believe you.” His breath was warm against my cheek.

  “I did! Trust me, I wasn’t going down without a fight.”

  “I hate to tell you this, but you were already down.”

  “Temporary setback,” I persisted stubbornly.

  “If you say so. I’m really glad to know that you’re a fighter.” His lips brushed my temple before kissing me lightly. “Because I don’t think I could make it if I lost you. The truth is, you’ve wrapped those fingers so tight around my heart, it doesn’t even have a rhythm of its own anymore.” The unshed tears were thick in his voice as he pulled me closer to him. “Every beat is controlled by your touch. Without you, everything I am would fall to pieces and there would be no putting them back together. And no reason to even try. So you can’t leave me, Sara. You just can’t, and that’s all there is to it. As long as I’m breathing, you have to keep breathing too. That’s the deal.”

  “Rob…”

  “I mean it. I can’t handle the thought of him or anyone else hurting you. You can’t even imagine the amount of self-restraint it took for me not to kill that son of a bitch tonight.”

  I recalled the condition Weston had been in when the paramedics loaded him into the ambulance. “He probably wishes he was dead right about now.”

  “Yeah…well, I wish he was too. So I guess that makes two of us.” He balled his fingers into a fist, then spread them open, working them back and forth.

  “Does your hand hurt?”

  “Not really. Does yours?”

  “I don’t even feel it right now.” I sank back into the pillow, struggling once again to force my eyes open. “Stay with me tonight.”

  “I told you, I’m not going anywhere.”

  “Are you…you aren’t going to try to go to work, are you?”

  “No. I’m staying here with you. I’ll call Mr. Crawford in the morning.”

  I sighed drowsily. “It is morning.”

  “In a few hours then, Miss Pedantic.”

  “I’m s’posed to be at the college at one…”

  “Forget that. It’s not happening. Tomorrow you rest.”

  “Tomorrow’s today,” I mumbled, fully aware that I wasn’t making a lot of sense. I’d never been so physically or emotionally drained in my life, but for some reason my brain was still resisting sleep. When I stifled a yawn, he responded by tucking the covers in around me.

  “I want you to go to sleep now. Close your eyes for me…that’s my girl. I’ll be right here when you wake up.”

  The last thing I said before falling under was, “You know I love you, right?”

  “I know, baby girl. But I promise you I’ll never get tired of hearing it.”

  31

  “Eyes on your own paper, Miss Marsh.”

  His back is to me while he busily scrawls something across the whiteboard, so I’m not sure how he can tell what I’m looking at. There is nothing on my desk. Did he forget to give me a copy of the test? I’m confused, not sure what it is I’m supposed to be doing. I’m afraid I’m going to fail.

  It’s quiet. Jordan and I are the only ones in the classroom. She’s wearing her green homecoming dress but the stuffed koala bear in the seat behind her has her crown. It looks like it’s been stepped on; it’s all broken and twisted. Her head is bent over the paper in front of her and she’s scribbling furiously. I try to catch her eye because I want to ask where she got her exam paper but she’s concentrating so hard, I can’t get her to look my way.

  He turns to face the class but it’s me he’s looking at. I don’t want him to ask me a question. He’ll know I have no idea what’s going on.

  “Do you have the answer?”

  I don’t know what to do. I can’t even make out the equation on the board. The lines are nothing but a smudged blur. Desperately I look to Jordan for help but she’s still hunched over, writing away.

  “Hurry up, time is running out. I need a solution.” He sounds impatient.

  This isn’t good. How will I graduate if I can’t pass this class? There’s a weird, flickering glow coming from the other side of the closed door. I notice it through the small square window. It’s a bright, phosphorescent orange. The hallway is on fire. Should I tell someone or does everybody already know?

  He snaps his fingers for my attention. “Eyes front! Solve the problem, Sara!”

  Jordan rises and starts walking slowly toward the door. He ignores her, doesn’t even appear to notice her drifting right past him. I don’t think she should go out there. Surely it isn’t safe.

  “No, don’t go,” I say to her. She keeps walking, trancelike. Why can’t she hear me? I want to get up and stop her but I can’t move. My body is stone.

  “Don’t go.” She opens the door.

  “Solve the problem, Sara!”

  “Don’t go!” She’s disappearing down the fiery hallway.

  “Solve the problem!”

  “DON’T GO!”

  Gandhi once said, “Those with the greatest awareness have the greatest nightmares.”

  He should have also mentioned that the nightmares quickly fade, that they’re easily forgotten, but once you have that awareness it never leaves you.

  I didn’t want the awareness. I wanted to go on in blissful ignorance, oblivious. I wanted everything the way it was before, all sunshine and innocence, when getting a bad haircut or a low score on your SAT’s was the worst you had to fear. When those violent news articles you stumbled across on the internet were just that, stories, because they were happening somewhere else, to people you didn’t know, so they never seemed real because none of it affected you.

  I wanted to turn back the clock to the days before Jordan’s death and change the course of her fate.

  I wanted Richard Weston to be nothing more than what he used to be, the most popular teacher at Hillcrest, a devoted husband and father, the next-door neighbor you waved to from your front yard…instead of a sociopath who valued the façade of his reputation more than the life of one of his students.

  What I didn’t want was the guilty burden.

  Of knowing that I was the one who ultimately destroyed Peyton’s family. Strange as it seems, I blamed myself for that. If not for me, her world wouldn’t have been turned upside down. Maybe she and her mother would never have found out the truth. They could have gone on living their flawless lives.

  Neither did I want to accept that my irrational fears had caused me to doubt the person I loved, the person I was supposed to trust. Not that Rob would ever hold it against me. He’d seen enough in his own life to know that often, appearances are an illusion.

  Then there was the undeniable fact that Riley had been thrown under the bus and even though I wasn’t the one driving, I could certainly be counted as one of the passe
ngers. Just because a guy is something of a schmuck, that doesn’t make him a killer. But I’d treated him like a convicted criminal. We all had. And while he and Rob were busy pointing fingers at one another, the true monster was right underneath our noses the whole time. Smiling with those guileless dimples.

  Rob and I set out to right that particular wrong immediately. Together we went to see Riley, offering all the genuine apologies and heartfelt thanks he was entitled to. Turns out he assumed I’d simply forgotten to press the button on my phone and decided to eavesdrop just for kicks. He said at first he couldn’t hear much, mainly just music, and didn’t recognize Weston’s voice. But just as he was about to end the call, there was a break between arias and he overheard part of the struggle between us.

  Weston calling me a bitch was the clincher. Realizing whoever I was tussling with wasn’t playing, Riley located our home number and notified my father. He admitted, with some embarrassment, that he thought maybe Rob and I were having an argument that got out of control. Rob took no offense. He shook his hand, then threw his free arm around Riley’s neck to express his personal gratitude underneath his breath.

  I never asked what was said - some things should remain personal - but Riley’s only response was to grin and reply, “Ah, don’t worry about it, man - it’s all good.”

  We parted as friends.

  My dad told me that while I was still sleeping on Saturday, he saw Deanna Weston’s car parked in the driveway next door. She was there for about an hour, I’m guessing to pack up essentials for her and Peyton so they could stay somewhere else. The police were there at the same time, collecting evidence. I wondered if they found anything.

  I had naïvely hoped that somehow my name would be kept confidential, but word leaked out quickly. Cumberland’s a small town. News travels fast on a good day and hypersonic on a bad one. The local news station got wind of it first, and then the reporters started calling. Dad finally unplugged the land line. I wasn’t interested in giving interviews. I wanted to put it out of my head. Until the inevitable trial, anyway.

  I dreaded returning to school on Monday, but since we had semester exams coming up in a few days I had no choice but to suck it up and deal. I couldn’t afford to miss anything. All in all, it didn’t turn out to be the ruthless interrogation I’d envisioned. I wasn’t harassed and badgered for details - well, not too much. For the most part everyone was extremely considerate, particularly when sensing I preferred not to discuss the matter. Even Staci used more tact than I would have thought possible, although the way she kept trying to discreetly follow me around was funny. I knew it had to be driving her crazy. Juicy gossip was the fuel that fed her, and she was wasting away, poor thing.

  Fourth period was the hardest to get through. The substitute in no way resembled Mr. Weston, but still I kept picturing him standing there in his creased khakis and meticulously ironed shirt. It took all my concentration to avoid an outright panic attack. I managed to make it through, but when the bell rang I couldn’t get out of there fast enough.

  Surviving the first day was a challenge, but it got a little easier as the week progressed. Some of the rumors started reaching my ears. I was an undercover officer who’d been covertly spying on Weston. (Wow, makes a lot of sense - why would I still be at school?) I was part of a torrid love triangle à la Wild Things. (Was I supposed to be Neve Campbell or Denise Richards?) My personal favorite was the one that had me putting Weston in the hospital myself with my secret Ninjitsu skills. It was all so ludicrous. Where was this stuff coming from? Now I know why tabloids continue to sell. Some people will believe anything.

  The papers and the web were filled with articles boasting an array of headlines:

  Student/Teacher Affair Ends in Tragedy.

  Teacher Arrested, Charged with First Degree Murder and Arson.

  Was Family Babysitter Next Target on Lothario Teacher’s Sordid List?

  Town Reels in Wake of Local City Councilman’s Confession.

  Yep, you heard that correctly. Weston broke down and admitted to everything. Maybe it shouldn’t have surprised me - after all, there wasn’t much chance of him clawing his way out of the hole he’d dug for himself. Still, I was amazed to hear that at the arraignment, he waived his rights to counsel and entered a plea of guilty on all counts. It looked as though we would all be spared a lengthy trial. With any luck I wouldn’t have to come face to face with him again.

  Although Friday night’s events kept me from making Saturday’s ballet rehearsal, I attended the rest of the week’s practices faithfully. Call me an overachiever or maybe even a glutton for punishment, but I felt I owed it to Miss Andrews, Erik, and everyone else who’d labored to ensure the success of the performance. Besides, Snow Queen was my role and I’d worked hard to perfect it. I wasn’t about to give it up so easily.

  He had already wiped out two lives. I wasn’t going to let him wreck mine as well. He would never be granted that power. Not by me.

  So on Friday night, with my boyfriend and father in attendance, I disconnected from reality long enough to lose myself in the Waltz of the Snowflakes. And I’m proud to say, following the pas de deux with the Snow King, we received a thunderous standing ovation. During that time a photographer materialized out of nowhere, catching my tearful smile when the two most important men in my life appeared onstage to present me with eighteen white roses.

  The picture in next morning’s paper was captioned: The Snow Queen’s Heroes.

  And sometime during the night on Saturday, December 21st, Richard Weston chose the coward’s way out and hung himself with a makeshift noose fashioned from his prison jumpsuit.

  I wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

  To this day…

  I still don’t know how to feel about that.

  EPILOGUE

  “I let you have the window seat. The least you could do is stop hogging all the orange gummy bears.”

  “The orange ones are my favorite.” Plucking one from the bag, Rob decapitates it with his teeth before popping what’s left in his mouth. “You didn’t want to sit next to the window anyway, so don’t even try and pull that with me.”

  “If we’re about to crash, I don’t wanna have to see it!” I unbuckle my seat belt and return the friendly smile of the flight attendant in the Santa hat as he strolls down the aisle past me. He’s the one who gave the animated preflight speech, a very…shall we say “festive” young man named Devin. A definite improvement over Muppet Lady, if you ask me. Devin totally missed his calling as a stand-up comedian.

  “Flying’s a lot safer than driving,” Rob informs me.

  “Yeah, but if a car’s engine stalls, the car doesn’t plummet from thirty-two thousand feet in the air!”

  “Chill out, Debbie Downer. Here, have a gummy bear.” He feeds me a green one. I find it a little arbitrary that someone who’s never flown before can be way more relaxed about it than I am, especially considering I’ve traveled the sky at least half a dozen times. You’d think I’d be used to it by now. “You know, green is supposed to be an aphrodisiac.”

  “That’s a myth. Anyway, you’re thinking of M&M’s.”

  “So no Mile High Club jokes then?” He winks at me with a wicked grin. I can’t help but giggle because I know he’s teasing.

  “Don’t even think about it, perv! I’m not doing it in some skeevy airline bathroom. That’s just gross.”

  “You mean those claustrophobic airline toilets don’t get you all hot and bothered?”

  “Not even a little bit.” I swipe an orange bear from his fingers and lick it before handing it back to him. “There you go. Bon appétit.”

  He eats it without batting an eye. “You’re right - it’s not the green ones. It’s definitely the orange ones.”

  “I think a plate of liver and onions would give you a boner!”

  “If you were the one serving it, yes, it would.” He steals a kiss. His lips taste like candy. Orange is now my favorite flavor.

  “Did I me
ntion that’s what we’re having for Christmas dinner?” I joke.

  He wrinkles his nose. God, he’s so cute. “Did I mention I just became a vegetarian?”

  “Aww…I bet Devin will be heartbroken to hear you’ve sworn off meat.”

  “You’re fishing for a spanking, little miss.”

  I pretend to be delighted. “Santa did get my letter!”

  “Oh, right - and I’m the perv?” he chuckles.

  Okay, so we’re equally pervy. I can live with that.

  “You better be good or you won’t get your Christmas present,” he threatens me playfully.

  “I seem to remember specifically asking you not to get me anything.”

  “Did you? I can’t remember - the thing is, I have selective hearing.”

  “You do not!”

  “What?” He points to his ears and shakes his head. “See, I didn’t even hear that.”

  He really is impossible.

  He is also sweet, generous, warmhearted, loving and just plain perfect in general.

  One day I’ll find a way to show him just how special he is to me.

  I never did buy him that Xbox. It’s okay though - my dad wound up getting him the Tacoma and they went to pick it up yesterday, so trust me, Rob’s a happy camper. While they were gone I used the opportunity to bake the handmade polymer clay picture frame I sculpted for him. I have it stowed away in my carry-on - it’s holding the photo Dad took of us the night of the homecoming dance. I know, sounds totally corny, doesn’t it? Somehow I think he’ll love it anyway.

  All the cash I’d hoarded from babysitting was useless to me - it felt dirty and tainted. The thought of where that money had come from was something I couldn’t get past, so in the end I decided to spend most of it on Peyton. I ordered a pair of pointe shoes in the smallest size available and had them overnighted to her aunt’s house. She and her mother are staying there temporarily. Maybe one day she’ll dance in them. At the very least, she’ll enjoy playing ballerina with them.

  I haven’t seen her since that night. The yard next door has become so quiet. I don’t know if they’ll come back, or if Mrs. Weston will put the house up for sale and remain in Pittsburgh. I’m guessing the latter. But then, you never know.