Page 62 of Like A Moth To A Flame

She sighed contentedly as we sat down on the edge of the porch, our legs swinging over the edge as we looked out over the lawn. I could feel tears prickling at the corners of my eyes, and I forced myself to blink them away. There were so many memories here. I still felt like my life was here, and I belonged here. Mom was still here somehow, and now, so was Dad.

As a kid, I had dreamed of the day it would be mine, and I’d have my own family running around in this yard. I’d re-hang the old tire swing and push my kids as the sun set in the distance and the fireflies rose from the grass.

Somewhere in me, I still wanted that.

Could I really walk away and leave it all to rot? Could I sell it and never have the option to come back? The more I thought about it, the more I realized I wanted anything but that.

16

You can fuck me, you can play me. You can love or you can hate me

Moth

It was the best day I’d had in a long time. We pulled my dad’s old, dusty grill out of the barn and cooked a pair of s I found in the freezer. We polished off numerous Jack and Cokes and lay on the front porch talking way into the night, listening to the sounds of the forest and the occasional hum of a car driving by on the dusty gravel road.

It was a gradual unwinding of tension that I had needed for so long, yet couldn’t force. We talked about the future and what we wanted. We daydreamed about the life we could have if we moved into this house together, fixed it up, and opened a clinic in town.

“And why can’t we?” she asked, flipping over onto her stomach as she looked up at me. The wooden boards were loose and rotting, and they creaked and groaned with every shift of our weight.

“I dunno,” I said, sighing. The Jack Daniels had my head spinning, my heart floating out of my chest, and my gravity a little off-kilter. “This town just…”

“Just what?”

I paused, trying to think of what to say.

“I used to love it here,” I said, shrugging. “Then I turned thirteen.”

“True,” she said, and there was a twinge of sadness in her voice. “I understand. It’s gotta be hard coming back here afterthat.”

“I mean it is, but also it’s annoying,” I huffed in frustration. “I’m still afraid of this thing that happened fourteen years ago. And he’s in prison, it’s not like—”

“But that thing was abig thing, Nessa!” she argued. “He set the house on fire with you in it. He tried to kill you. It’s reasonable to be scared.”

“Maybe it was, but I’m tired of letting it hold me back,” I said. “Being scared kept me away from here! Being scared is the reason my dad—”

“Don’t you say it, Vanessa!”

“—died alone.”

Amelia sighed.

The words hung in the air between us, and we both fell into silence. The silence continued, broken only by chirping crickets and the occasional hoot of an owl in the distant fields. The wind seemed to comfort me, wrapping around me like a familiar embrace that I couldn’t quite put my finger on.

Maybe my dad was still here in more ways than memory.

“You have a lot to think about,” she said, slowly sitting up. I could tell by the way she swayed that her head was swimming with booze, too. “But why don’t we think about it in the morning? I’m exhausted.”

“Good idea,”I said, following her lead. It took me three separate tries to finally sit up, and I only succeeded when Amelia giggled and took my hand, yanking me the rest of the way.

We gathered our plates and dirty dishes and carried them into the house, dumping them into the sink on our way through. I found an old throw blanket and a dusty pillow and handed them to Amelia. I’d offered her the guest bedroom, but she declined.

“No way, Jose!” she giggled, tossing her pillow onto the couch and fluffing it up with her fists. “I know what goes bump in the night around here!”

We giggled, and I rolled my eyes, but I left her to it. I retreated up the stairs and into the guest room, and before long, I had stripped down to my underwear and slid under the covers.

I thought sleep would find me easily, especially after all the drinks we’d had, but I tossed and turned for what felt like hours. It’s not that I wasn’t tired—I was, truly. My brain was working on overdrive, thinking about everything from the 3rd-grade play I’d been in and thrown up all over the stage out of anxiety to the time I’d nearly drowned in the quarry we swam in on hot summer days.

Maybe I needed to read?

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