Page 135 of Burn

The truth is, Caleb’s lying. He didn’t just come here because he was drunk. He needed me, in whatever way I was going to allow it. And I allowed him to fuck me.

I swallow against the lump in my throat. Taking a deep breath, and then another, I gain the courage I need to ask, “What are we doing?”

“What arewedoing?” His tense tone lets me know he doesn’t want to talk about us. He never wants to talk about it. And as always, he’s very much in control of the conversation and can twist it the way he wants. “That’s really a question you want me to answer right now?”

And then he surprises me and stands before me, his palms out. I stand with him, and he draws me into his chest. He smells so bad, but I still hug him.

“I have to go.” His voice is barely above a whisper, as if he’s not sure he wants me to hear him.

“I know you do,” I admit. “I’m really sorry about Evan.”

He nods, but doesn’t say anything, distance stealing his heat from me and his presence in the room as he leaves. Again.

Lust and desire, they’re dangerous. They seduce your mind then lead you to the edge of a cliff blindfolded and expect you not to fall off the edge.

I think I jumped off the motherfucker.

Vapor Supression

Process of reducing the amount of flammable or other hazardous vapors, from a flammable liquid, mixing with air, typically by careful application of a foam blanket on top of a pool of material.

Every morning I wake since Evan’s death, nothing changes for me. I’m stuck in a cycle of waking and existing in the presence of others.

Jacey, she’s in the same existence. Surviving but surrendered to a loss controlling her.

“I wonder what he was thinking.” Jacey’s voice trembles with each word as she stares out the window of the car. “Is it normal to wonder about that?”

I glance at her, but don’t offer much in the way of support besides, “It’s normal to wonder what the last few seconds were like for him.”

She looks at me, kind of stunned, kind of relieved.

“It’s natural.” I nod, trying to convince her and lean in so she can hear me. “I’ll tell you something though,” I whisper in her ear. “He was thinking of you.”

As odd as it sounds, I wonder if he knew he was going to die. Was there a moment when he thought to himself, I’m not making it out of here alive?

I remember thinking it that day, but when the flames swallowed him, did he suffer? We didn’t know the cause of death just yet, but I assumed smoke inhalation secondary to the burns covering his body. When the flames reached him, he was still alive, so that meant he suffered.

Nobody wants to die, firefighters included. There’s this myth that we die so others can live. Well, we take risks rescuing people if andonly ifthere’s a chance we will come out alive. No firefighter who dies in a fire does so willingly. That’s a fucking slap in our face if you say that. Evan didn’t want to die. I promise you he didn’t.

What happened in that building shouldn’t have happened, but it did, and we’re forced to accept it.

I still say Evan died a hero. He saved that child. The two-year-old in his arms. His older brother who happened to be the exact same age my brother Wyatt had been at the time of the fire that took my family. Six.

Coincidence?

Maybe. I don’t know. I don’t even know if I want to think about it in terms of being a coincidence. It’s just fucked up.

I’m know nothing will bring him back. Nothing will bring my parents back or Jacey’s parents, and thinking about all the ways it could have been prevented won’t help.

As devastating as that is, it’s a reality and a concept I understood early on.

Death happens. It’s a reality of life and death and something I see every day. It’s nearly always unexpected, no matter how well you prepare yourself for it.

Owen’s twin sister died of cancer two years ago. He knew for four months she would die from the cancer eating her body, but it still didn’t prepare him for the devastation of the day it happened, the day it finally took the breath from her lungs and left her no longer in pain.

It took Owen an entire month to come back to work, and I didn’t blame him one bit. You can’t prepare your heart for loss and I think the more you try to, the harder the loss is because the feeling is entirely different than what you imagine it to be.

Death changes your way of life. It can be as subtle as a song suddenly having a different meaning to a missing person at the dinner table. Like it or not, the change isn’t always good. Sometimes it’s scary, overwhelming, unbearable . . . but you have to accept the change because if you don’t, you’re stuck. Never moving forward, always grieving your loss and the change you never saw coming.

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